Bubbles

Our small room in London had a bunk bed but we never really used the top. Instead we slept each hot summer night crammed together on the single mattress of the bottom.

For the most part the top bunk was used only as a tossing ground, strewn with dirty laundry and a blow up plastic chair with a Guinness label which one of our flatmates had drunkenly blown 50 quid to win. Only one time do I recall actually climbing up to lie on the top bunk, both of us, side by side, staring silently towards the ceiling.

In my memory of the moment there are always bubbles. And I really don't know why when obviously in reality there were none. But when I close my eyes and picture the moment, the room is always filled with the brightly colored bubbles, bouncing gently over our heads. A million unsaid words, hanging in the air, waiting to burst.

Pop! "I will miss you."

Pop! "I don't want this to end."

Pop! "Don't leave me."

Pop! "Please."

Pop! "Please."

Pop! "I love you."

Instead I say only, "I can't handle long distance again. When I leave here we should just admit its over."

And that's it. I didn't look at him, not wanting to let loose the other words, the ones I mean, that continued to hang in the air silently.

There is a party before I leave and his friend pulls me aside for a word.

"He'll come to America if you really want him to," he tells me.

"No, he'll never come," I sigh. "He says he will but I know him too well, it will never happen."

"You just need to tell him you want him there, he just needs to know how you feel."

But I never did release those words. And he has still never come.