In Silence, Staring

Sitting on Sage's back porch and staring out at the trees. Skeletal and grey. Sprawling and twisting to the sky. Half awake and fighting against the cold, I sip from a latte she had made and stare. Stare, slowly stare, into the trees. Into the woods. To the crest of the hill and the sky beyond, only broken shards beyond the trunks and branches and decay.

She sits next to me. Feet up on the cushioned bench, hoodie pulled over her legs, and staring at her phone. A deep unsettled churning inside of me. 

I sip again from the latte and I think of the day before. 

Somewhere in Vermont where she had a doctor appointment and I sat in the parking lot waiting. Somewhere in Vermont where, after, we went to a coffee shop and I ordered a london fog and she ordered a mocha. Both with oat milk. Both disappearing on the ride back to her house.

"The Vyvanse is really hitting," she had said, relaxed behind the steering wheel. "I don't know if it's because we've been busy all day and I'm just noticing or what, but, I'm not ready to just go sit on the couch."

I had stared out the window. At the passing trees and dying afternoon. I watched as houses with love and yellow lit rooms passed one after the other, saying nothing.

"I don't know. Do you want to get food?" she asked.

"Sure."

"What do you think we should get?"

And all the moments of the last few months passed. The words spoken, the sentiments passed, the epic highs and lows of high school football and the groans and laughs between them all. 

"I don't care," I said. "We can make a curry?"

She didn't want to make anything. We ordered thai. We drove the town over and picked it up. We talked about nothing in particular and on the way back to the house we talked about things we could call each other if we were introducing each other with vaguely insulting terms, like "stud" or "idiot". We talked about nothing.

Nothing, nothing. Just kept my mouth moving. Kept the conversation going. I was somewhere else. I was lost in a text message that I hadn't been a part of. I was lost in a fantasy that wasn't mine. 

Trying to eat slower, trying to learn to savor moments, Sat on the couch and hunched over the coffee table, slowly spooning rice and tofu and peppers and thai curry into my mouth while Sage, a few feet away, ate and stared at her phone. On the television near us the show had entered it's fifth season and had taken a sharp and obvious decline. 

I'm barely watching. I barely notice the food. Her fingernails tap quickly against the glass. Later, I say the wrong thing. I take something too personally. It's too late for me to drive home, but I consider it. I crash there, in silence and let the storm, the branches and debris, rip through me. Stare into the dark and deconstruct each moment. Each word. Each glance. Each path that may have led to them and each path that could grow from them. I sleep an hour.

Staring slowly at the trees. An hour passes. The latte is cold. I take a breath to prepare. Exhale.

"I think I owe you a much bigger apology," I say. "I..."

"It's fine. I don't want to do that right now."

"Okay."

It had never been easy, reaching out. Bridging gaps. 

"I mean, thank you," she says, "but I just don't want to do that. Apologies. It's uncomfortable."

The wind comes and goes. Sometimes racing through the branches and the few remaining leaves, digging into my coat, hoodie, chest. Sometimes there is no wind at all. No motion. No sound. The storm remains. The damage in my chest and head is already there and the storm relentlessly pummels whatever remains. I try to silence it or seperate myself from it. I try to forget or hide everything that led to it. I try to not hear the clacks of fingernails against the glass. I decide to leave. In my head I repeat variations of the same two sentences I want to say over and over, working up the motivation to stand, say goodbye, and drive away.

"I'm going to leave."

Sage looks up at me. "Okay." She goes back to her phone.

I don't say the sentences. I walk away. I open the back door, go inside, grab my things, and leave. In silence. Staring.

My car is getting louder. It nearly roars along the long and twisting country road. I have no music on. 

I have no music on.