Bloom, Shifting

5.

5.

Home smells differently when I return.

My sheets feel stale

and I can't quite orient myself.

I dream of Elliot

her hands and her eyes

and that time when she kissed my nose

like a butterfly wing.

Ma asks what I've been doing.

She knits and never stops moving,

so I know she's nervous.

Have you made any friends,

at school?

Friends.

I turn the word over.

Yes, I say. Well,

sort of.

Sort of?

Her hands stop.

Well, they're mostly Elliot's,

Elliot's friends.

Ah, Elliot.

She smiles.

The architect.

She's not an architect yet,

I remind her, though I swell with pride.

Longing peeps through,

and I wonder if Ma can hear it.

Ma is frowning.

Elliot is a...

girl?

Now I am not moving.

The house is a tableau,

Mother and Daughter,

On Different Pages.

Yes. Elliot is a girl.

It comes out as a whisper.

Oh. I thought Elliot was –

well –

a boy.

I can see the panic swell in her eyes.

A boy you were seeing,

she adds.

Rivers could run through her frown lines.

No, I choke on the word.

She's just Elliot.

I see.

Ma shifts into movement once more.

She's not like Penny –

No, I scramble for my bearings.

Elliot is...

Elliot.

Not Penny.

Okay.

She abandons her knitting and me,

Retreats to the comfort of the kitchen.

When do you leave?

I curl into my rib cage, understanding.

She knows, she sees

that Elliot is just like Penny,

more than Penny.

In the safety of night I go through facebook,

Something I rarely do. Pen made me get it,

Over a year ago.

So when you move away,

ecome a famous writer,

we can chat.

She explained as if we would never,

ever ever,

stop talking.

But we did.

Ma caught us,

that summer before grade twelve began,

and poisoned us.

I spoke to no one all year,

and Penny got a boyfriend,

and she stayed here and I moved

far far away,

and we never chatted.

I do not love Penny anymore,

and it felt nothing like it does with Elliot.

Maybe it is just different, but with Penny

I felt like I was caught,

and with Elliot I feel free.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

I never loved Penny at all,

and my heart was just searching

searching for Elliot in a place she wasn't.

It would explain how it felt like coming home,

when she first laid eyes on me.