So I leave in two days. Words fail me. Shiho and me. . .
It happened so fast and so close to the last minute that it’s hard to say we’ve gotten back together. How can I imagine I deserve her after what we’ve been through, after what I’ve done in our past. I can’t imagine the paths we’ve taken being any different and still be as perfect to have led us where they have.
I think about Shiho and me in our New Jersey years. The first time that I ever saw Shiho was in a high school yearbook when we were in eighth grade and I wasn’t even in Dwight Englewood yet. When I entered Dwight for ninth grade, we eventually met and by Sophomore year we were fast friends. I convinced her to join Jazz/Rock on keyboards and we spent a lot of time together. In Junior year, Mark Holdaway entered the mix and became the advisor for Jazz/Rock and the three of us were really good friends. Then it was all over the next Summer. Two weeks before Shiho left for Japan, we started going out. I don’t remember how it happened. Three years - not really a long time. But it was high school.
I don’t think we’d be together now if we hadn’t gone out for those two weeks. If we had gone out earlier than we had, our relationship may have taken the usual course of relationships and ended in a typical break-up foreclosing any desire to get back together. If we hadn’t gone out at all back then, we probably would have faded from each other’s lives and never gone out. But the exact way it was, it was just enough to guarantee the feelings were always there between us, but prevented anything disastrous to permanently damage a future relationship.
So long ago; it feels like someone said, “Here, this woman is the one, but you’re not ready for her yet, there are still many people and experiences to go through, many things you have to learn before you can know how to love her and know what it means to be loved by her.” Then I took one last look at her before she left so that I wouldn’t forget. I let the memories go to sleep when I went to college; new beginnings. Now something feels so obvious - of course it was her, how could it have been anyone else?
I’m not so perplexed about going back to the States. Shiho is overshadowing everything, including the ‘rents. I am so thankful to her for so much, it puts me in the palm of her hand. The little bit that makes sense is that if she never really went away in my life, it can follow that I didn’t from hers. We didn’t have a proper break-up before. There wasn’t a definitive moment that signaled a break-up, there was no closure, and the cause had nothing to do with anything between us, it was only about me.
The fight with the ‘rents happened on the Sunday that I was supposed to be in Tokyo. I wrote a letter to Shiho on Tuesday and on Thursday she called. She made a comment about coming down to visit me on the weekend, testing the waters - if I didn’t react positively to that, she wouldn’t have come. But I said it would be nice and she arranged for it.
She came down on Sunday without telling her parents. What are we? Still in high school? The total time we had together was less than six hours. We talked somberly but intimately, and then the talk turned to silence because we were sad. The silence emphasized the sadness, there was nothing to say. The sadness led to a hug and the hug didn’t stop. The hug led to a kiss and that’s how it happened.
What were we thinking? Of course, we were going to get back together. Why else would she come all the way down from Tokyo for less than six hours? It makes sense now, but it was no where in my mind that we would get back together and I don’t think it was in her mind, either. It just happened in a very strong moment. I’m glad we did, but I’m still not sure exactly what my feelings towards her are. It’s not a question of loving her, I do, but . . . I don’t know. I don’t think we’re anywhere near the end of this story.
We had been sitting in silence for a few minutes. The movement toward the hug was natural and mutual and we were hugging for a long time. We started pulling away from each other and all it took was a split-second of our faces being so close together, and in another split second we were suddenly kissing.
