95

Pulled onto 95 outside of Boston today and I was the only one on the road. It was one of those rare moments when you're by yourself in a place usually swollen with people and somehow you feel safe. It was a ghost town, and I noticed the trees and pavement and dirt and sky and leaves falling all around and for one moment, it was mine.

Pulled onto 95 outside of Boston today and hit a traffic jam. Red lights for miles, they reminded me of the Lite-Brite my sister and I used to play with. We'd fight over who got to punch the little bulbs through the patterned paper and who got the best designs. But then we'd ignore the patterns anyway and make our own images, hectic and clashing and perfect.

the people sitting beside me at the bookstore

Middle-aged woman, large patchwork bag slung over her shoulder. She smells like baby powder and milk and pulls a homemade muffin from her bag discretely. She sits and eats the muffin, staring vacantly at something above my shoulder, then leaves.

Old man in an oversized dress jacket. He's got a stack of history books piled high around him, like a fortress. He spends his time playing on his phone and calling his grandson, Jim. He wheezes into the phone and asks when he is expected for dinner, he is busy and might not make it.

Mother and son, bickering about how to pay for the damages to his car. Mother thinks he can sell his old guitars on Craigslist, son announces that Craigslist is the biggest scam in the world and only suckers go on it, everyone knows that. Son smells unbathed and mother wears too much perfume. They stay for hours, son watching YouTube on his laptop and mother interrupting to talk about his future, his potential. They leave empty cans and crumpled napkins on table.

Here.

The last time I saw her, she was 16 and had heavy hoop earrings that tugged dangerously on her earlobes when she spoke. She wore tight jeans and high heels in July, down by the waterfront where kids played frisbee and families biked past us, one after another whipping by. She was secretly engaged to a boy in the military; they were going to elope and move into an apartment on the base. She had no idea how beautiful she was.

Stood beside her in a coffee shop today, 200 miles from the waterfront where we last spoke. She is unmarried, and living in the town I left a year ago. She wraps herself in trendy oversized sweaters and sings in the choir at her local church. She still wears those big hoop earrings, but they don't pull on her earlobes like they used to. She is still beautiful, and she still doesn't know it.

Funny how we both found our way here, so far from home, she said. I was surprised by the thought of finding my way here, and wondered if I'd found anything at all.

The last time I saw her, the sun had just come out after three days of rain. It was summer in our city, the lake was wild before dark, and we both knew exactly where we wanted to be.