If I start at the end, it was me in the Cork airport sitting alone at the gate for New Orleans, her barely acknowledging me as she breezed passed to the gate for JFK, the not-acknowledging was nothing new, that had been her thing all summer, but I didn’t care, I wanted her more than I worried if people knew, maybe she wanted to keep things secret because that game enticed her, maybe it was me, maybe our leaving frightened her, it frightened me, though it hardly mattered then, so I left my gate and found her, close to several other students who we’d tried to hide our lustful glances and drifting hands from, but they barely noticed when I sat down and she nuzzled up to my chest and I held her close and she cried some and I cried some, which was how we remained until I left to board my plane, remembering a few hours earlier, cocooned in my dorm room, fucking slow and kissing deep in the thick darkness of the early Irish morning, a soft rain that tapped at the base of the open window and misted through the screen, the cloud-filtered moonlight glinting in her eyes as they stared through mine, realizing deep down we would never be together that way again.
Wilson Koewing is a writer from South Carolina. His work is forthcoming in Wigleaf and Gargoyle.