To Be Alone With You

The day I met Josselyn’s other half was supposed to be a day like any other.

We spent the entire afternoon paging through records at Zia, our fingers nomadic through the bins of genres, never resting anywhere for too long. I chased her up and down the aisles, the flare of her skirt showing a little more leg than she probably would have liked to know.

“To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die,” she taunted from a few aisles over, holding a copy of The Smiths’ “The Queen is Dead” over her face. I went after her, catching her up in my arms, burying my face into her neck. She held the album tight to her chest, protesting through her laughter, “Let me go, let me go,” but not once meaning it.

I caught a glimpse of her reflection in one of those convex mirrors in the ceiling corner; what was meant to help expose shoplifters instead exposed an expression I’d never seen on my girlfriend’s face before. She held a copy of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” in her hands, gazing at it with a small smile. It looked like she had just seen an old friend for the first time in years and didn’t quite know how to express her happiness. In that moment, I knew that I loved her and that somehow I needed to let her know.

Knowing you love someone is an unusual feeling. It starts off almost terrifying and then slowly rolls into a brief moment of euphoria, finally ending in a warm glow in your chest. I approached her and wrapped my arms around her waist from behind, kissing her temple softly.

“What’s up, John?” she asked, tucking the album under her arm.

“Oh, nothing,” were the best words I could find.

We left the store with a selection of new vinyl to listen to on her record player, The Smiths and Bob Dylan among Death Cab’s “Plans” and The Grateful Dead’s “American Beauty.” She swung the bag around her arm as we paraded through the parking lot, sending me glancing looks over her shoulder. Her eyes were sharp against her pale skin.

It was unseasonably cold that day, only forty-five degrees. The breath rose from our mouths like plumes of smoke. The air was tinted with the heady scent of rusty radiators coming to life around us. I felt like the whole world was spread out in front of me to take, stretching as far as the eye could see. Josselyn laughed as the cold air whipped in through the window of my truck, blowing her dark brown waves around her face like the wind itself.

After stopping through the drive through at Taco Johns and ordering two large size Potato Oles in all their greasy, crispy, salty glory, we went back to her place. She placed the Death Cab album on the record player with delicate fingers, watching the needle place itself perfectly on the disc. We lay there in her room for a while, gaze at the ceiling, eating and listening to the combination of the music and our soft, shallow breaths.

“John,” she blurted suddenly, her voice so quiet it seemed like she hadn’t meant for me to really hear. I rolled my head to see her looking at me, eyes wide as saucers and completely intent on me. A sigh half escaped her mouth before my lips were on hers, he hands tangled in my hair.

The wanting came upon me suddenly, and out of nowhere I was ravishing her neck with hungry kisses, my hands grabbing at her hip bones desperately. She just smelled so good, like vanilla and roses and something citrus, it rendered my willpower completely useless. She wasn’t protesting though, simply kissing me back and running the very tips of her fingers along my jawbone.

My hand was halfway up her shirt when the sound of the garage door beneath us began to resonate through the floor. She suddenly snapped away from me, pushing me off and straightening her striped sweater in proper place. I was left dangling mid kiss like a fool, waiting for her to come back.

“I didn’t want this to happen so soon,” she started, and immediately I thought she was talking about what was going through my head – both of them, as a matter of fact – only to be proven wrong. Only a moment later, a beautiful blonde girl came bursting through the door, and I realized that this must have been what she was talking about.

“Jossie, what are – “ her thought stopped mid sentence when she laid her pale blue eyes on me. She glanced from me, to Josselyn, and then back to me again. Her eyes were the same startling shade of blue as Josselyn, identical full lips but painted in a much lighter color. It caught me off guard, how much they looked alike while looking so different at the same time. She was so unmistakably related to Josselyn, and I realized that this was the twin she’d spoken of before.

“You’re John,” she breathed excitedly, her eyes darting back to Josselyn for confirmation. She sat quietly next to me, her eyes communicating something to her sister that I couldn’t translate myself. I nodded in response, not knowing if she had even seen me.

“And you must be Casey,” I replied, getting to my feet and wiping my hands on my jeans before going to shake her hand. But as her hand clasped in mine, I saw that she was still looking over my shoulder at Josselyn, irises twinkling. Before that moment, I hadn’t thought twice about Josselyn’s twin sister. But after, I had never been more intimidated.

“That’s right,” she hummed, tossing a waterfall of flaxen hair over her shoulder. Casey Stevens was beautiful, just like her sister, with a voice like velvet and hands that could make the coldest man melt at the softest graze. Not in a way that made me love her, no, not at all. In a way that made me almost afraid of her, intimidated at the very least.

“John,” Josselyn finally spoke, her thick eyelashes flaring out from the corners. “You haven’t even really begun to meet me until you’ve meet Casey.”

The girls giggled between themselves, before Casey flocked to my side and wrapped me in a tight embrace. “It’ll be okay, I don’t bite. I promise. Unless you hurt my Jossie, in which case I’ll snap your skinny little legs in two, got it?”

I laughed nervously along with them, the look in Josselyn’s eyes saying that everything would be okay. What had she meant, she didn’t want this to happen so soon? We’d been dating for months now, and I was honestly surprised I hadn’t met Casey sooner.

My understanding unfolded as morning glory petals at the first sunlight, the enigma of Josselyn and Casey nestled firmly at the center. I knew at once that I would never begin to know or understand what went on between them. I would always be on the outside of the glass menagerie, able to look in but never able to truly participate.



