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The distance

Fabielle Georges

Abigail thought that there was something romantic about distance. The longing, the eternal crave. How it filled the most unadorned of connections with intentional lust, clichéd thirst. It was admirable. Being able to keep the grabbings of her desires at bay while they gnawed away at her insides. She could appreciate distance and the distant. Though, she didn’t always like distant men. She craved intimacy once before. Intimacy like wanting to crawl her way to and through bodies; intimacy like denouncing half of her to proclaim that someone else could complete her; intimacy like losing her to find him and then them, but never her again. Intimacy like love.

          It just never worked out for her, she guessed. The more she trailed it, the more it evaded her. So, she stopped. She stopped wanting. She tried to. But it was hard to stop wanting without cutting off parts of herself. It wasn’t always freeing to stop, but she did. Not in the hopes that it would find her—love—but in the hopes that she could have a semblance of peace. Because intimacy and peace have never been allowed to coexist simultaneously with her; within her. Her last relationship was a charming disaster. So much so that she couldn’t even call it a relationship. She wasn’t allowed to.

          His name was Justin, Tin for short. She loved him. More maturely than she had ever loved anyone before. Even in a fight she loved him, needed him. And they fought. A lot. About things that made her stomach hurt because they fought over things she was ashamed to have to ask for like a title or even a label more befitting than friend. She would have even settled for lady friend or boo, if he would have thrown her the bone, but he never did. That always killed her.

          She met Tin in a shared uber. It was dark. She was heading a few miles south to buy drugs. He was going to visit his son nearby. He was weird, she thought. They sat in the back seat together. She could feel his eyes inching their way up and down her bare thighs. When he talked, he shook his head and his dreads like he was listening to music. He was so confident, but she hated that about him. She didn’t think he had the right to be so brazen with her, in front of her, around her. But when he asked for her number, she gave it to him. She wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t particularly attractive, then he was arrogant, and he was in an Uber. But she was a teacher then, it was summertime and she was off, unpaid, and bored. He could be a nice distraction from all the lack.

          He called and texted a few times before Abigail finally agreed to go to his house. He sent her money to get a bottle of liquor that she thought was too small to share, but it was all he gave her to get. Looking back, she wondered if she should have used the money to buy the bottle for herself and stay home instead. It would have spared them both the last 5 years.

          Abigail got to his place with the bottle of Hennessy she thought was too small to share. He had a condo. The building was old. That’s the thing about living in South Florida, you have to love the antique feel of things in order to survive living in that housing market. Almost nothing is updated. He was on the second floor. The stairs up to his door were steep, concrete, easy to take a tumble down. He had a smile on his face when he answered his door. He was cuter than she remembered. She liked his shoulders. They were broad; tapped into her biological need as a woman to be and feel protected. He toppled her by 9 inches.

          She had on a mini and a T-shirt with sneakers. He suggested they stay in because he liked for women to wear heels when they went out with him. This was new to her. She was so used to her ex, Pierre, who would rather see her in Nike than in Nine West. So, they stayed in.

          His place wasn’t exactly neat. He used a pale-yellow sheet to hide the dark blue faux leather peeling on his sectional couch. The dishes towered over the brim of the sink. Bulbs were missing in the ceiling light. His dining room table housed clustered piles of papers, pens, coins, receipts, tools, screws. His lamp didn’t stand anymore so he leaned it against the wall, bulb exposed. The rug under the ratty couch was dingy, a pale brown compared to its former ivory glory, his coffee table littered with dried up wrap leaves, Grabba Leaf packets, and weed. She didn’t mind. It made him human. Made her feel more comfortable with fucking up, not being perfect.

          They sat on his couch and drank. He poured small cups for himself; she took big swigs from the bottle. They smoked some weed, talked. The succession of conversations they had was sporadic, hard to follow. They jumped from exes to the civil rights movement, from redlining to their favorite positions, from what it meant to be a black female teacher in Miami to why she preferred Bacardi over Hennessy (it was because Bacardi didn’t burn her belly and it rarely gave her a hangover). They laughed about things she couldn’t remember now but she could remember how he looked at her when she spoke. It was intentional, intense. He looked at her mouth, her eyes, her mouth again. The night was filled with passionate verbal sparring. He wasn't an idiot. She could appreciate that; she enjoyed talking to him.

