Spectre

By Katherine Meikle

Drunk and wanting more, more beach, more night, more him, I watched his blurry eyes watching mine. Our sightline tethered us together in our own pocket of space. Each of us oblivious to the stoned dispute happening with our friends around us, the summer night breeze blows mischief in our direction. He’s swaying gently, his features warm and pink, contorting as he makes faces at me. He’s trying to make me laugh. Lorraine pulls me aside, and only when I’m torn from his gaze do I realise how dizzy I am. 

“Are we leaving or what?” she says.

“Just another minute—” 

“He has a girlfriend you know.”

“She’s not here is she?”

Lorraine looks at me and says nothing. Honestly I didn’t expect a reply. 

“I’m just saying bye.” I say, as I stumble away from her and her boyfriend, who would still be with her ten years later, for better or for worse. Tonight they have each other to lean on in the dark. 

I see my drunken teenage heartthrob under the pale light of street lamps. He’s hoping I’ll come back. I take his hands in mine. They feel rough, even to my vodka-numb skin. I do a little dance. I’m trying to be cute. He’s trying not to pass out.

“Bonne nuit mon chérie,” I say. An attempt to end the night in a way to suit the dream it felt like. I kiss him on the forehead, like a friend, I think. 

As I turn away and take my first step home, his hand grabs hold of my wrist and he spins me back into him with one motion. I land in his arms with his lips on my face. It didn’t feel like I imagined it would. I wasn’t transported into any magical realm of Sleeping Beauty or Sixteen Candles. Yet I stood there and kissed him back, once, my hand on his cratered cheek. I liked the spaces where his acne used to be. And then I left, feeling as though I’d won something. 

I was delighted. I had a disgusting sense of satisfaction. He wanted me enough to do that. Despite his girlfriend, or to spite his girlfriend, it didn’t really matter in the moment. I was just some dweeb who ate lunch outside the library by herself. He seemed so high above me. There he was, stealing a kiss against his better judgement. I’m that irresistible. Christ. 

He rarely sent me messages. He never looked at me in school. But when he found me alone and clumsy, outside my locker or inside a comic book, he completely enveloped me. I had his undivided attention. He would talk about things I didn’t understand and stand so close to me I could smell his Downy laundry liquid. He would ask me out to see obscure film screenings, yet stumble into other people he knew around every corner we turned. I wanted him to stop moving, to stop talking, to stop his eyes from cutting all the way through mine when he looked at me. I wanted him to be mine and show me I was worth losing friends over. But his friends barely noticed me and his interest dwindled with my confidence. He and his girlfriend split up and got back together, they lived their own lives like I never existed. 

That winter I followed his tail in the form of a Facebook event. He invited me, along with all the other people he knew. His film was screening at a festival. Oh how extraordinary, I thought. In the freezing rain, I came alone. Inside the theatre I walk down the aisle he walked with me the first time I was there. The seats of red velvet were riddled with musicians and high school film buffs. He spotted me and looked surprised I came. He didn’t leave his friends as I walk past him to find a seat in the back. I’d feel less out of place if I didn’t recognize anyone.

Half way through the night he managed to break away from his entourage to find me. He stood beside my row of seats, one softened leather boot on my step, and rests his arm on his knee. The action man pose.

“Wow you came!” he said “Good to see you here.” 

I told him I wouldn’t miss it. I don’t remember if he smiled or not. But I did, a wide weak grin that the gallant boy took a moment aside from his busy night to speak to me. Sickening. I gestured him to sit with me with a pat on the seat. He sat and smiled, thinking of what to say. I counted a whole eight seconds before he got up and left.

Cold, wet, I stand outside an overcrowded townhouse. An after party supposedly open to the public. They won’t let anyone else in. He had asked me to come. As I reach the doorway I see him inside, stepping over people’s shoes. He waves to me, and walks away. A voice from inside yells something about smelling vomit. The hostess comes to the entrance, and looks at me with bored disgust as she closes the door.

I had followed some people I didn’t know from the festival to the house party, and although they were also denied access, they split in different directions home. I walked towards a streetcar stop. I didn’t know if it was still running or not. The ice landing in my eyelashes made it easier to cry without being noticed. I felt utterly pathetic. I had been a proper fool, trying to breathe some life into something that never was. He definitely had a talent. Putting on a show for me when it was convenient. He was an illusionist. And I made him feel like a magician.

The three headlights of the streetcar arrived like a light from the heavens to rescue me. I climbed on to the heated cabin and rubbed my face and fingers. I let my heart defrost as I rode the long journey home. I told myself it’s alright that I let myself be swept away, it’s alright that I was wrong. And I would have been quite glad never to see him again. 

I would, of course, see him again. A big city can often be a pretty small world, and when I saw his cratered face I froze. I bolted. My blood pressure rose, I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Not because I hated him, I honestly didn’t think of him enough to hate him. But I wanted to run away from the spectre of who I used to be, as though being in his presence would drag me back to sixteen years old. Then, I realized that nothing could drag me back there, because I have nothing to prove anymore. I don’t need anyone to choose me, and I certainly don’t want anyone to lose friends over me. Disloyalty isn’t sexy, and I’m no longer the kind of person willing to wait for someone to make up their mind about me. I have love for my younger self, but I’ve said goodbye and laid her to rest. She needn’t come back to haunt me.

By Katherine Meikle