I sat at the table, eyes to the ceiling, concentrating on what I'd write next. When it came to me, I furiously scribbled down the word. Out of the corner of her eye, she was curiously incensed:
"What did you just write?"
I quickly yanked the paper out of sight in hasty guilt of her always dreaded and feared gaze, the curse of my liar's life.
"Nothing."
"WHAT DID YOU WRITE!"
"Nothing. Nothing at all."
She lunged at but missed the paper. "You wrote about me again, didn't you, you fucker?"
"Why would I do that?"
"Why indeed!" she deftly parries.
"Who am I? What do you care what I write?"
"You're nobody. Now show me that paper before I bite your head off."
"Feels like you already are."
"I have not yet begun to bite."
"What does it matter what I write? You have your own life. You don't need me."
"Never mind about what I need. Now I want to see that paper!"
"Jesus! How could it be that important to you! Hell, if I thought anything I wrote meant anything to you I wouldn't have the nerve to write it in the first place."
"Don't give me that crap. You write what you want whenever you want."
My cat dander was up. "I know you've convinced yourself of that but I live and die by you."
"I've seen no evidence of that."
"You didn't look in my heart."
"You'd need one first."
"Thanks..."
She stepped back, realizing she'd hurt me. She wasn't mad she hurt me, only that she misjudged whether or not she could. Now I held the moral high ground but she was still infuriated at my holding out. If I were anything I'd give her everything. I don't want her finding out I'm really nothing. She reads that note and she'll have all the proof she needs. She reads it and she loses any possible interest in me. At least this way I still have her attention despite the storm of her withering anger.
"I'm not responsible for your life," she said, folding her arms.
"I know that." That one hurt to get out. I really did want her to somehow make up for my insecurities. "But if I can make you angry enough you won't have to worry about my needing you. How can I ask for your time?"
"You're impossible. I don't know why I waste my breath. What was I thinking befriending you?"
She was thinking she was hoping to find out something about herself, what I really thought. To me she's a dream come true, a rare understanding of life that can't be taught or told; a childhood friend I finally got to meet. She knew I was hiding my feelings and wanted to crush me for it. I was drowning in guilt. Courage failed me as before. I so dearly wished to confess! But then she'd never speak to me again and that I couldn't take.
I slowly and deliberately walked over to the roaring fireplace and threw in the note. I looked down as I could not face her as she spoke.
"I don't ever want to see you again."
The hurt look in her face I'll never forget as I furtively glanced upward. From that moment forward I cannot hate myself enough. She hasn't talked to me now ten years on. I'm still pained by those three fatal words I threw away:
Lettuce
Napkins
Cheese
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Later she wrote this poetry bomb - and I was really confused:
Kuzureyoru Imo Se no yama no naka nareba
sara ni Yoshino no kawa to dani miji
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