Happy enough
June 18, 2012 - 9:19 p.m.

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My knuckles hurt. I feel old, though I know I'm a measly twenty-seven.

I was at work today, lacing up my steel-toes, and I was watching all the good ole boys.

They all look the same after a while. Lined faces, grey around the edges. Worn out and bitter. Stomping around in their huge boots, hard hats perched on their thinning hair, bitching about this gig or that gig or talking about when things were better.

They were never really better, but time glosses over the hard bits.

My bra straps are digging into the sunburn I got this weekend. I try to adjust them discreetly, but there's nothing discreet about adjusting your tits, so I just go ahead and do it.

I dress like a boy, though, so nobody even glances my way.

One of the other girls, a frail Asian girl, catches sight of me and grins a little too wide. She's as relieved as I am that we're not solitary women in a crew of bitter old boys.

I feel relieved that I'll be moving. Scared. Relieved. I talked to my friends over the weekend while I slowly baked in the sun, and I knew I was kind of fooling myself: I would miss all my friends terribly, and I would not remember how hard a time I have making friends until I am no longer surrounded by them.

~

The night was moonless. The solstice is near, though, so the sun doesn't completely go down. Light bleeds from the west like ink on a wet napkin. Or the opposite of that.

There are a few stars out. Also lanterns hanging periodically from tall hooks driven into the soil.

He walks me to my tent. There is a tension between us.

It's from me. It usually is.

I don't do married men anymore. Not anymore. They can tell me they're in an open relationship all they want, but I don't care anymore.

I realized a while back that I'm monogamous, and I don't bloody well see why him being poly-amorous should have anything to do with anything in my life.

But this one...this one is a little special.

He gave me the best new year's kiss I've ever had, pressed up the freezing car door in the -40 January weather, wearing little more than my stupid holiday blouse and a half-length skirt and Mark's oversized shoes.

I still shiver, remembering it. His teeth on my lip, the way he dug both hands into my hair and pulled, just hard enough to send adrenaline pumping into my groin. The way he pushed up my blouse in the middle of the street, and the way I let him and didn't even bother to check for cars.

I also remember his wife's hard look when we walked back in, wind-tousled and flushed.

And although he pressed his contact info into my hand, and insisted I write out mine for him, I never called him.

And he never called me.

~

I've been reading a lot, lately. Managed to get a few good books in a row.

When ever I read very quickly I feel full up with words. Sometimes I feel so full they just have to spill out somewhere.

I wrote Martina a letter today, about kissing the married man.

I don't know if she really wants to read about it, but I wrote it out. I didn't use my nice stationary, either. I just used plain blue lined paper from one of my bajillion notebooks, and stuffed it into a thin dollar store envelope.

~

The tension, it's killing me.

I'm keeping away. I have to. I'm terrified. I like his wife, and I don't know what's going on, but I desperately want to feel as wanted as I did on that night, those years ago.

I can't see his face. We talk quietly about this and that.

I tell him about T, about the not returning my calls, about the email breakup.

He's silent for a long moment, and I'm okay with the silence.

"You deserve better than that, Rosie," he says quietly. "You're a good person."

I'm glad it's dark. I'm not sure if I'm sneering or crying, but I hope it's the latter.

I spend a lot of my time trying to figure out if I'm a good person or not, and largely concluding that I'm a bitter old bitch.

"I have to sleep," I tell him, and squat down to unzip my tent, my skirts pooling around my feet.

He catches me by the shoulder and it's no big thing to topple me over. I land soft, suddenly half-sprawled in his lap.

We sit like that for a while, the crushed grass creeping coolness through gaps in my skirts. It feels good to touch somebody so casual.

I miss T, but I don't say it out loud. I really liked that man. I'm bitter over him, but I really hope he gets his damned life sorted out so he can be really happy.

I hope I get my damned life sorted out so I can be really happy.

"I never called you," he says, kind of sadly. It's part statement, part apology, part revelation. I shrug a little, but it's hard in this position.

"I never called you either," I say, and there's that unspoken tension again. Damn, if only he was single, I would be all over him like a fat kid on a smartie.

"I gotta sleep," I say finally, because I'm afraid what I'll do with this strange attractive married man.

He doesn't say anything but catches my chin and nudges my head around so he can kiss me.

And so help me, I kiss him back, though it's against my better judgement.

He's a good kisser. One of the best I've encountered.

He flicks the tip of his tongue over my bottom lip, scrapes it with his teeth.

I bite his lip just hard enough to be a wicked promise, and his breath sucks in through his nose.

And I know I have to go to bed, and go to bed alone, or else I'm going to do something I regret.

"Good night," I murmur, and I slip into my tent before he can do much more than say the same.

~

Ye gods, my knuckles hurt.

I wonder how much of it is in my head, and how much of it is from sleeping on my hands every night.

As long as I can write forever, I will be happy.

Or happy enough.

.

~Rosie.

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