For the first time, I wasn’t sad to see New York go. My heart didn’t get a little ache in it as we broke from the ground, soaring over the skyline and off into the distance. There was no desire to stay any moment longer, no mystery dropped like crumbs along the trail of Central Park, no surprises hidden in the lower east side. I was going home, finally. And far, far away from Josselyn.

Kennedy was unusually quiet in his seat next to me, attention focused on a tattered SkyMall magazine. Jared, Pat, and Garrett sat across the aisle, playing a game of what looked like Uno. Pat gazed away dramatically every time a card was drawn, adding extra emphasis when he slammed down a winner. I shook my head and turned my sights on Kennedy.

“Did you have a good time?” I asked breaking the silence between us. His head snapped up from the magazine, instead in my direction.

“Have a good time doing what?” he asked, snapping the SkyMall shut.

“In New York, I mean,” I clarified. Kennedy seemed exhausted, his disposition unusually quiet and standoffish. He hadn’t been feeling well the night before, staying in while the rest of us went out for dinner and a late night of drinking. It showed still today, his eyes drooping like he hadn’t slept much. His expression softened a little, a small smile coming to his lips framed by a dark shock of facial hair.

“Oh,” he replied. “Yeah, I did. I’m sorry it was kind of shitty for you.” I immediately felt the sting of embarrassment on my skin like a leftover sunburn. It was apparent to me that I’d made a bit of a dick of myself when it came to Josselyn. The guys weren’t used to seeing me like that, at least not in a long while. And in the end, Josselyn and I were both adults and while she had acted like one, I was like a spoiled child. I guess it was easier to think about it with such clarity because I knew I would never see her again.

“And I’m sorry I was such an asshole about you and Josselyn at the bar the other night,” I answered. “I know you didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Nah, it’s okay man,” he protested quietly. “She’s just… a girl, right? We don’t let shit like that become between us.”

The captain came over the intercom interrupting to inform us that we were now at a proper altitude to use electronics again. Almost immediately, Kennedy had his headphones in, zoned out and completely uninterested in conversation. I didn’t blame him – he was gonna need to get all the rest he could get to recover from the nasty bug he caught.

I turned to the window, watching the purple tinged clouds move slowly below us. Tucking my earbuds in as well, I pressed play on a Bright Eyes track that I was listening to before the plane took off. Everything was still, finally, completely calm in comparison to the weekend spent in hectic New York City. I could finally catch my breath and not feel like I was being polluted against my will, close my eyes without hearing the sound of the streets from out the window. It was a sweet kind of solitude and I thanked whatever god there is that I was finally, finally going home to Tempe.

The rest of the flight went by in a dark blur, mainly because I fell asleep shortly after the third song on my playlist. I awoke in a sleep-induced stupor, stumbling off the plane to retrieve my bags. Trey, Garrett's brother, was there to pick us up, waiting in the turn around outside baggage claim. Garrett, Pat and I piled in with him, while Kennedy and Jared waited to be picked up by Jared's mom. There wasn't enough room in Trey's piece of shit car for all of us.

“How was the trip?” he asked innocently, having not seen us in what felt like years.

“Great,” Garrett responded. “Got some new comic books at this store in Brooklyn. They had a copy of the original Teen Titans. You’ll have to check it out man, it’s awesome.”

“Sure,” Trey replied. “But after dinner, alright? Mom’s gonna have a cow if she doesn’t get some time with you right away. She’s missed you a lot.”

Garrett sighed and agreed, taking Trey’s giant 7-Eleven slushie from the cup holder and sucking down a huge sip. Trey got on the highway to leave Sky Harbor and head back to Tempe. Pat proceeded to launch into a detailed account of how he befriended a living statue of Abraham Lincoln in Philadelphia, which was apparently the highlight of his trip.

“And you, John?” Trey asked, glancing over his shoulder to look at me briefly. I considered telling him about seeing Josselyn, because he’d been there through all of it just like Garrett and Pat. But instead, I decided to keep my mouth shut. No one else needed to know that I’d seen her, no one else needed to know what all had gone on. I didn’t need to whine about it anymore, because she was completely out of my hair. If Garrett wanted to tell him later, which I was almost sure he would, that would be fine. It wasn’t a story I wanted to tell anymore.

“It was good. Saw some cool stuff, met some cool people,” I replied, leaning back in the chair. “More than anything, I’m just glad to be home. How’s working with Gibbs been?”

Trey had been working in the back-up band to our good friend Austin Gibbs, playing guitar and surely having a good time. That was enough to get him started on a list of all the stories he had to tell from while we were away, and I was able to successfully avoid the topic of Josselyn.

As we approached my house, I saw there was a car that didn’t belong to anyone in my family in the driveway. It was a dark red Chevy Volt, ecologically and economically friendly. My heart sunk in my chest like an anchor, fast and heavy.

Upon walking through the front door, I was greeted by the high-pitched, excited squeal emitted from a small girl in the foyer. She had been waiting for me. Only five-foot-two on a good day, red hair in spiral curls, nose slightly upturned in the cutest way. Any guy would be so smug about having a girl like her chase after them.

“I missed you so much!” she squealed before throwing herself on me in a tight embrace, face pressed into my torso like she would never let go.

I was so focused on the girl from the past, I'd almost forgotten about the girl back home.