Erosion

What? Hey. I love you.

He reassured me as he struggled to make a U-turn from a dead
end on a narrow road. Our destination, Kaziranga, I had visited
as a child – or as a teenager? – more times than one could count
on four limbs and was revisiting with a man of my dreams years
later. Something happened and all of a sudden, the labyrinth had
become a maze. Left. No, no – right! I’m sorry, I am such an idiot.

We forgave each other for missing the first sign.

What? Hey. I love you.

He promised me when we awoke in the dead middle of a cold
February night, with eyes groggy and the bed sheets all soaked;
not for the first time. The doctor calmly mouthed some words –
nocturnal enuresis? – to his fretful face, my big, horrified eyes,
our palms crushed together. I sighed as he took me in his wrap.
When had I become incontinent? I said nothing except I’m sorry.

Shame was now our permanent roommate.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

He recited like a destitute prayer after he heard me scream –
at my reflection; the bright pink rouge on my brown, flawed
cheeks emulating a sightless child’s canvas; at the red-lipstick-
stained corners of a mouth I couldn’t recognize for a second.
What happened, he asked even though he could tell. He knew
I did not remember. I’m sorry, I am not who you fell in love with.

We were silenced by an elusive moment of awareness.

Hey. Hey. I will always love you.

He finally confessed, and I couldn’t help but flush like a teenage
girl being adored by an adorable boy with something on his face.
Sadness? Sat a foot away, the young man gazed in my direction
with the most enlightened eyes, as though he had just witnessed
a flaming pyre of everything he had lost. I wish I knew the history
of that funeral. I wish I knew the stories that opalesced his vision.
I wish I knew who he was and why he thought he loved me.