Violeta Noir

Monday morning, at 6:05, my lover broke up with me.

By Tuesday evening he was standing at my door with flowers.

So that went well.

In fairness, it was a very mature breakup.

Thoughtful.

Self aware.

He had decided that he caused me stress. That he’d affected my family. That things had been said that should never have been said. He loved me, he said, and the best thing he could do was let me go because he was finally self aware enough to understand that he couldn’t be what I needed without continuing to hurt me.

Goodbye, Jessica.

I laughed.

Literally.

Because there was some missing context in this grand declaration of departure.

A month earlier, I had been the one who told him to stop contacting me.

No more check ins.

No more little conversations designed to keep us orbiting one another.

I needed to focus on my life.

If he wanted to see me, he could text me to see me.

Otherwise, leave me alone.

And then, remarkably, he did exactly what I asked.

For a month, I didn’t hear from him.

Later, when we were together, he told me he’d assumed I would move on.

I acted surprised.

Which was a little dishonest.

I had a date three days after I sent that text.

I had a new lover before the week was over.

And that man taught me things about my own body I hadn’t known.

Apparently there were buttons I didn’t know I had, and this man arrived with an instruction manual.

One finger.

A kiss.

A parking lot.

Multiple orgasms.

Excuse me?

At forty three years old, I was still discovering features.

Unfortunately, he eventually concluded that my appetite was more ambitious than his stamina.

Fair enough.

I wished him well.

The following Sunday, just over a week after I’d told my lover to stop contacting me, I had a sweet date with an adorable man who sold furniture.

He was kind.

He liked me.

Perhaps a little too efficiently.

He wanted to move much faster than I did, and I wasn’t ready.

Then came the lawyer.

Oh, the lawyer.

Smart.

Interesting.

The kind of man who made my brain sit up before the rest of me had even decided what it thought.

I was genuinely excited about him.

Which made Date Number Two particularly disappointing when the promise of Date Number One simply wasn’t there anymore.

That one bummed me out.

Not because we’d built anything.

We hadn’t.

But because I’d begun imagining that perhaps we could.

Sometimes the loss isn’t the man.

It’s the possibility.

And then there was the adorable mechanic.

Quietly confident.

Well traveled.

Good with his hands.

Very good with his hands.

So yes.

When my lover said he’d assumed I would move on, the appropriate response probably would have been:

Sir, I did.

Quite efficiently, actually.

The train had left the station, made several stops, picked up passengers, dropped off passengers and apparently conducted a small research study along the way.

I hadn’t spent a month waiting.

I hadn’t kept his seat warm.

There wasn’t even a seat.

I dated.

I flirted.

I fucked.

I learned.

I discovered things about my body.

I discovered things about men.

I discovered things about myself.

I moved on.

What I apparently hadn’t done was move away from him.

Those are different things.

Because Monday morning, when his name appeared on my phone for the first time in a month, something in me recognized him immediately.

Not as the only man I could want.

Just as a man I still did.

And now he was telling me goodbye.

Absolutely not.

Not like this.

He had promised me an in person breakup.

I reminded him.

His response was essentially that an in person breakup presented certain logistical difficulties.

Namely, if his face ended up where both of us knew it was going to end up, neither one of us was going to be particularly interested in discussing separation.

At least, that’s how I remembered the conversation.

Later, when he was actually in my bed, he told me he didn’t remember saying the particularly colorful part about what his face would be covered in.

I smiled.

“I may have added that. I don’t know. Memory, you know.”

He looked at me.

I looked back.

This is, after all, an archive.

I never promised it was evidence.

In any case, by Monday morning the solemnity of the breakup was deteriorating rapidly.

I told him to come break up with me properly.

He wanted to come Tuesday morning.

No.

I missed him.

I did not miss him enough to wake up early.

He seemed mildly offended by this distinction.

Apparently if I really missed him, I should want him immediately.

I did want him immediately.

I also wanted sleep.

Both things could be true.

Tuesday night.

Eight o’clock.

He agreed.

And somewhere between planning what we intended to do to one another and actually doing it, we started talking about lakes.

Because of course we did.

Ancient lakes.

The kind slowly pulling themselves apart until, millions of years from now, they may become oceans.

Then freshwater seals.

Underwater caves.

Convergent evolution.

Ancient trees.

Dolphins.

Polar bears.

Documentaries.

Somewhere in there I sighed and told him I loved how smart he was.

And I remembered.

Oh.

This.

This is what I missed.

Not merely his body.

His mind.

The rabbit holes.

I can hand him some bizarre little piece of information and instead of looking at me like I’ve wandered away from the conversation, he wanders away with me.

One minute we’re flirting.

The next we’re debating what kind of animal might evolve inside an underwater cave.

Then somehow we’re horny again.

There is no transition.

There has never been a transition.

I missed that.

I missed his hands.

I missed his smell.

I missed his ridiculous little facts.

I missed massaging his shoulders while he talked.

I missed kissing his neck and his head.

