The Afterstory

A missing chapter from the Betty-James story, told from the wrong side of the ending: James looking back after Betty has already looked forward:

I still know the house by the windows
though the curtains changed last year
still know the bend before your street
though I don't have any reason to be here

There was a time I'd swear your name
could make a whole room turn its head
now I hear it from a stranger
and it sounds like something I once said

You had that way of wearing winter

sleeves pulled over your hands
I used to steal your gloves at red lights
just to make you take my hand

Now there's a man who knows your mornings
knows the coffee that you take
knows the songs you hum while getting ready
and the face you make when you're half awake

And I hate that I can picture it
even though I've never seen
the life you built without me in it
all the places I have never been

I spent so long waiting for a door
I never noticed you had moved
and all those years I called you waiting
were years you spent becoming you

I thought I'd still be right where you left me
some unfinished chapter on a shelf
but you were busy writing past me
and I was busy being someone else

So let the midnight rain come down
let it blur the streetlights blue
I don't need it to bring you back
I only need it to remember you

You loved me when we were seventeen
and maybe that's all it had to be
I kept waiting for the story to return
while you were becoming the ending without me

~vee