Unmadeup

Moth

He’s kissing me and I’m kissing him back. We’re completely tangled up in each other. We’ve only ever been friends. Before now. Before this. We would confide crushes and listen to records and stay up all night, never once letting anything like this happen. Until now.

Things hadn’t felt any different. He’d driven me home like he’s done a thousand times. And he came in and we talked for a while. And just as he was leaving, as we stood under the hall light, a moth fluttering against the bulb, he kissed me. And I kissed him back.

“She was pregnant,” he says, as if that explained everything… And I’m caught in the moment, but I detach my brain long enough to note how really amazing this all feels. It’s such a new thing for us, but it’s good. It feels really okay. And I don’t run away with any ideas of long term or anything. We’re kissing and I am thinking that maybe this will definitely be happening again, perhaps even on a regular basis. And the moth flutters hard against the light-shade, tries again for the bulb, and underneath it, we’re a frenzy of lips and tongues and hope.

He pulls back, stares me deep in the eyes, and I’m waiting for what I think will be a joke about us leaving this so long, or maybe even words of love, an admission, but what he says is “I’m married.”

And I blink. And I mouth the word “What?” and he hears even though no sound comes out.

“I got married.”

And I sit on the stairs and try to think when that could’ve happened. And I wonder how long I’ve really been away, and how that could have happened without my knowing, how could I not have even been invited.

“She was pregnant,” he says, as if that explained everything, but it kind of did. He’s always been the good guy. Until now.

“Why?” And by this I mean all of the above and why kiss me, and why now. Crying, he tells me he’s always loved me. And that he couldn’t help it tonight. And I tell him it’s not okay, and I open the door wide. After a silence of ten or so minutes that feels like an hour he eventually walks out into the night, both of us knowing everything we had before is dead.

I watch him until he’s a dot.

The moth scorches itself against the lightbulb and drops down into my face. By instinct I snap my hands up and it crushes between my palms. I look at the mess it’s made and I don’t even care.

Emma J. Lannie blogs here. She has been published in Tripod and online at The Beat, Six Sentences, and Straight From The Fridge. She is writing her first novel.

The photo of a moth, taken on an illuminated church sign, is by Arvind.