away

i wrote a little while ago (or thought... or both) that kelly had infiltrated my life quite totally. well, it's true. strange little things are happening. monday i was driving home from winston, going down 64 towards cary for a change. i was listening to before these crowded streets since i hadn't in a terribly long time and it was bringing back great swaths of memories. songs i hadn't heard in years and yet knew all the words to without thinking. years and years ago jessica told me that "the stone" was her favorite song on the album and it's always stuck with me because of that. well, that and because it's a particularly spectacular bit of music.

i was doing fine until that song came on. i tried to sing and invariably coughed, tears welled in my eyes, spilled over, and rolled down my cheeks. it was horrible and wonderful. i don't cry unless i'm in the car. during a sputtering and runny chorus, i looked up and was driving past Kelly Dr.

...

today at practice a few student newspaperpeople rolled out of a car and stood at the gate until coach george noticed them. he jogged over, yelling at his golden boy tyler to join him for the interview. once they rejoined the team for drills, the contingent stood watching, the reporters standing by the gate and two photographers wandering together around the outskirts of the field. the photographers were a guy and a girl, the former looking older and more confident and the latter sort of tailing him about, shooting from his hip. i was wandering about as usual, fucking around with loose balls and occasionally filling a few water bottles that looked squeezed-from.

what this all culminates with is that the girl photographer looked eerily like kelly. and i mean this only in the way that i can compare them from photographs and the synthetic/artificial three-dimensional idea that i've compiled from the last few years. but i had to stand and stare a little, always glance a little. i was texting her at the same time and told her. she wrote back and the girl on the field didn't answer her phone, meaning it wasn't a cruel joke. her body, hair, face, posture, clothes... the simple fact that she was standing with a camera to her eye. it all added up to this girl i've been writing for years. kelly surrogate, sent to make my life strange.

...

she still wants me to visit as well. i told her about kelly surrogate and how i should have made friends with her, maybe she'd like me as well. i said that might have been a good idea but that i'd prefer the real thing. she said i should come see her.

this surprises me a little. we have always agreed that time spent together would almost certainly sort things out a little bit. that's a good thing. better or worse, never the same. i always knew as well that i wouldn't quite want to see her as much if she were in a relationship with dave, which is now the case. wouldn't see the draw in going if everything were already decided. shallow as it sounds - we're supposed to be closer than close, yeah? - i don't want to fly to nyc to sleep on her floor. and yet, dave and all, she still wants me to come. friends tell me she's playing a game, trying to play two guys to get the best one but i know better. or... i feel like i do.

i know as well how i feel about it. all these things i forget. how i've really grown used to her photographs but still don't find her as pretty as danielle. how photographs can't really tell something like that anyway. i don't know how we will get on in person. knowing myself, i'd say there's a much greater chance of me being disappointed or just not feeling it quite the way i do here. but i have to know... and i also know that if i felt it, that reassuring spark that i can trust, that she would too. i almost can't conceive of a situation arising where i feel it and she doesn't. maybe i have too much faith in myself but that's how i read it. more likely, i'll not quite feel it and be comforted about the entire situation. won't be so heartbroke and lonely all the time. if she falls for me, i can deal with that. as long as i'm not the one hooked, i'm... well... off the hook.

as for now though, it's all mental exercises. just like much of what we do and say. she still isn't real, remains words on a screen. and it would be nice if that would change someday but someday is such an overused and near-death concept to me that i can't even hardly consider it anymore. it just isn't real.