That Night
by
George Nevgodovsky
We were slow dancing barefoot on your living room rug. I can’t recall the music, but I remember our wine glasses clinking on the coffee table. A passing train. The floor trembling underneath.
It wasn’t supposed to go beyond physical. Those were the rules—the ones you and your husband had agreed on. But that night, I felt something shift, and I know you felt it, too, because you texted me the next day to end it. You needed me to disappear, to make the ground stop shaking.
You went north – far away from your house by the train tracks. But I still see the pictures you post – photos of you and him and, eventually, the kids. Every scarf you knit and every view at the end of every hike. I zoom in, look at you, and wonder if you’re looking back at me. Searching for signs. Coded messages in your eyes.
What would’ve happened if I told you how I felt that night? Would the earth have opened up and swallowed us whole? Or would we have floated into space?
I overthink everything you post online, wondering why you two aren’t hugging by the lake, why you look so lonely with your
daughter on the porch steps, and why you look like you haven’t been sleeping. Maybe you wake in the night and still feel the ground shake.
Maybe we’re still dancing around the same thought.
It wasn’t supposed to go beyond physical. Those were the rules—the ones you and your husband had agreed on. But that night, I felt something shift, and I know you felt it, too, because you texted me the next day to end it. You needed me to disappear, to make the ground stop shaking.
You went north – far away from your house by the train tracks. But I still see the pictures you post – photos of you and him and, eventually, the kids. Every scarf you knit and every view at the end of every hike. I zoom in, look at you, and wonder if you’re looking back at me. Searching for signs. Coded messages in your eyes.
What would’ve happened if I told you how I felt that night? Would the earth have opened up and swallowed us whole? Or would we have floated into space?
I overthink everything you post online, wondering why you two aren’t hugging by the lake, why you look so lonely with your
daughter on the porch steps, and why you look like you haven’t been sleeping. Maybe you wake in the night and still feel the ground shake.
Maybe we’re still dancing around the same thought.