The Morning After

He yawned, and I observed. I was a little afraid of him. Growing up in a household that was so dominantly female, I never really understood the male gender of the human species. Oh I had a father, but my mother had always rejected him as a role model. I didn't know what men were supposed to be like. I suppose it was natural for me to be afraid of the unknown. Men sparked my curiosity alright, but I was still afraid. It was the kind of curiosity one usually reserves for wild animals. I wanted to study them. Like lions on a nature show. I wanted to watch them from a good distance. To get too close was too dangerous.

It was cold. I felt as though I hadn't been properly warm since October. He smiled at me as we sipped our tea from foam cups and sat on park benches. I smiled back, wishing I could think about something other than the fact that my hair was a mess. I didn't understand. He could have gone after any of the other girls in our class. Perhaps one of the fun-loving blondes or any of the other thinner, prettier girls. Yet he'd pursued me. That had scared me. And confused me.

I sighed. Not that it mattered now. I wasn't sure if I wanted it to matter anymore. I was confused more than anything. I wanted to ask him what his intentions had been when he'd asked me to accompany him on this little excursion. I suppose I had a good idea of what they'd been. What I was really unsure of was what mine had been.

The wind blew and it pushed two boxes to the sidewalk. One box scrittered closer to the other. It brushed aside a stray leaf in its eagerness to get closer to the other box. I giggled at the sight. He saw what I was laughing at and leaning in with a grin he said pointing at the box, "Well that box is clearly the male, he's the aggressive pursuer." He served as the boxes voice saying, "Hi there, you're a pretty good-looking box. What's your name?"

"You won't be needing to know my name," I said serving as the girl-boxes' voice.

"Ouch. Total diss," he winced. "Oh well. I suppose there are plenty of other boxes on the sidewalks."

I frowned into my empty cup. “That's a lot of litter."

"Well," he said standing after a pause and making a point of placing his styrofoam cup in a bin marked 'litter', "I suppose we ought to make our way to the train station."

I nodded and tossed my cup away as well.

On the train I couldn’t sleep. Not sitting across from him. I still wondered if things would be different between us. I wondered if we’d still be friends. I wondered how he'd come so close to guessing my secret. Did he know?

It had taken me eight years to remember, eight years to realize what it was. All those years of wondering what was wrong with me, if there was something genetic or mental that had gone wrong in me. I'd wondered why it was so hard for me to make friends, to get close to people. I'd begun to think I must have just been crazy. What other explanation could there have been? After all, sure, I'd had my fair share of misfortunate happenings, but nothing that should have equated to my abnormality.

I used to go through a sort of list in my brain. Was it the fact that I moved during high school? It can't have been. Other kids get over that sort of thing. The fact that I lived sandwiched between two snooty families when I was little? Nah. The fact that my best friend in kindergarten ditched me when I wouldn't give up my swing for her? Maybe. The fact that I'd been made fun of so much for everything from my bowl haircut in the second grade to my awkward, two year long silence in high school? Maybe. That might be part of it. But still, that can't be all of it.

Then one night in May it hit me. I remembered. Or rather, I let myself remember. I’d heard somebody else’s story that sounded like mine and I’d thought why does that sound like my story? It’s her story, not mine, not really, maybe, sort of. In any case, it was like a clashing of symbols in the inharmonious din of my memories. There it was. It was finding the missing puzzle piece, the missing link. The whole chain of events linked together and made sense. Everything I'd wondered about for eight years clicked. Why I hadn't made a friend in four years, why I hadn't been able to speak to a member of the male gender long past the awkward teenager phase, why I was so deathly afraid of anyone in any kind of authoritative position.

It was the final clue that solved the mystery. It had taken me eight years to find it and he had guessed it after being my friend for only eight short weeks. How? Did I have it printed on my face somewhere? Was it written in my body language, engraved in my silence and threaded into my speech?

Could other people guess?

I almost laughed to myself when yet again I thought I regretted what I'd said the night before. If I hadn't said it, well, it could have lead to a whole other host of problems I wasn't ready to have to sort out.

He looked up from his book at hearing my stifled laughter.

"What is it?" he asked.

I shook my head suddenly afraid again.

For a day I hated him. But I didn't really hate him. I had no reason to. But I was afraid of him. Possibly more so now because he'd come so close to guessing my secret.

I wondered, did I have "VICTIM" scrawled across my forehead? Perhaps that was why the creepiest men on the planet aged forty and older somehow always gravitated toward me. Perhaps it wasn't, as I had thought before, that they saw that I was fat and ugly and assumed I would have low standards. Perhaps they had sensed weakness. Like when lions went after the weakest antelopes in the herd. Perhaps they sensed someone easily manipulated.

I considered him again. Was what he'd done manipulative or seductive? Seductive was frighteningly similar to manipulative. For me at least.

Maybe he would get bored with me now that he almost knew. There was no more mystery. There was no exotic reason why I was shy, no complexity as to why I was afraid. Only the cold, hard, pressing truth.

Was it like the scent of onions, which somehow always lingered on my hands for days after I had cut them? How long would my scent linger? Twenty years? Perhaps Forty? Always?

I wondered if things would be different when we got back. Just now I couldn't tell.