The Realm of Possibility (12 page)

I fall back, follow him. I like for him to be in front, because that way I can watch his hair blowing wild, the bag of oranges swaying, the lift of his shoes. When I'm not looking at him, I look at the river running beneath us, its own stream of traffic.

There is no word for our kind of friendship. Two people who don't see each other a lot, but can make each other effortlessly happy.

We stop at the center.
I don't know how he determines it,
but when I look,
both ends appear to be
the same distance away.

We sit on the walkway
and dangle our legs through the railings,
kicking the air.

As he peels me an orange, he asks,
If I tell you something startling, do you promise not to swoon
?

I nod, and watch the orange peels fall to the river.

I've gotten him a ring
, he says.

It wasn't until Jed that I understood
how a person could be
disarming.
I have spent years of my life sitting
in my room, creating defenses of
cynicism, darkness, and bleakness.
Jed's friendship is the skeleton key to
my fortress. He disarms me every
time.

Let me see it
, I reply.

He hands me the open orange, sections pulled back like petals. He wipes his fingers, then carefully reaches into his pocket. What emerges is a claddagh.

Two hands, one heart.

I have seen the rings before, but never like this. Never held between two fingers instead of worn on one. Never in the windblown sun, never so high over the water. Never so close to me.

Two hands, one heart.

Do the two hands belong to two different people? Are they holding their love in common, keeping it perfectly balanced? Or do the two hands belong to one person, giving the heart as an offering
(take this, it's yours)?

At that moment, a truck speeds across the bridge. It comes dangerously close to us and shakes the false ground that we sit on.

I am jolted forward, into the rail.
The orange falls from my hand.

And the word I think is
precarious.
Because as the bridge rocks like a beast with a
tremor down its spine, as I pitch forward so close to the air of no return, I am struck
by how precarious it all is. How the things that hold us are only as strong as
the faith we have in them—
you go on the bridge because you trust it will not fall
the fingers will clasp because we trust them to.
You need two hands to hold a heart.
The tremors subside and I look over to Jed. He is ghostly pale, but the ring is still between his forefinger and thumb. He has held on, because he could not consider letting go.

How precarious
, I say.

And he says,
You mean precious
.

He gives the ring to me, and I hold a small part of his future in my palm.

You trust me that much?
I ask.

He smiles and says,
I do.

Here's what I know about the realm of possibility—
it is always expanding, it is never what you think
it is. Everything around us was once deemed
impossible. From the airplane overhead to
the phones in our pockets to the choir girl
putting her arm around the metalhead.
As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist
within the realm of possibility. Most of the limits
are of our own world's devising. And yet,
every day we each do so many things
that were once impossible to us.

There are hundreds of reasons for Daniel and me
to be impossible. History has not been kind
to two boys who love each other like we do.
But putting that aside. And not even considering
the fact that a hundred and fifty years ago,
his family was in a small town in Russia
and my family was in a similarly small town
in Ireland—I can't imagine they could have
imagined us here, together. Forgetting our gender,
ignoring all the strange roads that led to us
being in the same time and place, there is still
the simple impossibility of love. That all of our
contradicting securities and insecurities,
interests and disinterests, beliefs and doubts
could somehow translate into this common
uncommon affection should be as impossible
as walking to the moon. But instead, I love him.

When everybody knows you, it is easy
to think that nobody will ever really know you.
With the boy before Daniel, I could only feel
the limits. I found myself cordoning off parts of me,
saying so much less than I wanted to say.
When Daniel came into my life, the doors
inside me were still locked. I wanted to be
careful. I think our first true recognition
was our mutual hesitation, our own need to be
gradual. I liked him a lot, and was sure
it wouldn't last. I couldn't believe in it
because I was afraid to damage my faith.
Every time you love someone, you put not just
your faith in them, but your faith in everything
to the test. I didn't think I was ready for that.

On our fourth date, something changed.
Impossible to fully describe, possible
to tell. We went to a movie, and as soon
as the theater went dark, all I was aware of
was him next to me. I looked out the corner
of my eye and thought he was transfixed
by the movie. I wanted to touch him, to hold
his hand, but had no way to be sure
if it was the right thing to do. Slowly I inched
my hand towards him, right to the edge
of my seat. For a moment, I found nothing but
air. Then, gently, the side of his hand
touched the side of my hand. We both looked
down and realized we had each done
the same thing. We were equally scared
and equally longing. Somehow we knew that
my palm would turn and his palm would hover,
until we were ready for that touch, that
breathing through fingertips, that closeness
that can only come when you give it.

It has been a year now. The most understandable
thing in the world should be how minutes lead to
hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make
a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be
surprising. A year seems too monumental for us
to have reached, and at the same time too small
to contain all the minutes and hours and days
we've had together. We set each month down
like a marker beside the road, small anniversaries
with the feeling of always moving forward.

It took me a while to get used to this.
There were so many other people in my life.
I had spent all of my time listening,
learning the longings we all have in common.
I never took the time to hear them in myself
until I heard them speaking to him.
That desire for desire, that hope
for hope, the possibility of everything
truly possible. I had so many friends,
so many nods and conversations,
so many things I'd always wanted
to say to someone.

Twelve markers beside the road.
His shoelaces always on the verge
of being untied; a Pez dispenser
bought after curfew in a vast supermarket;
the pair of pants I was wearing when he first
took them off; a photo of the two of us
balanced on the seesaw in our park;
the check that caused us to scream
in argument over whose turn it was
to pay; a box of cigarettes that lasted;
the glow of the dashboard lights
on his face as he slept on my shoulder;
a mix of songs that have the words
“All I Want” in the title; the notebook I keep
of our ticket stubs; the valentine
he made by drawing a heart on his palm;
his name in my handwriting;
my name in his.

