I know how it would go, if he were here. If I were to see him just one more time, to have one more talk. I know exactly how the conversation would go, which is strange since I haven't spoken to him in 5 years. All this time, all these events, all of this change has transpired, and yet I have no doubt that I know exactly what we would say to each other and how we would say it.

For so long, I couldn't accept that he was gone. I just didn't. He was a master of reinvention, a chameleon that had changed his colors (and his name, city, and history) a number of times in order to escape. I just knew this was one of those times, that he had gone underground again, that he wasn't really gone, couldn't really be gone, and that it was only a matter of time that he would come for me. He had to come for me, after all. We were meant to be together in every ridiculous star-crossed sense of the word.

But slowly after all of this time it has sunk in that he really has gone and done something as mundane and middle-of-the-road as dying on me. He really is gone. And all the time that has passed has helped me stop looking for him in crowds, to stop thinking of him so much, to stop crying everytime I do. The 4th anniversary of his death is coming on August 15, and for some reason this time I remembered the date, when the previous anniversaries all escaped me...maybe because previously I simply didn't believe he was dead.

I called him Kim, but his birth name was Michael.

And if we could have just one conversation, I know how it would go.

********************************

The floorboards are a bit chilly beneath my feet as I sit at the top of the stairs and look down their steep incline. I should put some socks on, but I don't really feel like moving, and putting socks on would entail standing up, turning on some lights, rummaging through my drawer which holds my underwear, bras, some postage stamps, sleeping tablets and various other detritus that I chuck in there to simply give it a home. I just can't face the sound of rummaging, of tablets turning in their jar, so I sit there in my baggy pajamas and let my feet chill.

A slight movement across the darkened landing and I look up into a familiar face, a face which I once knew better than my own, a face that I am starting to forget and I hate myself for it.

He's dressed exactly as he always was. Black combat pants, a T-shirt over his thin but muscular frame. His combat boots are tied onto his feet and his watch is the only adornment he has on. Without asking, I know he isn't wearing any underwear, simply because he never did wear underwear. He smiles, his teeth as white and straight as I remember them.

We sit unmoving on the landing of the stairs, since all of my deep talks take place on floors in halls, since I can't commit to any rooms.

"Hey Buddy," he says, softly, calling me by the pet name he had for me.

"Hello, You." I reply, not scared, not moving, but not convinced that this is a hallucination. "I always knew I'd see you again."

"You look different but the same. Your face has grown up. You shouldn't have cut off your long glorious red hair." he follows up, and we both laugh as he regards my shoulder-length dark hair, piled messily into a hair clip.

"I know, it's what made you fall in love with me." I say, smiling.

"No, I fell in love with you. Your hair is just what first made me turn my head." he replies. "Remember how I told you once that you are the kind of woman that gets more ethereal looking the older she gets?"

I feel my heart lurch, remembering the nicest compliment he ever gave me. I fleetingly wonder why he was always so kind to me and, not coming up with an answer, I nod.

"I was wrong. You're better than that, but I lack the vocabulary."

I smile. I look at my long white fingers. I don't know what to say. "I missed being able to say goodbye to you." I stammer.

"You are the one person I never could say goodbye to. You know that." He said, tucking his hands under his chin. "How are you? What's happened in your life since I last saw you?"

"I'm ok. Did you know that? Can you see me wherever you are?" I reply, cocking my head.

"No, I'm afraid it's not what people think. It's not like we get to watch a movie of the life we've left behind and what happens after we're gone. I have no idea what's happened to you after you left on a plane back to North Carolina, when I was in the hospital in Dallas. Tell me what's happened."

I nod, looking at my hands. "You've missed a lot. I was in Sweden for a long time, isn't that amazing? It was so dark and cold there in the winter. I got married. He was a really nice guy, but he wasn't the right man for me and I wasn't the right one for him. We've divorced. I lost my job, you know, I was working for Company X? Yeah, they let me go."

"So far it doesn't sound too good, Buddy."

"No, it really wasn't. Then, um...I went a little bit crazy. I kind of lost the plot and tried to kill myself." I hoped he didn't want to know the details, but he never wanted the details, so I move on quickly. I looked up at him and saw he just regarded me calmly, like he always did. "So now I'm here, in England. Ironic huh? I'm in England now, although I haven't been to your hometown. I'm with a really great guy, a man I care about deeply."

Kim smiles, and his eyes squish up at the corners. "Tell me about him."

"His hands shake like yours do. Did, I mean. And he has these blue eyes that are also like yours, blue eyes that you just fall into and can't get out of. And you both have a thing for electricity." We both laugh. "He's really great about trying to figure me out, and he won't let me lie to him. He stops me when I do that, you know how I used to lie to people to keep them away from me? Well, he doesn't let me. He knows me really well, sometimes better than I know myself. And for once, I am really glad about that." I say, softly, across the landing from the former love of my life. "Sometimes I am filled with terror that he's going to die, like you did. In the middle of the night if I wake up I have to make sure he's breathing. Just because. If I lost him, I'd give up on love, since no one gets to love twice like this only to have them die. I really, really love this man, Kim. Really."

