Every now and then I see him—down the aisle at Walmart or driving by on Oaklawn Avenue; in a town the size of Coral Sands, it’s unavoidable.
Sometimes, I look at his Facebook page and wonder if we will ever speak again. Lindsey says that Duke is waiting until next season to give him a scholarship offer. I wonder if he blames me for the delay, and whether he ever thinks of me and smiles.
The topography of who I am is different now, but the continent of my heart will always bear a jagged edge, where once I knew the perfect fit of true connection. I used to wonder if I would ever fall in love and if the person who I loved would love me back.
Now I try my best not to consider the if and the when, but to stay focused on the here and now.
The crust of our earth is in constant motion. Scientists say that at some point in the next 250 million years, the continents will have fused back together again. There will be drift and disturbance—old oceans squeezed closed, and new ones created. All of this tectonic upheaval will happen with no consideration for the people on the surface of our world—supposing our species is still around by then. Our planet is indifferent to the life that it supports. The natural forces take their course regardless of who is standing over the fault line or lying in the path of the torrent. We feel a rumble now and then—a tiny seismic shift—a whispered reminder from the universe:
Given enough time, everything changes.
Maybe this sense of how fragile our connections are is what makes us obsessed with saving them—writing them down, taking pictures, recording them in tweets, documenting them with status updates and videos. It is clear to me now that when the earth does move beneath our feet—when our hearts slam and scrape and break apart—when we barely survive the flood, we take precautions.
We try to hold on to the things we think will keep us safe and maintain that place we can point to and say, This is normal. Adele and her stockpile of provisions, Connie Bonine and her storefront full of all that Willie left behind, Mom and her gallery wall, Dad and his antique flip-screen camera, the coral on my nightstand: all of these are records of an era past; the symbols we cling to that we might explain our present and chart our changes; the fossils of a secret history we carry deep within us, etched into the bedrock of our beings.
As I bend to touch the far goal line, I hear Olivia whoop for me to hurry up, and I turn on every ounce of speed that I can muster. By the center of the field, I’ve caught up with her, and as the afternoon sun warms the crust of our slowly drifting continent, I push past my newfound friend.
Our teammates are all gathered now, cheering us on as we race the final fifty meters in a full-out sprint. I cross the goal line one hairsbreadth ahead of her. As we collapse onto the grass panting and laughing, I see a hawk soar high above us and feel a rush of gratitude for the knowledge that just this once we have escaped the gaze of a camera lens or a status update.
Some moments should only be recorded in our hearts.