Oh bother.
Anyway. This is a new piece for advanced comp.
A leather jacket. Just a jacket.
The sky was overcast, a sheet of grey, spitting rain. That must have been why
he chose to wear it. He could not have known its effect. It’s remarkable what
the brain remembers. A thousand pictures, frozen in the mind. The so-called
important things forgotten and seemingly meaningless details taking root,
forming the stories of our past. Forming the moments upon which our lives turn,
marking the vital transitions.
Just
an Italian leather jacket, an impulse buy as a tourist in Florence. Haggled
over in the bustling streets, teeming with sight-seers from across the globe,
it had made its way to America via the oft-searched suitcase of a college
student and now represented every good moment of a relationship. As he walked toward
me that day, it seemed every stitch screamed of a rare treasured moment. The
smell of leather became every embrace, every moment of pixie nose buried in a
strong chest. A shoulder that promised to always be there. Could I really give
that up?
I
had finally made up my mind that day. A ticket had been given away,
independence had been seized, and that window of opportunity had become the
gateway to a life of freedom. But as the grey clouds looked on, I could feel
myself slipping from brave independence. I could feel myself shrink beneath the
sky. Shrink beneath his smug smile. My hands begin to twist.
Before
that moment I had never understood what it meant to wring one’s hands. It
always struck me as a terribly strange and awkward phrase. But now I will never
find a more apt comparison. My fingers and hands twisted like a dishrag, the
latent emotion, the struggle so long dormant was finding its first outlet,
slowly releasing from the place I had buried it for so long. My feet shift. He
comes closer.
It
really couldn’t have been that bad. Things could have been worse. And things
can always be better. It just needs more time. More moments just like this,
when I fade beneath that smile and sink back into familiarity. When we talk it
out once more and come to the same conclusions we have always reached. When
things get better for a week. A day. A moment. A single moment of happiness, of
joy. Of forgetting the miserable reality that had defined full years of life.
Of hope. And that moment is walking towards me in the form of a leather jacket.
“Where
do you want to go?” He’s smiling down at me now. Grinning. Knowing he’s off the
hook. Knowing my spark of independence was just that, an instant of light
destined to give way to darkness. And I return his gaze in silence, unable to
form a word, shape a phrase. Once again unable to express the emotions living
inside of me.
“Do
you want to go to Paris? We’ll go. I’ll take you there. We’ll hop on a plane
tonight. Ill take you anywhere you want to go.” Those words were meant to
continue the charade, to reinforce the uncertainty caused by something as
simple as that leather jacket. To remind me of all the good, of all the sweet
words, of all the hopes for change. For a happy future.
But
with those words, a spell was broken. And all I could think was Yes, let’s fly
to Paris. Let’s buy more things to make us forget. To represent one happy
moment. To convince ourselves we are ok, we are happy. Let’s live for that
moment of fantasy and forget reality. Forget the tears, the abuse, the reality
of a life lived in misery. My hands drop and I begin to rise. My shoulders
square. The sky no longer hangs over me. I stand up under it. And I stand up to
him.
“I
can’t do this anymore.”
