Abigail M. Schilling

"Do you ever think about the future?" you ask. I don't know why you asked, you knew you would feel my wrists tense up inside your palms. You held your grip though as I pulled away.

I give you a look and you stop the gripping, look down, look back up and said, "you're going to have to answer the question."

Yes, of course I think about the future. I think about how I really want to get out of this city and how I really wish we were in that city and how I might stop spinning if we could find an apartment where I could really write. I stop myself. I just said we a hundred times.

I look up at you. "We both have to agree. We said we wouldn't talk about the future unless we both agreed."

***

We'll have five kids. A big house with an even bigger lawn. When we're building the house we'll argue about whether the front porch should face the East or the West. I want the sunrise, you want the sunset.

We won't argue about your trips. Your trips will be done, you'll be here, with me, all the time, and it will be okay. I will be okay. We will all be okay. I can hear you in my head, doubting me. With every time you tried to convince me that could work you started to doubt more. I could see it in your hesitations.

Doubt only works in one mind. In two minds it becomes truth.

***

"I hate it when you ask me that question. What are you measuring me against when you say that? What is the line being drawn?"

"Who said there is a line being drawn?"

I pause. Look you in the eyes. And then look down at the invisible line between us.

"If there's a line it's not there," you say. You cross the invisible line so you're standing next to me. You point off in the distance. "It's there."

"And that's where you want to be," I include.

You grab my shoulder. "That's where I want us to be." We both sigh and I lean into you, taking your left hand in my right. Your right hand releases my shoulder and slips around my back.

"I want us to be there too," I say at the end of the sigh. I hate myself. I hate that I'm so happy right now, in this moment, in your grasp, and that right now that line you've drawn doesn't seem like a big deal to cross.

I hate that tomorrow, when you're back in Seattle, I will feel the dead weight of that line and it will start to suffocate me. I hate that I can separate these two feelings. I relax into your jacket, adjusting my neck so it's no longer resting on the zipper.

Letter to a Traveling Lover (part I)
Letter to a Traveling Lover (part II)
Letter to a Traveling Lover (part III)