Sometimes Your Heart Is The Only Thing Worth Listening To.

Sometimes your heart is the only thing worth listening to.

Heartless Marissa Meyer

There are some things even poetry hesitates to remember.

The Intangible things 

“Thank you,” I manage. It is the first thing that comes to mind that is simple enough to get out without making a fool of myself. More than I already have anyway.

Jun just keeps staring at me with a look I cannot distinguish. Like they are searching me while feeling a million things too, the air between us seems to grow tense with that energy and so I feel the need to fill the growing silence.

“I-,” my voice falters, “I’m sorry.”

I am sorry. I repeat these words in my mind. Thank you, I am sorry. Again and again. I am sorry. Thank you. And I wonder if these two phrases find their place of rest in my mouth so easily and feel so natural on my lips because they are the most often used phrases of my vocabulary or because they are the only phrases that I know that can say everything that I need and more in less than 3 words.

Jun shakes their head.

“No, don't thank me,” a crease appears in their forehead. “Talk to me, tell me what’s wrong. What happened?”

I find myself shaking my head now. The pressure on my chest seems to return and I take a deep breath trying to stay calm.

Then their hand is on mine. Sliding over the surface of the counter till its weight is a welcome one over my fingers and I glance over at our two hands. Their’s, pale and light, mine, clammy and heavy. Always heavy. Every part of my carrying a wordless weight.

“Adam…” I drag my gaze over to them.

“It’s nothing,” I manage.

They look at me with a million things words cannot hold.

“Nothing.” They repeat.

“Nothing.” I try replying more convincingly wondering how they'll buy it if even I can't.

“You're telling me you missed your scheduled flight home, disappeared in a foreign country, sent everyone on a wild goose chase looking for you, had Evelyn basically threaten war on France to sit on an abandoned kitchen’s flooded floor and have a panic attack-- for nothing?”

I swallow hard, shying away from the accusation and irritation in their voice. It didn’t sound too convincing to me either I had to admit.

“Evelyn did what…?”

Jun lets out a sigh and pitches the bridge of their nose with their free hand and their glasses lift up a little.

I feel a small pang in my chest and look back over at our hands and cautiously turn my hand over and run my thumb over their fingers so our hands are now palm to palm.

When I look back at Jun they are looking at me as they let out a small breath.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. It's instinctive. But not. Because I mean it. So much more than I’ve meant it before.

“I don’t need you to be sorry,” they beseech, “Adam just tell me what happened,”

“It’s nothing,” I say again but continue before they can interject.

“I swear.” I swallow hard. “I just wasn't ready to go home yet.”

The grip on my hand tightens a little. I can feel all the things we never talked about filling the spaces between my words and the pauses in our conversation.

I do not look away this time but instead look into their eyes. I find myself almost hoping they can read all the things I can never say simply by looking at me. I try to answer all the unspoken questions and I can tell they are trying to read them all. But we are only human. Only two mismatched people in a flooded kitchen in France. Only a boy servant and a foreign ambassador trying to understanding things words will not allow. Like a language barrier that we are trying to overcome but life does not mean us to.

Jun chews on their lip tensely and thoughtfully before finally speaking.

“I know I didn’t ask you a lot about...everything. I don’t know if that was the right move, or not,” their fingers run slow circles over the back of my hand.

“And I know there are a lot of things you can't say,” They shake their head.

“A lot of things you won’t say. I can only try to understand though I never really will. I know two weeks of conversations over tea in the middle of the night really isn't enough to get to know someone, or their life, or what they're going through,” They shift their weight.

“But Adam, I can’t help you unless you tell me something constructive. Tell me something. Anything. It will be confidential. I can get you help. I can talk to someone in human rights. The U.N., I can see if I can get you asylum somewhere.”

It is me shaking my head now retracting my hand. No. What don't they understand? This is what I didn't want. No. They can't dangle this in front of me. This possibility of the impossible.

“You have to talk to me. Adam, look at me.”

“No.” I am pressing my back into the edge of the counter behind me till it is digging into my spine.

“No. No. NO. I can't. I- I just can’t. You can’t promise me those things. They won't let me go. They'll find some technicality. Some loophole. They find out. They always do.”

I think of everything Evelyn is capable of. All the said and unsaid threats. All the things she’s done and is yet to do.

“I can’t. No, I--”

“Adam--”

“NO! Okay? No.”

“Adam, anything. Please. Let me help you.”

--Excerpt from A Woman’s World Chapter: Leaving France--

We act as though we know each other. We do not. We act as though we need each other. We do not. We act as though we love each other. We do not. But perhaps I like your company. And perhaps I crave existence.

Everything I Never Told You

I thought this was Arthur Blackthorn and honestly...it still works...

Arthur: Vaccinate your fucking kids.

He smelt of coffee and cologne, and I did not mind at all.

All The Things I Never Told You