          What was once a tipsy Abigail quickly turned into a drunk one. The bottle that was too small to share was finished. “You think we could walk to the corner store to get a Heineken? I still wanna drink”, she laughed as the words escaped her. Maybe she was leaving a bad impression, maybe she was drinking too much, maybe she had cried enough already, exposed enough already, maybe it was time to stop. But he obliged with a counteroffer. “You stay. It’ll be faster if I foot it alone.” And just like that, she was unrighteously enamored by this small, tedious, indiscriminate act.

          Before the night was over, before she meandered herself back to the one-bedroom duplex she shared with her 9-year-old daughter, she went down on him. Now that was memorable! Mostly because it was dreadful. He stood next to his ratty sectional, his red flannel pajama pants down around his thin ankles, her on her knees, one hand on her thigh, the other on his, her sneakers creasing at the bend. In her drunk reality, she was doing a great job. She was doing all the tricks that she'd seen in porn. In her drunk reality, he was loving this moment.

          In actual reality, he didn’t like it. When she finally opened her eyes and took a peek at his face, she saw him grimace and squint every time she tugged too hard with her mouth on the pull. Penis sensitivity is a thing, and it varies from guy to guy. Promiscuous men like more suction, but the picky ones—the men who value themselves and don’t allow low vibrational women into their orbit—need gentle mouths, mouths that take their time. But she was drunk, numb, and bored. He got the hard tug.

          They didn’t sleep with each other that night. His choice. She felt like she’d gotten away with a crime. She got free entertainment, free liquor, free conversation, and all she had to do was tug a little until he urged her to stop.

          She didn’t hear from him much after that. Mmm, that’s not true. She did hear from him. Sparingly. For two years he sprinkled in and out every few months. When they finally had sex, she enjoyed it. He was careful, sweet, attentive. He laid soft kisses on her neck, her shoulders. Took his time. He acted like he loved her—he didn’t. But she was starting to feel that way. They’d grown closer. Intermittent visits turned into sleepovers, dates, long talks about race, religion, feminism and the destruction of the black family. They drank more. They smoked more. They started to look more and more like a couple more. He felt like love to her. He felt real. As real as it can feel when a man accurately loves a woman. He felt like balance, like with all the good, there were moments that didn't always feel good. Sometimes he would yell at her over doltish things. Things that felt dumb to her, anyway. But that was ok, because he felt like love and love always comes back. Right?

          She had gone there one night for a sleepover. By this time, he’d never been to her place, but she’d been to his more times than hands could count. They went straight to his room, giggling with every footstep as he groped her. It was delicious. He kissed her shoulders. She loved that. It was sweet, intimate. He was so sensual. He always felt so wonderful. (Alas, feelings are fleeting). She fell asleep in his bed; he went to the couch to smoke and watch TV. It was 7 am by the time he decided to get in the bed with her. He was ready to lay down, she was ready to be up. Her back hurt in ways she hadn’t felt since sleeping on the slabs of whatever they’d given the students in the college dorms. His bed had been made lumpy from years of sweat and dust and bodily excrements. The lumps did nothing to soothe her. All they did was create knots in places she didn’t know muscles existed in.

          She was doing her daily morning scroll through Instagram. She’d forgotten to turn the sound off on the app. He roared! Something about her not respecting his need for silence. “Did I bother you while you was sleeping?!”, he barked. “I let you sleep, right? Right?!” She tried to apologize. Tried to push the words out of her mouth as swift as possible. But she’d been cursed with a terrible affliction since childhood: she would smile while she was getting yelled at. It didn’t stem from joy or humor, but from fear and discomfort. By the time she shoved the apology from her mouth, she could feel the eerie smile finding solace in the crease of her lips. “So, you trying to be cute! You think this shit is funny!” They weren’t questions. They were bold declarations that dared her to respond. She didn’t. With eyes wide and gaping mouth, she quickly grabbed her sandals, her jean jacket, phone, and keys, and scurried from his second-floor condo, down the steep steps, and into her 2004 silver Honda Accord. She didn’t like his tone before the awkward smile. She feared it after. She had been smacked by one too many men to find safety in him, in his volume.

