Tales of the GGB #36
this is the result of some excellent procrastination of a uni essay I am supposed to be working on.
view all tales of the “ggb” at :http://www.redbubble.com/search/ggb
I was sleeping so deeply when the phone rang that I barely registered what she said, that she’d left him that she was sorry it was 2 am that she was on a payphone in a petrol station somewhere with no money could she stay at mine.
When we hugged our elbows clanged. We both put our heads to the left.
And then we were sitting on the floor drinking milo under the orange glow of the hissing gas heater, with whispered conversations the way our last conversations had been. Before she got married.
“You’re going to bed now? Really?” she caught my eye with one raised eyebrow. For a second I wondered if she wanted to continue whispering, or if she was hoping for an offer of something more than a swag on the loungeroom floor, but then the moment was gone, she pulled the doona to her chin and mouthed good night.
It had only ever been hibernation disguised as moving on. I lay curled against the cold from the empty side of the bed. It was not lust, not even love that I’d never forgotten. It lay undefined with me in the cold. Just a sensitization. I waited for the dawn, when she would be tangible, more than a self-recriminating memory.
We drank tea in the sun, feet on each other’s chairs. We got naked. Twirled fingers in each others hair. Trapped ourselves in the twilight of make believe, where reality is the dream, banished to the other side of my eyelids. Where that monster named truth darted in the shadows behind my back.
I couldn’t see what was self sabotage and what was self protection anymore. I’d been wrong about her so many times before I couldn’t rely on experience because the labels I’d stuck on them were distorted, smudged, unreadable. Just things that happened before, not something to guide the future. So I decided to love her. In the wholehearted way you can love someone when you know they’ll be gone in a few days.
Safety has a price.
Jo O'Brien
No comment could truly describe the impact this has on me. Beautiful
Jessica Tremp
Julie, what a gorgeous piece of writing!!! x
Lisa Jewell
Wow Julie, so beautiful….”So I decided to love her. In the wholehearted way you can love someone when you know they’ll be gone in a few days.
Safety has a price…......OMG you’ve worded the emotional truth of this, in such a way I’m spellbound…
MissKristy
Dear Julie, I have read this a couple times and just love it more each read. Bless you beautiful woman, you are such an amazing talent.
juliejulie
oh you girls! you’re so nice! thanks!