in august, towards the end of it, i reminded my mom i was going to santa fe again. she asked me if that was a good idea considering how unwell i was and how badly i was doing, mentally and physically. are you sure that’s a good idea? can you postpone? there’s also a really bad storm that is supposed to hit new mexico, you know. as if my presence was that expansive, as if i was going to reach one corner of new mexico to the other. i did know but i didn’t really care if a hurricane stranded me in santa fe for a week or a month. the rare practical side of me quickly calculated how much that would realistically cost if it were to happen but i decided it didn’t really matter. none of it really mattered because i just wanted to be somewhere that wasn’t here. i felt like my apartment smelled like a sickness. not really, but i could smell a faint sourness from my self pity and the faint lingering scent of skin and sweat that seemed to permeate my bed sheets, no matter how many times i washed them.
i always clean my apartment before i leave for a period of time, even if it’s just for a night or two. i think it’s something i picked up from my mom and ethan. they always clean their homes before they go anywhere. so i spent the afternoon before the flight vacuuming, dusting, not remembering where i hid the windex, scrubbing the walls of my shower, doing my dishes and putting them away, emptying the refrigerator of produce i had lofty goals for but ultimately let spoil until it became putrid and wet in their green compostable bags. i don’t know why i feel this irrational and compulsive need for my apartment to look perfect before i leave. maybe because when i come back home, i like the illusion that everything is where it should be. everything is beautiful.
i thought a lot about adderall as we landed in albuquerque. the feeling of being jittery and empty with my heart racing was something i missed and something i felt such a deep lacking of. instead, i feel an insatiable hunger. i am fucking starving. i feel as if i hadn’t eaten in days and that’s what made me feel the most worried and sick. as the plane jolted and skidded on the runway, viv’s hand in mine, i thought about how at the lowest point, when i felt like there was no other option besides not existing, my mom told me i had to continue because if i didn’t, she wouldn’t either. it was then i realized that i am most likely the biggest source of my mom’s heartache.
we landed late and i stood outside the car rental kiosk smoking a cigarette in the night’s dry heat while viv sorted out the car. i kept an eye on her as she signed the paperwork and even though it was still 80 degrees, i had goosebumps up and down my arms. something in the air felt different but maybe it’s because i felt so different than the last time we were here even though it was only 3 weeks ago. the promise of santa fe being healing felt less realistic and i suddenly felt the heaviness of it all - all being everything- drape around me. the idea of escapism is so stupid when i think about it plainly but i can’t help feeling like i want to escape to somewhere, to something and even worse: to someone. when i was 19 or 20, i can’t remember which age now, i packed a single bag of random clothing that didn’t make sense, wrote a note telling my mom i had to leave and i ran away from home for months. to say i escaped sounds more romantic but that would be a lie. i ran away and it was ugly and heartbreaking in more ways than i could have prepared myself for. but that’s just what i do. i’m not scared to confront ugliness but even so, i run. even when i am here, i am always escaping.
we spent the afternoon by the pool. it was cloudy and overcast, still warm but the magic of feeling the sweltering heat was missing. it was different this time. i was wearing a cheap white bikini that didn’t fit me anymore. if i moved a certain way, my tits would spill out and the brownness of my nipples showed starkly against the greying white of the bikini top. a part of me didn’t care, the pool was empty anyway. no one would really care or pay attention - there were a random assortment of people at the pool. none were very interesting. they all looked the same. generic copies of each other with little differences here and there. no one intriguing enough to really pay attention to and i doubt they paid much attention to us either. viv and i lazed on the pool chairs, only half invested in our books that we picked up earlier that day at a desolate shopping center outside the downtown area. there was nothing to really do except to just be there, together, lying on pool chairs, sipping on a watery margarita, read one page from our books and close them only to read another page thirty minutes later, observe people with a slightly judgmental eye, look at each other with knowing glances, sit in silence and quietly understand that maybe this isn’t what we came here for but this is what we were being given.
i noticed him almost immediately. i couldn’t tell you why. maybe it was because of the way he was sitting, his legs were long and his ankle gracefully rested over his other knee to form a perfect 90 degree angle or maybe, maybe, it was the way his incredibly unremarkable t-shirt seemed to drape on his lean frame with so much ease and nonchalance that it looked strangely exotic and interesting to me.