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She Was
She was from a small town — she had to have been, or what she saw would have made little, even no, impression upon her. But Sophia did come from a small town, she had been born and raised there, and London was new to her: its traffic, its stores, and its people. She told me, later, that even the theater felt different in that big city. It was smaller than it looked, somehow, even on that empty summer weekday, and the air was dense and dirty. Sophia sat alone, ahead of me one row and to the left, but she did not feel lonely — the pressure of other people and their attitudes was more than enough to fill the space. I was not alone — my date came to sit with me just before the pre-movie adverts began, bringing with him a small bag of popcorn, no butter, please. It was not a serious date. We know each other well, but we were little more than friends. Sometimes he kissed me at my doorstep instead of waving goodbye, and that was all. In the row ahead of us, Sophia turned to look as my date sat down — she did it without thinking, attuned to the movement because it was the people that she had come for, not the movie. She did a double-take when she saw him. Nathan, my date, was a strange, understated sort of beauty, the kind that made one pause and look again. I did that, too, sometimes, and I had known him for years. I don't remember the movie; it wasn't important. Nathan was important — the way he smelled of popcorn, then, and the way his arm weighted across my shoulder and held me to the ground. Sophia was important, too, because she kept turning in her seat, away from the screen, to look at us. Nathan chuckled his low dry smoker's chuckle when he noticed Sophia, and hugged me closer, but I could only look back at her and wonder why it was that she stared. In the end, I asked Nathan. "Because you're beautiful," he said. I am. I always have been — even God has told me so. I am not tall but I am slender and delicate. My skin is smooth and pale. My eyes are silver, and my hair is thin and soft and long. I know I am beautiful. "And because you are a boy," Nathan continued. I had forgotten — in truth, I had. Nathan took away genders, sometimes, and in the movie theater it was just him and just me, and I forgot that they called us gay. Sophia kept looking back at us as if she could not look away, but there was no malice in the look, no hate, just wonder. "It seemed so beautiful," she told me, some time later. She was naïve and not naïve at the same time, then. She was thinking not about morality or God but about courage and truth and love. "He looked happy and you looked secure and all I could think was that I was proud. I kept thinking about how difficult it must have been for you, amidst prejudice and hate and the people like me that stared. All that trial, all that tribulation, it made it so beautiful — so pure, so true — because all it was was love, and pride enough to show it to the world." I didn't love Nathan, but that isn't important. In Sophia's mind what we were was amazing, and that is enough. Sophia never could remember what the movie was, either. "I felt stupid for staring, but I didn't want to miss it — I didn't want that moment to slip though my fingers. I wanted to remember it all." And she always did. She remembered how Nathan looked in the shadows, how the popcorn bag sat so awkwardly on his lap, how light from the screen reflected in my hair. She remembered every movement, every touch, every frame of that strange off-screen movie. Sometimes I wish I could remember as well as she did. I wish I could feel that weight across my shoulders, because it's been years upon years since anyone has touched me but God. I wish I could remember what it felt like to be just me and just him, genderless, imageless, godless, just people in a theater. It has been a very long time. The movie felt short — one moment Nathan had sat down with me and the next the lights were coming on again and people were leaving. Nathan tucked the empty bag under his seat and stood, holding my hand. In front of us Sophia had risen to her feet, and her cheeks were an orange-pink under the yellow light. She stood there, undecided, and waited for us to leave first. The credits rolled on the screen. Nathan led me forward, to the end of the row, but then he stopped. "My name is Nathan," he said. Sophia looked stunned, silently amazed, and she said only, "Sophia," holding one hand to her breast. "Would you like to join us for coffee?" Nathan asked. She did. We drank coffee in a small and unknown coffee house, sitting on painted wooden chairs and talking. From then on, I think, Sophia and I were friends. I was her first friend in that big city of London, and that was something special. There were few humans that good in all of London — all of England — even all of the world. I loved Sophia very much, because she did not fear or worry or hate, she only loved and felt proud. She accepted things as they were. She would have been, of course, the only person who would have been able to understand me as I am now. She was the only one who would have been able to know why I became what I am. She should have lived her life in full, but she did not. She should be in my mind and thoughts each and every moment, a lasting tribute, but she is not. I should miss her, but I don't. I do not love God — I never have — but He is still the center of my existence, He is the reason for it, and He is the entirety of it. There is no room in me for missing my past or for loving people long gone. There is only God and vague, fading memories of people who loved and were proud, as she was. |