He doesn't seem upset or weird about Mr. Y, and I think...Why should he be? He only wants me to be happy, and the most unusual thing is...I only want him to be happy.

"Did you finally cut the strings from that crazy family of yours? They really used to weigh you down." he says, folding his legs beneath him, his boots making a soft scuffling noise.

"Well, they kinda' cut the strings on me. I don't really hear from them anymore, I think we're ships that have sailed away from each other now." I reply looking at him.

Kim takes a big sigh. "I'm really happy for you Buddy. And I have missed you and missed what's been happening here. What's been happening in the world?"

"You've missed a lot. The world is at war and all those civil liberties you used to talk about are gone. You wouldn't believe it, there's a Punisher movie coming out. I know he was your hero, but I just can't imagine they're going to do him justice. They now have all of these video game systems like X-Box and Game Cube and whatever, but I figure I can't get Super Puzzle Buster so I don't bother. And they changed the formulas for both Lucky Charms and Fruit Loops, you can't even recognize them anymore."

He shakes his head, looking downcast and puts his head in his hands. "The world's gone mad. It's fucking insane, it's so upsetting. I mean, if you can't count on General Mills, who can you count on?"

We laugh. I feel an awkward tug at my heart, and yet I don't really know how it is my heart feels.

"I didn't believe it when you died, Kim." I say slowly. I don't want to scare him away. I needed to talk to him about this before he disappeared, before I woke up, or before the men with the white jackets came to take me away. "I didn't know what to do. I didn't believe it was true. I figured you'd be back for me, I mean, that was the plan. You told me in the hospital when I visited you that I was the greatest love you ever had. So I was a wreck when you died. I didn't believe it. I kept looking at all the people that passed me, convinced you would be one of them."

I cry at this, and I realize it's been a while since I have cried for him. I let out some of the thousands of tears that I have cried for Kim, all of them honest and bitter and like tiny little knives that stab my face and nose as they fall. The salt on my cheeks hurts like a sunburn, but it's better than the feeling of when I lost him.

"I get it now that you're gone. It's true, I think, you've up and died and that's the shape of the world. And you know? It's not so much that I am left in this world that you created, it's that I am left in a world that I'd created with you. Now I have to put my own stamp and signature on it. I'm working on it. And for the first time in my life, I am so happy. Honest."

He looks at me, moving his eyes up and down my seated figure in the hallway. "I'm sorry about it all, Puppy." he says softly, using my other pet name. "I never wanted to die, either. There's still so much in the world that I never got to see, so many things to do. There are all of these adventures that I'll never get to have, all of these places I'll never get to go. And no house by the seaside with too many animals and time enough for love someday," he says, talking about the dream we used to dream.

"We don't get to have each other now, do we?" I ask, feeling like time is running out but wanting to brush the cobwebs out all around. "I mean, I know it in my heart that this was it, this was our chance. But that's how it is, huh?"

He sighs and looks down, pursuing his lips. "I told you once that we will love each other in the next life and the one after that, all the way until we get it right."

I nod.

He continues, "I'm sorry, Buddy. I was wrong."

I nod again. It doesn't hurt. I already knew it.

"I am coming back to another life soon. We always knew I was new. But this is the last one for you, you're an old soul and finally get to rest. I did some checking and this was the last one for you, so enjoy it and stop trying to kill yourself."

"Checking up on me? What, am I famous?"

"More like infamous." he replies, and we laugh again.

"You'll get your adventures when you come back." I tell him softly. "I'm done trying to kill myself. I have a really fantastic man who is there for me, and whom I love very much. I still think I can have a house by the seaside with too many animals and time enough for love, it's a dream I share with another now. I have some friends now that will be there to help me if I fall. I will live my life out, even though I think that you should be alive more than I should be. The world was a better place with you tilting at its windmills."

His eyes soften.

"What's it like where you are?" I ask.

"It's hard to explain." he answers, scratching his chin. "It's not exactly the Island of Wanton Red-Headed Stewardesses that I had hoped for, and no one here will have marathon Command and Conquer games with me, but overall it's amazing. I have all the Legos a man could want. And I'm Batman."

"With a cape and everything?"

"With a cape and everything."

"It's your dream come true, then." I smile.

"I love you, Buddy." he replies, and I see the edges around him are fading a bit, he's a bit pale. "I love that you're happy, and I need you to know that I am happy too."

"I love you too." I reply, choking up a little. And then I think...Thank you for letting me say goodbye. The goodbye in the hospital wasn't enough, I can't remember you that way. You were the most alive person I have ever known, the way I think of you has to be the one of the man staring down a hurricane.

He smiles and reaches a hand out. "Goodbye, Buddy."

"Goodbye, Kim."

Our hands almost touch as he gets to be nothing more than an outline. "And just because he doesn't say it everyday, it doesn't mean he doesn't love you."

Startled, I look across and see he's not there anymore. "I thought you couldn't see me!"

From thin air comes, "I can't. I just know you and your baggage."

And then he is gone.

-H.

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