I was feeling confident that morning. What I didn’t tell you was that it was a rare feeling. That usually when I talk to new people my hands shake uncontrollably and I stare at their feet. That though I have many great things to say, they seldom make it as far as my mouth.
What I did say was, ‘Hi, I’ve seen you here a few times before. I’d like to know what you think about the librarian’s choice to favor nineteenth century literature over the contemporary stuff. Over what is happening in the here and now.’
You giggled and asked, ‘What is happening?’, and I turned red, and didn’t say, ‘Would you like to have coffee with me sometime?’ I just walked away, but then you shouted, ‘Hey, here’s my number, weirdo.’ And I said ok and wrote it down.
Like it was so simple.
What I didn’t tell you was that it had taken me two months of seeing you there. Thirty-one rehearsals of saying ‘Hi,’ just to try and almost fail to ask you out.
Two months after we started dating, I told my mother that I liked you, instead of telling her that I loved you, because I thought it was too soon to tell anyone that, let alone my mother. She is very judgmental about love, and sometimes cynical about these kinds of things.
So I kept it simple.
I could have told her that when you smiled, you reminded me of the actresses in the silent films that I would watch when I was alone. Or that I like following your cocoa butter scent when I lose you in the world that has become our sheets. That for the longest time, I didn’t think I could tell myself, ‘Hey I’m allowed to feel like this,’ or ‘Hey, this is and can be okay.’
I just kept it simple.
We heard what the first doctors and nurses had to say. That if we chose to have our baby that there would only be complications. After seeking a second and third opinion, we heard that first opinion two more times. After hearing the ‘We need to let her go’ that you allowed to escape and hide in every corner of our home, I chose to say nothing.
That was simple.
What I didn’t say was that we could’ve found our way through. That at the time I couldn’t see your hurt because of what you said. That maybe if we spoke with one mouth, we could say the same thing. That coming back from this was possible, even though that’s not how I felt.
Maybe I could’ve said, ‘I love you.’
Not so simple.
What I didn’t tell you is that I know it’s in the saying. That in the saying, I could have said enough. I always wanted to tell you that it is the saying that’s given me the most trouble.
But I’m really trying to tell you now.
Sacha Bissonnette is an Afro-Trinidadian, French Canadian short story writer from Ottawa, Canada. He is a reader for the Wigleaf top 50 series 2021 . He was nominated for Best Small Fictions 2021 and was longlisted for Wigleaf Top 50 2021. His story Glass Birds was shortlisted for the Masters Review flash fiction prize and was a Mythic Picnic short fiction prize finalist. It is currently nominated for a 2022 pushcart prize. Find Sacha on Twitter at @sjohnb9 and at www.sachajohnbissonnette.com.
Photo by Tom Hermans on Unsplash.
