forget what we're told, part 2

December 7, 2083 - Corbin Gray is 32. (Emmy Masuko is 31.)

* Warnings: #1 definitely NSFW/children. #2 Unbelievable slowness of time, lol! I know it was like June that he read the letter in our time, but in his time, it's only been two weeks ;) #3 Also, long and text-heavy. *

Soundtrack: "Chasing Cars," by Snow Patrol.

This time of year, while everyone else is still working, Corbin sits home in his pajamas with a few dozen final exams to grade. He doesn't have to be anywhere until his 7:00 pm yoga class at the Lotus, so he wakes up slowly with a cup of coffee. Amelia turned him onto the coffee. He never really liked it before, too bitter, though the bitterness is starting to grow on him. It's colder here in the winters than anywhere else he's lived before, and the warmth, even if bitter, is comforting.

When he's not grading finals, he takes some time to pick at his dissertation. This spring he finishes his third degree, a doctorate in exercise science. And while he's trying to write about the use of Eastern medicine in sports injuries, he can't help but think about Leila's letter. All he can do is analyze the structure of her words, think about the undertones and meanings. He doesn't need to look at it anymore, it's committed to memory. He's been through the whole thing so many times, and what he's established is that the letter itself just doesn't compute.

But there's truth in everything, and there's truth here too - she said that if this was about her, the decision would be so easy. She said she didn't expect him to understand, and she's right, he doesn't. He's never been the center of so many lives. She said she was glad to have known what it was, that she did love him. And what he gets from all of that is that both of their lives are chained to this promise she made ten years ago.

But then there's another option: it could all be a lie. It could be a soft way to let him down. Maybe she never loved him that much? Maybe she does want her husband after all, and their time together was nothing but a passing dalliance. Sometimes people lie. A lot of times, people lie. That thought hadn't even crossed his mind until now, and as it finally does, he never knew such sadness could exist. Too much sadness to even believe.

And with all this time on his hands, he somehow manages to forget to pay his rent. It just slips his mind completely. In fact, he's only vaguely aware it's even December now, so his rent is six days overdue.

It's not like he doesn't have the money for it. Thanks to Amelia, he's got money all over the place. Money in this account and that, money on one stock or another, and money in his checking account and some cash on hand too. He doesn't even know how much money he has, or how many accounts. He never really cared about it in the first place. But he did mean to pay his rent. It just slipped his mind, while he was busy thinking about everything else.

***

He could date, but he finds it mostly disappointing. First dates are the worst. He already knows from the moment he meets her, before they even speak, that it could only taste bitter. Even Claire has stopped trying to set him up with all those nice young law interns. So many nice girls, pretty girls, sweet girls. Maybe some day, but not yet.

So he's focusing on other things, or at least trying. He's making new friends instead, and it fills just the right void. These new friends have lived and been burned like he has. He brings old friends to meet his new friends, though he wonders if maybe that was a bad idea. They tease Justin, "How are you old enough to be married and left already?"

Sheldon says, "At least I was married fourteen years before my wife left me." Berjes chuckles along with him.

"She didn't leave you," Corbin offers, after the laughter has died down. "She's just doing something else right now."

Corbin can't quite sympathize with these men. All of their wives left them, full of courage and the will to live the life they really want to live, and he only wishes Leila could do the same. Though he can't help but feel responsible for having advised Justin to let Keri go. It was the right thing to do, or at least it seemed so at the time. And he'll say it again now. "If you held her back, she would only grow to resent you."

But was it the right answer? It's his job to know all the answers and the longer he lives, the more he discovers he doesn't know. What did any of them know? There's a lot of negative energy in this room. There are a lot of dark auras. But he gets it, he identifies. He'd like to study it, this reverse karma, how all of this negativity feeds off of negativity and breeds something that almost feels like belonging.

