Thank God for layers
February 16, 2002 @ 11:26 a.m.
So we did go to hockey last night. Made it there after the first period. I found Matt by the start of the second, actually seated in our same section, about seven rows up. I didn't comment, let Blaine spot him.
I'm sure he spotted us, too, after a stray puck ricocheted off of Becky's knee, my hand, off some lady's nose, and down a row. Becky got nacho cheese all over her white sweatshirt.
Thank God she was wearing layers.
It was very strange. I saw it coming in slow motion and somehow managed to put up a hand to block it from hitting my face. I should have snagged it. Unfortunately, I'm not that fast.
The Komets lost and it was an all right game. Nothing really to say on that.
Blaine waved down Matt by standing up, turning a 180, and screaming Matt's name until he responded. I looked up and waved, and received a curt head nod. It was the look in his eyes that threw me, though.
I had never seen this look. I am still troubled by it. It still haunts my mind...a look of cold yet searching impersonality, like he didn't care but wanted to, or like he didn't want to care but did. A distant look, right through me.
I turned away.
That's not the Matt I knew that night he came over. That Matt was sweet, gentle, caring. Perhaps I dramatize and romanticize a bit, but in essence that was him.
This Matt tonight was the Matt of us four: distant, vaguely obnoxious, addressing Blaine only.
Barely meeting eyes with mine. Quick glances, quicker blowoff.
'Night Matt. Good game, eh?
"And I remember, and I recall, and I can see that nothing's changed at all..."
<< | >>
- - March 22, 2010
always the same - July 01, 2008
b-a-n-a-n-a-s! - December 25, 2006
elementary again - October 29, 2006
I don't like you, but I love you - October 03, 2006