ghosts in the attic

Yesterday, over eggs and pancakes, I brought up a relic. A remarkably difficult, Caulfield-esque relic that still haunts the tiniest parts of my mind. It wasn’t love, or even lust. But it was something. I remember when I was 17 and just got an all-access pass to the open road and dad’s mini-van, and after driving around all night, asked a friend over McPancakes, “Who’s the one person you wish it had worked out with? You know, if you had the chance to make it work, who would you choose?”

As the years moved forward and the friend stayed behind, the moment never left. What a question to ask yourself at 17. I had only ever “seriously paid attention” to one person, obsessing over countless others without cause and without effect. What did I really know about being haunted by failed attempts or fleeting lovers? The dread of having the most intense sex of your life knowing it might not happen again for years, or forever, with him, or with anyone else, seems like a more favourable ghost to walk with now that I know better. But then there’s that one that gets under your skin. That might not necessarily live up to his own memory in your mind, or understand you, or even feel the way you would feel back, but the one that remains all the same.

I periodically think of him, like a reminder that it’s time for my weekly dose. The ghost glides across my hardwood floors at the same time, too. No, I don’t creep, and I don’t stalk. I don’t need to. But I do wonder. And I do wish. For what? Maybe that we would have worked out. Maybe that I had that chance to make it work. Maybe that I’d let it go, or that he’d let me go on.

So yes, I asked myself that same question yesterday, over eggs and pancakes. Not out loud. But to the parts of him that live within me. And I know that I know better than that. But he was here tonight.