          They didn’t speak for 2 years. The silence between them was difficult for her at first. She had grown accustomed to the way his life had folded into hers. She had to relearn how to fold back into herself. And she did. She did all the things women in the movies do when they are reclaiming their time and their lives and their ability to love. She read, dated, sexed, danced, ate, shopped it all away until she felt like herself again, her Abigail again.

          But this didn’t last. He found his way back to her and this time she was convinced; it was diametrically impossible for it to be anything else other than pure and unadulterated love. It had to be! You know the quote when you love something set it free, if it returns it’s yours to keep? He was finally hers to keep. They fell back into their usual pattern, only this time it was sharpened.

          They spoke every day, all day. They had sex without protection. They shared money, secrets, drunken nights where either one of them would end up in tears over their individual pasts, their shared future. One night he told her that he was scared of how much he loved her. “You don’t get it!” He whined. “It hasn’t been long enough. It usually takes me longer. This usually takes longer. I shouldn’t love you.” There was a sadness in his voice. Not because of his feelings for her. It was because the confusion was genuine. He had his own patterns that helped him navigate his life. The predictability made him feel safe. He could bet on it. And then in came this hurricane of a woman set on toppling everything with her presence alone.

          This is when the fall began, when he started to pull away. It happened slowly, in steps, but when she thought of what happened then, it all felt like a blur of pulsing movements. Like a dance in fury.

     1. They stopped talking all day like they used to.

     2. He didn’t call to say goodnight like he used to.

     3. They stopped talking everyday like they used to.

          a. Sometimes it would just be a text in the morning, nothing for the rest of the day.

     4. When they did talk, they didn’t talk. Silence was a third party in their interactions. Nothing was deep, nothing was                  funny like it used to be. Even chuckles were forced. There was no connecting, no connection.

     5. Nothing was like the way it used to be. How do you attempt to resurrect what was only given life in theory?

          You can’t. And you don’t.

          It ended. Five years after meeting in the shared Uber. She ended it. Well, she verbalized it, but he ended it long before she said anything with his distance. Break ups from emotional distance always seem to hurt more. Even though it’s there and visible and realized, there is always a semblance of hope that it can be saved, that it will not end in a verbal breaking. But these are hopes for fools. She texted him. She wrote: “I wanna cut the clutter out of my life. Some situations are dead. I need to stop trying to revive them or see.” She took all the love she couldn’t have for him anymore and turned it into a diplomatic, non-finger pointing way to tell him it was over. But he didn't get it. Or maybe he didn’t want to. He wrote back.

“You said once you got back, you were.”

“Got back to what?” She was more than confused.

“Gonna take a nap.” He wrote.

          Argh! Maybe this was her fault. She wasn’t clear enough. But he was no idiot, right? She wanted to wait for him to wake up so that she could make clear what wasn’t. She wanted to wait. Tried to wait, but she was coming undone. She needed to push it out. She texted: “We’ve grown apart. We’re not even friends anymore, really. We don’t talk, there’s all this resentment. It’s like we’re holding on cuz of obligation.” It took him a while to respond. Nine hours, if she wanted to count. Nothing in response to what she said. He wrote: “I’m sleepy. Nap done 😎💪🏾✊🏾. You asleep?” Wow… she had been clear. Why didn’t he have a reaction to what she said? She didn’t respond. He called.

          Him: What are you talking about?

          Her: I need to let go of certain people.

          Him: Oh… Am I one of those people?

          Her: Yes, Justin!

          Him: How are we not friends?! We talk every day!

          Her: We don’t talk! You don't share anything! You barely listen to me when I try to! Whatever this is has run its                                   course.

          Him: This is because I won't date you. I told you that I wasn't looking for that! Why can't you respect that?

          Her: Because you aren't consistent! One day you're confessing secret feelings for me, the next you wanna know why I                        refuse to be ok with just your friendship.

