“Google the difference between a checkerboard and a chessboard,” you tell me as we sit in my dad’s old car. It was nice. It still is. But it’s a not what it once was. “I think that a checkerboard has to be red. The chess board has to be black and white.”
It’s dark as we drive home from dinner, and I think about that video I watched. Did you know that it’s psychologically proven that two people sitting next to one another are much less likely to argue than people sitting across from one another? That’s what’s on my mind as I patiently explain that a chessboard and a checkerboard are both just eight by eight squares. That the colors don’t really matter.
What I don’t say is that I’m the one driving, my fingers drumming the wheel, and it would have made much more sense for you to look up the question, seeing as you don’t have anything else to focus on. You always ask me, but never trust me. I read you the answer off of the screen, I’m not too concerned as I look down. I know the drive like the back of my hand. We always go to the same places.
At dinner, I’d told a story over drinks. It was a long convoluted story that I think I add too many superfluous details to, but that’s what makes it more fun. Even if you sighed as everyone else at the table laughed. The story of an argument begins with my roommate’s recent breakup, which had been a long time coming. I wonder, if we broke up would everyone would say that it was a long time coming?
I don’t listen to what you say, my eyes on the shape of your plush lips. I always know what you mean by the way you finish your sentences. You’re still as magnificent to watch as the day that I first met you, your hair like a halo around your crown in the passing streetlights. But, now, my friends open our conversations asking, their tones mocking and overly sweet, “What stupid fucking question did our Lover Lover ask today?” and laugh when I eventually admit that you’d asked me once again, to explain a joke that everyone else in the room seemed to understand.
Lights change from red to green, and I drive up to your apartment in the nighttime fog. I turn on the hazards and tell you to have a good night. I have an appointment early the next morning and you have a roommate that gets angrier the later you enter the bedroom. It’s already past eleven. We don’t do long lingering goodbyes anymore.
There were days when we would have sat in the car. I have loved you for a long time. I still do. But it’s not what it once was. The windows would have fogged and we would have thought, screw it, screw the appointment, screw the roommate that will passive aggressively throw your utensils back into the sink from the drying rack. But, I don’t. You press a close-mouthed kiss to my mouth. I run my fingers only once through your hair, your curls soft as ever. There was a time when I would have twirled that curl right above your left temple around my finger and pulled you back in. I don’t. I pull away.
You get out of the car and I turn off the hazards. You don’t turn around to watch me drive away like you used to. I know you don’t, but trust me: if we broke up, it would be a long time coming.▲