But this is better than a first date, simply sitting here, rubbing arms with this beautiful woman, even if it's just accidentally. Her name is Heather, and Sheldon has wanted a piece of her for as long as he's been playing poker here. So it will end at just rubbing arms, because he has no intentions of stepping in on a new friend's girl. There are certain morals to uphold here. And yet he's a hypocrite all at once, hopelessly in love with a married woman. The letter didn't bring him closure, it only brought him more torment. And he's no different than these bitter, angry men, spilling their complaints out onto the poker table.

"I think it seems cowardly," he says out loud. The truth comes out of his mouth and it shocks him. He wishes she'd left her husband.

Half of them look up. Nobody knows who he's talking about but Justin. Then he feels put on the spot, to elaborate, to say something wise. There's nothing. He has no answers.

He didn't know what he wanted then, but right now, he knows what he wants. He wants more time to listen to her talk and steal a breath of her shampoo. Twenty minutes, three times a week, of that gap-toothed smile and sunburst of ideas. He wants more.

Sometimes he wrecks his brain trying to figure out what it all could mean, that the one single woman he ever wanted to share his life with is already sharing her life with someone else? If you believe in the universe, if you believe in the workings of fate and destiny, is this a glitch in the program?

His phone rings. He's since stopped hoping it would be Leila. It's Emmy. "What you doing, baby?"

"Nothing," he says. "I'll be right over."

He likes to drive. He should have guessed it already, but he really loves to drive. He learned to drive at sixteen just like everybody else, but he never liked it then, borrowing his dad's truck, begging for a turn. He never had his own car until now, and it's amazing. The open road, the freedom. His car is modest and energy efficient, so he doesn't have to feel guilty about his carbon footprint. Sure, he has two perfectly good, strong legs. They get him places. But the roads stretch out forever, and there's so many places he hasn't seen yet.

Jodie answers the door at Emmy's place, mumbling a bothered, "Oh, you."

She's already turned to head back to her computer desk when she shouts up the stairs. "Emmy, it's for you!" Then she's back to her work at the computer. He closes the door behind him.

Emmy wastes no time getting his clothes off. She wasn't wearing most of hers already.

She's lively in bed, livelier than most of the women he's had, vocal and dramatic. She's an actress; she puts on a good show. If she had a chandelier above her bed, she'd probably want to hang from it. If she happened to have handcuffs in her side table drawer, he'd probably be tied up in them. But she doesn't have handcuffs - not tonight anyway - but only flavored condoms, a palm-sized metallic vibrator, a blindfold, and self-heating cinnamon massage oil. It's all entertaining, if not draining, though her show doesn't really leave much room for his precision or skill. He figures she must have done this on film, in her youth, though he doesn't ask and she doesn't tell.

But sometimes he finds himself hopeful for the nights, like tonight, when she's just kind of tired, and lets him run the show instead.

When they're finished, she rolls off with a satisfied sigh. When she's finished sighing, she says, "Oh, you cut off your hair."

He never thought a second about his hair before, and suddenly it made him feel silly. It was too idealistic. He wondered about what it meant, all that hair? Did it mean anything at all?

"You know," she says. "When a girl cuts her hair, it means she's struggling with her identity."

"You cut your hair every month," he says.

"I'm an actress," she says. "That's allowed. But you, you're all right out there in the open."

"Like an open book?" he says.

"Yeah," she says, sitting up. "Whatever."

He wonders how a woman so open and friendly could feel so vacant, but at the same time, he thinks that's why he keeps coming back to see her. Because she doesn't feel like all those nice, sweet first date girls. Her detachment hits just the right spot.

She talks a lot after sex. But when she talks, it's not really to him, but at him, just because he happens to be here in the room, like wanting to hear her own voice against the empty walls. Hearing her own voice in the empty void, does that help? He wonders if she talks to herself when no one is here.

He isn't allowed to stay over. There's only one of her boyfriends who's allowed to stay over. She talks about him sometimes, Cyrus. What makes it happen, he wonders, that one person clicks with another, or doesn't? All these random configurations, what are the chances that two just happen to fit? What are the chances that when they do fit, it might even work out?

He tunes out, as she chatters on about him, finally sighing at the end. "The prettiest thing I ever saw."