I missed his arms around me.

I missed the way our conversations seem to have no walls.

And yes.

God.

I missed the sex.

He left his house at 7:20.

He stopped for flowers.

He was at my house by eight, just as he’d said he would be.

I had made salmon with roasted vegetables.

We ate.

We talked.

And eventually the month between us disappeared.

I will preserve some dignity here and refrain from providing the laboratory report.

I will provide only the relevant scientific conclusion:

Fire hydrant.

Good Lord.

My body had apparently been keeping records.

There was a month’s worth of hunger in it, and apparently it had no intention of behaving elegantly about the reunion.

Neither did he.

By the time we were finished, the evidence of our enthusiasm was everywhere.

On me.

On him.

In me.

Enough that the following day I had employed the bidet repeatedly, showered, planned to shower again and still felt that presenting myself to another man that evening might be less sexually liberated than simply unsanitary.

There are limits to decadence.

Apparently mine begin somewhere around basic scheduling.

We laughed in bed too.

That’s something else I had forgotten I missed.

There can be all that heat between us, all that intensity, and then one of us says something stupid and suddenly we’re laughing in the middle of everything.

Later he told me he’d missed my giggles.

My laughs.

Even the little expressions my face makes.

I didn’t know he’d noticed those.

Eventually we fell asleep naked and wrapped around each other.

He called it sleeping on a cloud.

He missed spooning me.

I missed being held.

Apparently we missed each other.

Because by 9:05 the next morning, after leaving my house and going straight to work, the man who had announced approximately fifty one hours earlier that he would never contact me again was texting:

I miss you already.

Sir.

Please respect the solemnity of your breakup.

Now it is Wednesday.

The lawyer is gone.

The mechanic is theoretically still on tonight’s schedule.

My enthusiasm is present.

My body has reservations.

My insides feel like they’ve submitted a formal complaint to management.

I like the mechanic.

I enjoy him.

But right now I also really like the idea of being home with my children, eating something, existing peacefully in my own house and allowing my vagina to observe a federally mandated rest period.

The spirit is willing.

The infrastructure requires maintenance.

So we’ll see.

Tomorrow, however, I have a date.

With the man who broke up with me Monday morning.

Naturally.

We’re going to a dark bar to play pool and eat smash burgers.

I’ll have a fresh fill on my nails.

A fresh pedicure.

He has always had a particular appreciation for my feet, and I have a particular appreciation for the way that appreciation feels.

So I make sure my toes are pretty when I know I’m going to see him.

I’m wearing a dress with a deep slit.

Nothing underneath.

He doesn’t know that yet.

Some things are better discovered.

And then Friday?

I’m playing pool again.

Different man.

A Hawaiian barber.

Tall.

Big.

Huge personality.

I haven’t decided what I think of him yet.

That’s what dates are for.

And perhaps that’s the strangest difference between the woman who began this story four years ago and the woman writing it now.

I no longer confuse wanting a man with choosing him.

I don’t need to know where Thursday leads before I enjoy Thursday.

I don’t need Friday to become Saturday.

I don’t need the mechanic to become anything.

The lawyer didn’t work out, and I was disappointed because I genuinely liked the possibility of him.

Then the possibility ended.

I survived.

Another possibility appeared.

My life keeps moving.

So does my desire.

And somewhere in all of this, I think I finally understand what moving on actually means.

It isn’t necessarily leaving someone behind.

It isn’t erasing desire.

It isn’t waking up one morning unable to remember why somebody once mattered.

And it certainly isn’t sitting alone until you’ve achieved some arbitrary state of emotional purity before you’re permitted to want somebody new.

I moved on while still loving him.

I moved on while still missing him.

I moved on while knowing that if he appeared in front of me again, there was a very good chance I’d want him.

I just stopped organizing my life around whether he appeared.

During the month he was gone, I learned that pleasure didn’t belong to him.

Curiosity didn’t belong to him.

Excitement didn’t belong to him.

Other men could surprise me.

Other hands could teach me things.

Other minds could intrigue me.

Other possibilities could make me excited enough to be disappointed when they disappeared.

My life did not become an empty room simply because he wasn’t standing in it.

And maybe that’s why seeing him again felt different.

I wasn’t taking him back because there was nowhere else to go.

I had gone plenty of places.

I just still wanted to come here sometimes.

To this strange little place that belongs specifically to us.

Where a breakup becomes foreplay before breakfast.

Where tectonic plates somehow become flirting.

Where flowers sit on my counter beside the remnants of dinner.

Where we laugh in bed.

Where he leaves and misses me before the night is over.

Where I can love him without making him everything.

Where I can want him without waiting for him.

Where I can enjoy exactly what he is without pretending he’s something he isn’t.

Monday morning, my lover said goodbye.

Tuesday night, he brought me flowers.

Thursday we’re having smash burgers.

Friday I’m playing pool with someone else.

Apparently I’ve moved on.

I just didn’t realize moving on required going anywhere.