Waving Not Drowning

His lips move almost imperceptibly. It's difficult to make out what he's mouthing as he sits on the top bench of the bleachers watching rec league coed slowpitch. Sad eyes, beautiful skin, somewhere around 28. It's a hot, humid, oppressively sticky late summer eve and he's wearing a navy blue hoodie over a button down shirt, dark blue jeans, and innocuous sneakers, not too flashy but still sorta hip. He's clean, healthy looking, with good hands. He's perched, sitting very still; contained, but not tense. No air of anxiety. He could be high, maybe medicated. Every time she walks back from the plate to the bench they make eye contact. Hold it a beat too long. It's his eyes. Blue, clear, curious but not in a disarmingly strange way. He's watching the game, attentive to every pitch, every swing, hit and miss. When he looks away it's not with embarrassment or discomfort. He simply shifts focus while staying completely present. There's a languid, felin...

The paper gown is more like one of those disposable table cloths you buy at the dollar store for a kid's birthday party. Why bother, really. Gina is lying on her back, bum edged to the lip of the table, feet in stirrups, knees folded in together, waiting for the doctor to return. Another young fresh-out-of-med-school graduate. At least she didn't give her the stink eye when she asked for an internal. Gina's old enough to be her mom. When did she get old? How does that happen. She's getting hit on by younger and younger men every day, disconcertingly so. She's stopped responding because it's just not worth the effort to try to communicate with them on any level. She doesn't find it flattering anymore. When did that change, huh. So much shifting and it's only in retrospect that Gina puts things together. A relief actually. No longer concerned with what anyone else thinks- how she dresses, what she looks like, how she moves. It's not like she was obsess...