"I mean, not that you're not pretty, baby," she says, turning half to him. "You're lovely."

Corbin laughs softly.

"You get it?"

He nods. Yes, he does. They aren't lonely. There's a difference between lonely and empty, and the difference is gaping.

She yawns. "Mmmm, baby, you wore me out. When you go, if she's not still up, will you lock the door?"

That's his cue.

There are too many moments. Far too many. All those twenty minutes, over and over again add up to so much, so many memories. More than he could count. For a time he was swimming in them, twenty minutes of her, added up into infinity, like it would never end.

He never thought about it ending. He should have, but he never did. In his mind, these moments stretched out forever, because that would be how long it took to learn all there was to know about her.

The driving, he likes it a lot. It's a good time to think. It's a good time to fill his mind with these memories, while in reality, he's just in his car, in the cold, in the dark. He wishes he'd have thought of it sooner. There were so many things he wishes he'd thought of sooner.

Tonight, there's one memory in particular filling his mind, one single span of twenty minutes, after yoga class. They sat side by side in the courtyard, the high vined walls keeping their secrets. "Tell me something," Leila would often ask him. "Where were on this day, four years ago?"

"No, it's boring," he said. "I want to know about you."

Their feet stretched out toward the pond, the chlorinated bubbles popping up and spraying their toes with mist. She had a tomato-red bra strap falling down off her shoulder. It only made him think about taking it off entirely. But instead, he picked up the thin strap and slid it back onto her shoulder. At his touch, she inhaled - that little gasp, so quick, so soft. He would keep touching her for the rest of his life just to hear that sound. She closed her eyes at it. They were close, not to touching, but almost, where he could feel the aura of warmth around her body. They were so close that when she turned again to look at him, he could see the light amber hidden in the center of her rich brown eyes. He said, "I want you to tell me about what book you were reading last night."

She laughed, and reached out to push at his arm, the tips of her fingers not ever leaving his skin, but instead falling down the length of it, a haphazard caress. It was a few seconds before she realized she was actually touching him, and drew back. Then smiled. "Great Expectations," she said. "My fourth time through, now that's boring."

"Fourth time," he said. "No, that couldn't be more fascinating." She doesn't know anyone else who reads, or at least not things like novels. Her best friend reads cookbooks and gossip magazines. Her husband reads hunting catalogs for new fishing gear. Corbin knows she likes to read, classics mostly, and now he knows she reads them several times. She told him she keeps journals, that she goes through them like water. She's kept journals since she was fourteen, but she never keeps them once they're finished. When they're full, she burns them, like she could send her thoughts up into the sky, mixed into the ash. He asked her, "What do you love about that one?"

"I love how each time, it's the same story, but there's so much new to discover."

"Like you could never take it all in at once, even if you tried," he said.

"Yes," she says, grinning that perfect gap-toothed smile. "Now you, four years ago?"

He paused to recount the time, a short trip he took in the middle of his fall studies. "China," he said. She'd never been to China, he already knew. So he told her everything, from wading through wet rice paddy fields to the cities covered in smog. She listened with a soft wonder in her eyes, her head tilted, like she wanted to rest it on his shoulder, like his stories were a lullaby.

"I'd love to show you some day," he said.

It stopped them both.

What did he mean by that? Steal her away, a weekend excursion? What was this to him? He never thought about it making a difference, and even if it would have, it's taken this space of losing her to realize what it was he wanted after all. He never got to say it. What he wanted was to show her everything. He wanted to spend the rest of his life showing her everything there was to see. He wanted these spaces of twenty minutes to add and multiply, exponentially until infinity.

But her eyes were wide and filled with such hopelessness. It was an impossibility, and this was their sad compromise.

"You just did," she said. "You showed me. I could see it."

*******

(footnotes: Leila // needs some time // and wrote a letter)

notes: Oh, and Blake's wife didn't leave him, by the way, since that was the topic of the night. He just happened to be out with them, and I'd already gotten the shots before that thread emerged in the story. Poor guy, happily married and around all that negativity, lol!