Waving Not Drowning

This is an incredible moment of panic. Opening up the freezer and not finding the stash of emergency chocolate. The really expensive kind, too. Fair trade, organic, chips of mint, maybe coconut, she can't remember. It was a spontaneous purchase for occasions just like this one. She knows better. Stay away from the computer. Flashing across her screen. His face. The date. The announcement. Probably as close as she'll ever come to skydiving without a parachute. She imagines that this is what it feels like. Her vision blurs, she feels her pulse pound through the veins in her neck like a torture porn movie, and waits for her heart to explode. Any second now. This is it. Old ghosts. Living in her psyche. Lining her fascia, sheathing her entire body. Tiny tubular webbing filled with fluid, stretching and undulating, tightening, seizing, creating adhesions. Blocks. Sticking patterns. She needs to break it down before it hardens into more scar tissue around her heart. Again. Months of ...

The soft, virgin skin on the inside of his forearms is covered in hair. Sparsely so but it's there none the less. She can't bear it. It's like he's sprouting all over. Fine dark wavy hairs in inappropriate places. The backs of his shoulders crawling across his scapulas and marching down the middle of his  back. Crawling up his ribs and wrapping themselves around his waist, carving in and out in every direction. His facial hair has no discernible boundaries by the end of the day. He leaves home clean shaven and returns after work with a full shadow, leaning towards a three day beard. It's his superpower, he says. Ch ch ch chia runs on a loop through her head. A clay head smothered with seeds to grow and groom. She shudders, furrowing her brow. She's shy around the subject but she knows he can feel her visceral repulsion when her engagement ring gets caught in the forest of curls on his bum at the top of his thighs. She loves him so much, she does. She truly belie...

"People mistake confidence for courage. Being courageous, truly courageous, requires so much more than brazen cocky confidence. I'm not saying that all confidence comes from narcissism, that's not what I mean; but sometimes being brave, or selfless, and truly, profoundly courageous requires a selflessness, a risk, a sacrifice of ego and agenda that some people mistake for confidence when in fact it's so much more. Truly." Farley stops short. Maude has shifted her gaze over his shoulder and is fixated on the huge neon painted banner tacked up to the south side wall of the Agora. Her eyes slowly expand as the recognition factor sinks in. It's literally like watching pennies drop and tumblers fall into place, unlocking the final puzzle. Farley is sweating, he can feel his upper lip slick with moisture, his crotch moist in beige pants, visions of sweat stains in embarrassing places. "You see Maude, um, sometimes confidence blinds other people to the fact that...