a conversation, part 2

i flicked on the blinker and changed lanes. i was passing everyone, but at least i was being consistent.

"i'm not what you wanted, am i?" i said slowly, passing a grandma in a red Geo Prizm.

she leaned on her elbow on the doorframe and raked the fingers of her right hand into her hair. she let out a sigh that didn't shudder as much as i might have hoped.

"what are you talking about?" she asked the window, in a voice smaller than i thought her body would allow. "you're perfect."

"do everyone a favor," i began, gripping the wheel briefly as if it could capture my frustration, "and never saddle anyone with that responsbility."

"it's not a responsibility," she protested. "you don't even try."

"i try really. fucking. hard." i could have measured my words with calipers they were so precise. "i try so hard to be nothing less for you."

"congratufuckinlations," she offered, impassive.

there was a pause.

"consider your efforts successful."

"i'm not anything more or less than i am," i tried, grimacing at the tautology. "no matter what i try to be, i'm only human. so is everyone else."

"you really believe that?" it was a sore subject, born of too many nights of too much pot and too little sleep. your philosophy at sunrise is inevitably different from your philosophy at dusk. i gritted my teeth.

"i believe it enough. Occam's Razor and all that."

"very well. anyway, regardless. you are what i wanted, whether i knew it or not. i think."

"am i what you want now?"

"yes." she said it too quickly and too loudly to be sincere. people only talk that way when they are trying to convince themselves of something. she heard my thoughts: " . . . i don't know."

another pause. "what did you mean, whether you knew it or not?"

she took a deep breath, "i just . . ." released it, drew another one. "i see parts of you that match up with parts of me that i didn't know were there. it's like we're every possible set of people; we interact in almost every possible way. you fill expectations i didn't realize i had, or that i gave up on, and a lot of them you fill in ways i didn't think anyone could." then a change, tired: "see? perfect."

"so i'm not what you thought you wanted. techni--"

"no. but that doesn't matter." with no hesitation, in an even tone. tell her you love her, and it will all be okay. "didn't you ever get that christmas present you wouldn't have thought to ask for, and then couldn't live without?"

we drove past a white cadillac, the newer kind that tries not to look like a cadillac. an older man and his (older) wife were inside, not talking to each other.

a blue mustang with a single driver whizzed by in the carpool lane and cut me off. i honked apathetically once, glad for the distraction but unconcerned. it didn't mean my heart wasn't racing.

i spoke her name over the steering wheel, trailed off, and shook my head. she decided not to notice.