Walking on fire Dec. 12, 2012
He called.
He still only guesses that the owner dislikes him, but not
why, still bitter at being denied the job he was promised, and thinks that’s
because the owner dislikes him, too.
We don’t talk about her when he calls, although her presence
is everywhere like a haunting spirit neither of us can get rid of, and he doesn’t
want to.
We chit chat about everything but her, going round it as if
we were circling a black hole, one false move and we both get sucked up into
it.
I dare not ask if he saw her picture in the magazine in
which she is posing as if fighting with a professional boxer, what he might
have thought about it, did he wish he was the boxer she posed with?
Her last few posts and some Facebook messages seemed aimed
at people who are giving her advice, in one message she saying, “even mentors
are human,” as if disparaging them.
Although he was her mentor in our office, I can’t believe
she meant him in these. He’s too dedicated to her. He would lay down and let
her walk over him to avoid any possible disaster.
We can’t talk about that either, whether he saw what I saw,
and did he believe he was the subject and did he feel hurt by it, if he did.
I want to comfort him, to assure him that he would be the
last person she would do that to, but since we can’t talk about her, I can’t help
him, and all I can do is wonder, and chit chat about subjects that have nothing
and yet everything to do with her, those safe steps beyond the black hole’s
rim, those steps we have to watch out for, each time we talk.
I tell myself he’s a big boy, who has stepped over fiery coals
before, learning from experience, and yet, he’s almost as innocent as she is,
(she might be) and I think there’s nobody else he can confide in except for me,
but won’t, can’t, scared I’ll betray him again.
So, he must walk through the fire alone, perhaps scared, certainly
wondering what he did wrong, if she meant him in those poems.
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