          Him: I don't have any secret feelings for you. I think I would know if I did!

          Her: So, you don't remember calling when you were drunk and telling me how much you love me and I was the person                      you wanted to be with, but you needed to get your shit together first? I made that up?!

          Him: You want me to remember some shit I said drunk? And you're really trying to hold me to it?!

          Her: I’m not holding you to shit. I was explaining why you're confusing. But those feelings are dead and gone. The                            only thing that lies in here with me for you is resentment.

          Him: Wow…ok. I always think you do better without me, so it’s cool.


They stayed silent on the phone for about sixty seconds of torture. He broke it. Told her he had nothing else to say. She said, “Ok.”

End.


The end happened in steps. First the loss of intimacy, then the loss of possibility. Abigail had been gripping at the brim of Tin’s shirt, her nails digging into her own palms, pooling blood under the skin with tension just hoping he would see the effort and make an honest woman of her. But you can’t make honest what you don’t find truth in. It was like a silence had blanketed them and above that silence was the inevitable truth: she had grown to love him more than he loved her. Her mother always said this was a dangerous conundrum; that men should always love you more because women love hard naturally. Men loving you more would just balance everything out. She was convinced that she caused this by not being in control, by allowing the flutter in her belly to migrate all over her body. She was paralyzed by this need for love, for intimacy, for the lack of distance.

          After Tin, she could appreciate the elegance of distant men. Bradley, Trey, Rod. All of them, really. All of the men that came after Tin. They were easy. Not just sexually, all over; in the ways that were most important. She didn’t have to pose for them romantically, convince them of her worth. She didn’t have to beg to be chosen. All she had to do was show up, laugh, spread, and leave. It was… easy.

          And maybe they felt easy because she felt easy. She saw love as a welcome opening to be candid and exposed. She wanted to tell them what her father did to her, how her family betrayed her. She wanted to tell them why she was shy around men and the reason behind her compulsive stealing. She wanted to tell them what she was running from when she drank, what slipped from her mind when she did ecstasy. But with the distance she didn’t have to talk about her past, the abuse, the deaths, the rejection. She didn’t have to think. She just had to feel how high she could get, how low they could go, how deep she could sleep after it was all done.

          These new men, these distant men, didn't ask the hard questions and she didn’t share the sordid answers. Easy. (Because truth be told, no one wanted the damaged girl. They just want to pity her and think of ways that they or someone they know is better than her). So now, instead, when Abigail talked to the new men, they talked about touching each other, art, work, nothing. Sometimes they let the silence live in between. And she didn’t run. She sat in it, peacefully.

          There were benefits to distance.

          There were no feigned assertions of authority over her with repetitive questions and restrictions. When men love something or someone, like really love, they love it into ownership in the name of protection. There was no love, so she got to escape that trap. There was no why-didn’t-you-pick-up or I-called-you-five-times or why-is-your-phone-going-straight-to-voicemail or why-do-you-have-haphazard-cuts-up-your-thigh or why-do-your-moods-switch-so-violently-and-so-sharply or why-are-you-not-ok.

          Surely, love was the problem, love needed to be punished with her absence from it, her detachment. She became something like a shell, her feelings locked away with her inside self. She thought to herself, I am protected. She would rather live under the protection of her own restrictions rather than that of another man to love. This was safer. And protection came with rules.

          • They saw each other whenever.

          • They laughed.

          • They played.

          • They left no room for anger or disdain or resentment.

          • They depleted.

          • They never fulfilled or completed.

          • They repeated.

Easy was empty. But distance led to longing.

And the problem with longing is that you are never satiated. All you are is want.

Fabielle Georges is a Haitian-American author. She graduated from The University of Tampa’s MFA in Creative Writing program. Her poetry has been published in literary magazines like Rust & Moth and Mujeres de Maiz. Her essay “Chasing Dragons” was published in the online literary magazine, Trampset. Her essay “The Darkness” is featured in the anthology Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mai’a Williams, and China Martens. Currently she is working on her debut memoir, Depression: A How-to Guide on What Not to Do. She lives in Florida with her son.

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