These things do not matter except
that they matter to us.
We have given them meaning
in the same way that we have given
each other meaning.

It took me ten months to know
we would make it to a year.
Most songs that begin with “All I Want”
end with “Is You”—it took me
a few verses, but eventually I got there.

How do you commemorate a year?
A paper anniversary, but we are
the words written down, not the paper.
If I could, I would give him
a lime-green couch, a cabin by a lake,
a fireworks display, an orchard of butterflies,
and the certainty that I love him.

There is certainty in a ring.
The non-ending, the non-beginning.
The ongoing.
The way it holds on to you
not because it's been fastened
or stretched or adhered.
It holds on
because it fits.

I told him I was going to the city
to see a show with my grandmother.

But instead I walked from shop to shop
looking among the glass-case rows
until I found the claddagh,
the two hands, the heart,
and I knew there was no better way
to say what I meant to say
about what he meant to me.

I wasn't thinking of marriage, just commitment.
I wasn't thinking of forever, just reveling in now.
We don't know yet how long we're meant to be—
there are so many obstacles down the road.
But there is also possibility; the ring marks the realm
of possibility.

There are times when we are sharing a pillow
that I feel such joy, bewildering joy.

Our anniversary is a Friday
and I am nervous all through school.
People know it's a big day, and they celebrate.
I guess Daniel and I have
talked about it enough that they know
the exact date, and most of the details.
I feel the ring in my pocket,
marker of my anticipation
for tonight, for beyond tonight.
Can he sense the tiny added weight
in my pocket? I don't think
we will ever want to know each other
that well, beyond surprise.

Years into days.
Days into hours.
Hours into minutes.
Minutes into moments.
Moments into possibility.

I catch him breaking into my locker,
filling it with birds in flight,
copied from photographs that were copied
from life; later I will see
there is a poem on the back of each wing.
Poems that are not about us,
but are about trees and teacups,
fields and glances. Not about us,
but about the things we hold dear.
The moments we both collect
by living our lives, together and alone.
Rearranged alphabets, dream-remnant wonder,
the seat of our love. I pretend
I don't see him kneeling there,
my own scotch-tape sweetheart.
I walk wide in my happiness
until I find the hall empty, Daniel's affection
waiting to be opened.

I spend the day withholding,
not giving him a thing
but thanks. He says I look
like someone holding flowers
behind his back. I offer my hands,
smile at their emptiness, feel
the ring pulse in my pocket,
half-expecting it to glow
like I do.

Daniel looks a little bit happy and a little bit
afraid, not that I've forgotten, but that
it might not mean as much to me, that today
will betray our unequal affections.
We have never figured out whether I need
to be more reassuring or if he just needs
reassurances too much. We both try
to readjust our settings to make it
okay. He trusts me but doesn't always
trust our love or himself. I hand him
my invisible bouquet of flowers, tell him
to wait and see, see and wait.

I have no plan. After school,
I lead him to my car, holding his hand
as we walk through the parking lot,
not brave or crazy, just in love.
I walk around to his side of the car
to unlock his door, open it for him.
He asks me where we're going

and I tell him that we'll be driving
through our story for a little bit.

After that fourth date, after our bodies
finally touched, we drove around for hours,
one hand on the steering wheel, the other
in his hand, gliding over his arm,
reaching in the headlight echo to feel
the curve of his face, his shoulder.
Pulling over to the side of the road
for that first blind, intimate kiss,
then talking past midnight as the hours
trickled away like miles. A great distance
covered, made familiar.

We cannot help but retrace those steps
as I drive without a plan. If we wanted to,
we could be in Montreal in eight hours
or Florida in a little over a day. We could
stop at dozens of houses and find our friends.
There are so many directions we could take,
but instead I keep us close. And as I do, I begin
to tell Daniel my version. I am taking him
back to the moment in art class that we first
noticed each other, I am telling him that
the whole time I was talking about the surrealists
I was wondering what it would be like
to run my hand down his back, to be able
to tell him the truth. I conjure our first date,
our second, our fourth. He tries to stop me.
As much as he seeks reassurance, he hates
being talked about. But I tell him this is a part of it,
what I want to give him on our anniversary.
I want him to know.

You think you know your possibilities.
Then other people come into your life
and suddenly there are so many more.

The whole time I've been talking, the radio
has remained silent. I've loaded the disc changer
with mixes set at random, so when I press play,
the result is a collage of our knowing references,
raspberry swirl and a case of you,
as cool as I am and galileo,
the places you have come to fear the most,
lucky denver mint, wonderwall,
all I want is you.

We live along to these songs,
sing our parts, split sometimes
into harmony and melody.
We watch our town recede, return
as I wind us through the streets,
down the roads, past the lanes.
I drive until the dimming of the day.

In the twilight, I lead us to the park
where not that long ago, I folded
a ring for him out of the cellophane
of a cigarette wrapper. I have seen it
in his drawer, in the esoteric
treasure-chest ashtray that holds
so many of our mementos. This time
I will give him a ring he can wear,
something that doesn't need to be protected
to last.

A year. A thousand kisses. And now
a thousand one, a thousand two.
There are so many other places
we could have ended up, but I have to believe
none of them would have felt this right.
All I want is you
is not entirely true.
I want so much more,
and with Daniel I think
I can get it. I tell him this,
I tell him
I love you,
which says everything
and is entirely true.