Page 79 of The Replay

I chuckle. "I wish I could tell you otherwise."

"True sexual compatibility is hard to find."

Yet I'm here trying to be encouraging to the one person I had everything with, for her to go find with other people. I'm trying to give her hope in the same things I've stopped wanting for myself.

Shit. I'm choosing her again. Not romantically, but as someone I care for. Someone I dedicate time and effort to. I'm comforting her when I need comfort, too.

A puddle breaks with hundreds of raindrops piercing the surface, in front of the car on the road. Water trails down the windshield, now that the engine is off and it can build and drop like rivers on glass.

I scratch my eyebrow. "Dating often and having casual sex can be good. Fun. Pleasant."

Am I trying to convince myself? Maybe, but I'm telling the truth. Dating like I have has been fun. Pleasant.

"Ew, no," she says.

"What?" I smirk.

"You might as well say it's passable. I'm not looking for something passable."

"I didn't say that. It can be gratifying and it can also keep your bed warm. Not alone, you know?"

"Ugh, I think I'd rather be alone than have a series of adequate encounters."

I laugh. "It's not like you will know until it happens. But do you prefer taking care of things on your own? Be my guest."

"This is my dilemma, don't you see? I don't want to be totally alone, but I'd rather be alone than that."

"Good luck figuring that out."

I know I've tried.

"What we had," she muses. "Exactly that. Except without the heartbreak, the grief, the pain. Is it too much to ask? It shouldn't be too much to ask."

Her tone makes it sound almost like a joke, like she's come to the same conclusion as me, and knows we need to lighten the tone. But I hear the truth hidden in her words… and it hurts.

"You can't slice what we had that way," I say.

It's the gentler way to say she's trying to slice me into the parts she's willing to have and the parts she's not. She's rejecting parts of us, our history, and who we were together. Like maybe she regrets not only how things ended, but the fact we were in love at all. The only way we wouldn't have gone through the pain is if we hadn't fallen in love.

She doesn't seem to realize it.

"Can't we?" she asks. "We've done it at least twice since I came to Seattle."

Her smile says she doesn't mean this to hurt. She doesn't seem to think our chemistry had anything to do with our hearts. And maybe she's right, but…

I shake my head.

"We had sex out of lust," she explains. "It was quick but good. Right? It was so good. And it didn't end in pain. No heart, nothing to break. We should be able to have that."

For the length of three heartbeats, time slows down. I don't move. The rain sounds stop, replaced by blood rushing in my ears.

"Have that… together?" I ask.

She said 'we' too many times, and I lost track of the implications along the way.

She cocks her head, a contemplative look on her face. I breathe a little easier, to see she didn't mean it that way. Because if she had… with how I've been feeling tonight…

Too many memories hover right outside my field of vision. What I can't see, I feel in my bones. How with her I opened to life. Everything seemed brighter and fuller when we were together. Mariana's smile held power over me. Her ambition filled me with awe. Matching her determination taught me hope. But half the reasons why I loved her were the reasons she went away, too.