12:22 p.m. | 2005-01-23
In All Honesty
I have this freckle on my toe. It's on my right foot on my second toe. It sits just behind the toe nail and is a nice dark brown color. A chesnut if you will. I have always loved it, referred to it as Fred and remembered its local just so in case I even needed to be grounded, I always knew one thing was there.
I remember being hit by that van and looking down at my toe just praying that the freckle was still there. I actually wiped the blood from it and made sure. It was. It survived. Fred and I persevered.
I was staring at that freckle tonight at a party. Like one of those slow moving scenes where I'm all dressed up and staring at my foot and the entire world around me is having fun, the camera parting the crowd to focus in on me, all sound leaving the film except one slow song.
I jolted back into reality, the Black Eyed Peas in the background, as I heard my name being called. He grabbed my hand and tugged me up from the couch, hugging me tightly and starting to sway with my body. I went out again, I felt him step on my toe a little and I gasped just a bit, trying to see down to my foot. The next minutes were a blur of him grabbing my hand and tugging me upstairs and then downstairs and then to the basement, the entire time my eye trying just to focus on that toe.
Eventually we got downstairs where the boys' bodies were thumping against the large dance mat, an intricate lacing of moves I have only seen in videos from the 80's. I fell to the couch and let loose of his hand putting my foot up in the air a little. I sighed and knew what I was doing was silly. I looked back up at him, looking down at me and smiling, turning to watch the dancers again his face haloed by light. I knew that I should love this boy. I knew that this new boy was nice and conservative and cool. I knew he liked me. I knew he could talk well and eat well and just do everything well. I knew his saab would take him places.
My heart sank a little as I never was one to listen to logical thought.
I slipped off the side of the couch, carefully climbing my way up the stairs with as little sound as I could, escaping the mob of the first floor, enough to get out to the front door and almost gasp with the excite of fresh air. I glanced down at my freckle on my toe. I walked from the front door to my car, looking back only once, just as I sped past, to see his face out the front door, looking for mine.
It's a shame, really.
