Adelia

[15]

We went out on the back patio, in the little table where we always used to sit. We hadn't been there in so long, the past didn't even feel real. This Adelia was so different from the Adelia that I had known before. This Adelia was all hope. She had said that she wanted to be honest, and that telling me she loved me was the first step. I didn't want to hear about any other true things, except her love. Because I wanted that to be the truest thing. 

"This is really hard to say," she started off, "and it feels like it was such a long time ago." 

"What was?"

"When you came to get me.. and I was in awful dress at the county jail and calling everywhere and I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life there. I was so angry and frustrated, not with you, just with the world. I thought everyone was my enemy." She was like the book of life, I turned a page and the entire universe spilled out. Her eyes were so alive, I felt like I had known her forever. She looked at the table as she talked and sort of did a short, nervous laugh after every sentence. "I had shoplifted a few things that night, I was going to hitchhike to New Mexico and join a commune or something. I don't know.." she gave me a mischievous look, "I probably wouldn't have, I just wanted to feel like I was free." 

She looked into my eyes, "But you kept pulling me back. I felt like you were trying to keep me as your little doll or," an even bigger laugh escaped her lips, "I'm so tragic." Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun that slowly crept along the back of her neck, falling. Strand after strand encompassed her face, I pushed her hair back. I ignored my urge to kiss her, because what I wanted to do more was listen to her. I wanted to know what she really felt and hear her instrumental voice. Everything felt like a river; pillowy and flowing and forever. 

"I just wanted to feel good," she grabbed my hand from across the table, "but you make me feel freer than I ever have." She looked around in a kind of ditzy way, like maybe someone was watching and she grinned, "I can't believe I'm saying this." 

My heart was beating a thousand miles a minute. It was my turn to be a star in the sky. I squeezed her hand, "I want to hold you." Because that was the truest thing I could say.

And this is how Adelia surprised me. She pushed up on the table and climbed across it, tucking her knees under her legs and crawling into my lap, the glass creaked and the legs pushed down into the earth. Hers fell neatly onto me. She was cherry red and buried her face into my chest. 

"Why do you always make me feel like this?" she laughed until she cried.