Clean
2003-10-09 - 6:37 p.m.

If she hadn’t been so young, maybe none of it would have happened. Regardless, it has happened now.

It wasn’t as though they were lovers. No, she was too young for love. She was just coming into her own when they met. They couldn’t have been more different. She was young, pretty, fun, and a center of attention; He was older, quiet, and content mostly to keep to himself.

They met through mutual friends, and their streams began to flow together. They became inseparable. One wishes that it could be said to be a mutually beneficial relationship, but to say so would be a lie. Rather, they became like weights on each other, contesting to see who could be the basest, the most shocking.

Perhaps nothing was as shocking as the morning she left.

If he’d have believed it was coming, maybe he would have done things differently, but who’s to say? All that can be said is that he did not believe, and still refused to believe as she waved at him out her back window.

It’s been years, and she’s over him. She does what she wants, but she isn’t happy. He knows because she tells him so.

Perhaps he wouldn’t feel so bad if it didn’t seem like his fault. Maybe, although he never allows himself to entertain the thought, it isn’t really his fault. Perhaps she would be unhappy no matter what he did in those days past.

None of this matters to him, of course. When he looks at her, he doesn’t see someone who is living her life apart from what he does or doesn’t do. Instead, he sees a drowning young girl, now too far from shore for him to save. He can’t help but think of the times when he had ahold of her, and he could have pulled her in from the dark, unforgiving sea.

When he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see the man he has become. When he sees his reflection, he still sees what he was, once, to one person. He still hears the ribald jokes. He still thinks of the wasted times.

When he looks at his hands, he sees blood, and knows that they will never be clean.