a conversation, part 4

"is this it?" she asked me, hands on her hips. she stared off into the distance; what was there, i may never know.

"of course not," i answered. "this is never it."

"then what is it?"

"something else."

"that's a cop-out answer," she protested, after a moment. i couldn't tell if she was pretending to be frustrated. she may just have been tired.

it started to rain. a drop here, a drop there at first. then everything opened up. we raced back to the car, but neither of us won. we hadn't even gone that far, and we were soaked.

"ugh, my feet are filthy," she griped. her toes were caked with the gray from the gravel's bed, her flip-flops more of a hazard than an impediment to injury. my sneakers were wet, and dirty from a couple years of more-or-less constant use, but i had escaped that fate.

she wrung out her hair. "so what do we do now?"

i watched the rain run in rivulets down the windshield. "i don't really feel like going anywhere, do you?"

"i've got nowhere else to be."

"that's not an answer to the question i asked."

"no." i couldn't tell if she was merely agreeing with my statement, or saying she didn't want to move. i decided to let inertia do its work.

"then what do we do?" her voice startled me.

"i don't know. whatever."

another sigh. "it's like getting caught with the wrong shoes."

"what?"

"it's like when you're out somewhere, and you get caught with the wrong pair of shoes. you can't do anything about it, or it wouldn't make sense anyway, so you just keep doing what you're doing. even if your feet are wet, or your toes hurt, or you look completely out of place."

"are you saying we're like a fashion mistake?"

"no, but i'm saying we're not above making one."

"hm?"

"usually, you fit me like an old pair of shoes, the ones you wear every day. but sometimes, you need to dress up a little. it's not throwing away your old shoes, it's just wearing another pair . . ."

"this metaphor is quickly becoming useless. it could mean too many things."

"i'm sorry." a breath. "i just think, we don't always know what to do with each other, y'know? we usually do, but sometimes we don't. it happens to everybody; it doesn't mean anything."

"everything means something."

"but it doesn't have to." she put her feet on the dash. "sometimes, things just are."

my pause was cold. it's a truth about reality that i don't like, so i resist admitting it. "so what are you saying we should do about it?"

"i haven't said anything, yet," she pointed out. "i think we either need to work harder, finish figuring things out, or learn to forgive each other for not being perfect. probably both."

"i think we need to forgive ourselves, more than each other," i offered, hesitantly, knowing my own medicine is the most bitter.

"either way," she said, "we have a lot of learning to do."

i turned the key in the ignition. "that," i said, "sounds like the essence of every problem. milkshakes?"

"sure," she answered, and put her feet back on the floor. we drove back the way we'd come.