Ghost

I sit in my car, watching him. His sleek, urban look is startling when compared to the other shoppers. His dark features are sharply contrasted by the pale blandness of the Americans. He has changed in the past two years, and yet, nothing has changed at all.

Just looking at him I feel my breath come slower, shallower. My pulse pounds faster and faster until I remind myself that I am looking at the man and dreaming of the ghost. The man walking so confidently in front of my car holds no captivation for me. The being with the power to make my legs weak and my eyes dilated is the ghost of him – a ghost composed of memories, dreams, and hopes.

It had started in 2003, one warm April afternoon. It was the birthday party of a mutual friend and the house contained countless cups of lemonade, plates of half-eaten appetizers, and scores of lawn chairs filled with stuffed and contented people. The scraggly trees in the backyard provided some shade but most guests sat under the white tent. Occupied chairs lined the railings of the deck, chipping the cracked paint.

I was watching him then, just like I am now. Only then he didn’t know I existed. I was just another white face in a slow moving current of guests. But that day I spoke to him.

A rousing game of softball had been the birthday wish and after being granted, the new desire was for the cake. Stoically we march from the field to the kitchen, the caboose being he and I.

The topic of conversation sits in some undiscovered region of my mind but I remember vividly his interest. Perhaps I was different than the others. I knew with assurance that I was and knew he was discovering what I had known for many months.

It was fun to be pursued, delightful to be special, but heavenly to be loved. The glance from under his eyes, the small smile telling me that he knows where I am, and the delightful nothings he whispers are everything.

I asked myself, could he be it? Could he be the one? My fifteen-year-old heart said, “Yes, this is love.” And yet, I held myself back, knowing that the ecstasy of the moment could shift into the most horrendous of heartbreaks. Something cautioned me and I tried to walk the middle. It was a balancing act between my dreams and my reality.

The illusion was revealed. Yet somehow the end was spoiled. The descent into the wild, raging emotions of abandonment and betrayal were foreshadowed. I pieced together the puzzle too quickly and could only watch in the purest of anguish as the end played out.

My absence and subsequent ramifications were predictable. Like an avalanche the end began slowly and then with increasing speed roared into the valley of my emotions. I had the early warnings but I was too enmeshed to escape. Disaster was quick and relief not forthcoming.

Chips and scratches, then cuts and tears lead to the massacre of my heart. The weeks without contact followed by a casual sighting. I was told, “I never stopped caring for you.” The words were a weak salve for my embittered heart. The trust had been misplaced but the dream hadn’t died. The man ceased to exist and change like a living human, he became a ghost, my constant companion. My thoughts dived into the well-worn groove he had worn in my mind.

Today I wonder if I ever truly knew him. How else could he have deserted me when I had the most need of him? The question repeating over and over and over again: why? Why? But the question I want to put before him, demand an answer is “Do you know the damage you have caused?”

I shift my car into gear as he disappears into the store. Slowly I drive off, knowing that his ghost sits in my front seat. If I reached over to touch I am certain my fingers would find flesh. But I keep my hands on the wheel and my eyes looking ahead.