I gripped the phone tighter, in denial that Jenny was not returning —a protracted interval ensued— like being in a silent movie.
Spit and splutter distracted me as my vegetables and spices over-sautéed in the wok.
"Luke, Luke!" Jenny loudly, re-focusing me, "Are you there?"
"Yes. Why?" I uttered.
Why throbbed in my head and sweaty body simultaneously?
"Oh, Luke, you knew this could happen," she said; I caught her tone of self-exasperation.
She would have preferred to say this in person, not over the phone.
"What could happen?" I asked, my dazed mind attempting to damwall the emotional floodgate.
Yes, I sensed Jenny could leave me, yet I chose to believe she would not do so.
Life went haywire. It mixed a dispirited yearning to tear the postcard and the optimistic thought that I could somehow still reach out and embrace Jenny. My unsupervised cooking wafted overdone. The wok's moisture dried up; my vegetables charred from the heat.
"Luke, there isn't anyone else in the picture. It's me."
She spoke these words calmly. I instinctively sensed Jenny's asserted her independence.
We shared a pervasive pause, drawn out like a dual final breath.
I looked at her postcard on the fridge door. The odour of ruined food itched my nasal passages—the lemongrass and coriander—headed feral due to my lack of attention.
"Luke, I'm sorry. You knew I would be hard to hold — to stay."
Daily, we interpret exchanges in our favour.
Backtracking, words hint at potential minefields.
"I want to be with you. I want you here," I stated with my head supported in one hand, my voice slightly muffled.
There was no pleading; I stated the fact of what I wished.
When your desired half wants their life a different way — you yen for a way for them to stay in your life way.
I articulated my feelings to Jenny; I told her what I yearned for but failed to repeat.
No desperation.
My words uttered, soul bona fide, "I love you, Jenny."
"You bugger," edged with frustration with herself and me.
Neither of us was sure about the word summing: the together of us?
You bugger, it echoed in my head; it steered memory in a nanosecond to a bedroom and a beach.
"Sometimes it's not enough," Jenny stated; it resonated in my mind, followed by her sighing.
She was right to come out and say it; she wanted to move on. She had to.
"You were tender. You're too steady: too quiet for your own good. Communicate what you feel. You'll be okay," she advised.
She attempted to leave me with some semblance of hope that things would get better for me.
There was a shorter gap as neither of us spoke into a phone — like waiting after you ring a doorbell.
My negligence spoilt my dinner as the flavours burnt to a crisp in a final splutter in the wok.
"Will you be okay?" I questioned her independence unnecessarily.
"Yes," she responded quickly, perhaps leading to saying goodbye.
"Good," I answered like I was off on a tangent, and my mind was.
I remembered us at the spring.
"What's good?" she asked, puzzled by my word choice.
"Not picturing you alongside someone else," not trying to hide my melancholy.
"Ah, you can picture me moving," she offered.
Our phone conversation prolonged into a double hush. My cremated vegetables couldn't divert my agitated mind.
Jenny would forge her path, and I finally confronted my suppressed undercurrents of already recognising this outright.
"I knew," I told Jenny, straight and direct.
Inner truths leach out into words.
"You knew what?" she asked, her voice becoming intense and puzzled as if she were lost in a maze.
"I knew that you wouldn't stay," I admitted.
Words can be secure and insecure in the same instance.
"When?" Jenny inquired tenderly.
"When you told me—when you said you loved me."
"I tried, Luke." she held no amber interval; she gave a quick, sincere response.
In our togetherness, she strived to draw my emotions out.
A prolonged phone delay ensued, the gap before a final goodbye.
I clenched my phone; I could only picture Jenny doing the same.
"Jenny," I wavered, "…Is this it!" my voice quivered with the realisation.
She provided a calm, "Yes, this is it."
We both said— it — to each other.
The relationship we never named ended unnamed.
"Okay," I said, avoiding saying the terminal goodbye.
My mind clawed for our defining locale to transport Jenny next to me — a lakeside cabin, a dance floor or a beach, yet nothing held.
We were separated beyond place.
Our prior mixing of passion had evaporated, and there was none of what we used to be.
"Yes, Luke. That's it. Bye."
I could tell by Jenny's tone that she understood my heartbreak through my voice.
I heard a beep, and the phone call ended; Jenny closed the line.
My meal lay ruined. I cleared the scraps. My hands stayed busy as I scraped and scrubbed the charred wok. I tossed out the frazzled shambles of what should have been a delicious meal.
I pushed myself to restart.
Easy with dinner.
With love?
Being garbage night, I dumped my usual rubbish curbside, including my recently burnt gunk. The lemongrass wrapped gave off an intense aroma, making me light-headed.
Days later, a small package arrived in the mail. I recognised Jenny's handwriting. Inside the parcel, wrapped separately, were a small pink cowry shell and a brief note.
Her message read:
Dear Luke,
You mulled silently over whether I remembered you at the beach, and your awkward shyness laid bare. I recognised you on campus even before we danced. Your stare unnerved me - not your eyes- on the beach, you bugger. I kept the shell so beautifully shaped. It spoke, I believe, what you couldn't. I'm glad we pursued the chance. Keep the shell to remember me.
Jenny
I remembered our togetherness.
Yet eventually, Jenny's letter and postcard were thrown out when Miranda was born. Her written words, even neatly wrapped - were disposed of in the trash.
The shell I kept because the cowrie encapsulated untarnished innocent yearning.
I understand now, reflecting on her letter: Togetherness is never lost; intimacy can only be found as a sentient lifeform.