Vachon Imagined

She sat across the table from him—the table he chose, freshly manicured by the waitstaff for his confessions of impropriety. She pretended not to notice, because she wanted so desperately to be his, and remained so confused as to why he never noticed all the times before when she told him directly.

“I want you,” she would say sheepishly, then boldly. “I want you to want me too,” underlined by the soft lips beneath her decaying makeup she once wore to be seen—but not; to be loved, but only conditionally.

She loved the triangle not meant for sea, but for her heart: the broken-off, disparate pieces of it taught to her by women of old—her family and those beyond them—who said men are supposed to be mine, and I am supposed to be theirs. They’re supposed to own me, make me feel special, disembowel themselves for only me.

But once the shadows passed and she no longer feigned ignorance, she couldn’t help but disembowel herself instead: in the way she preferred chocolate over vanilla, and how habit became cruel in the choosing. Choose him, but not her.

She often wondered what she would taste like, what she would be like, with her hair wrapped around her chest, her arms, her hands.

And as the spoken words settled, she realized that all the times she pretended not to notice, she had also pretended not to care—that he wasn’t hers, and she was no longer his, no matter how much she tried, no matter how much she pretended.