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Leading up to today, I had many visions of parting with Cris. Many. I thought, How can this be done? It must somehow be imparted, this peculiar love. That I never wanted to leave *him*. How will it happen?

During the day, we didn't, couldn't really look... communicate with each other. Whenever we might have talked, we readily accepted the handy, handy distractions that came our way. Neither of us knew what to say or how to say it, and it would have felt silly to talk about other things. Every time we caught each other's eye we sort of kept our mouth shut and looked away. It wasn't totally awkward; it was just like, Not saying anything right now.

He came into the breakroom at the end of my lunch. We made some "casual, light-hearted" banter; he told me how he changed his answering machine to one where he did the voice of Homestar Runner. And then: It was really cute when he took a deep breath and just said it, a little loud--"SO, it's your last day of work today. ... ."

I sorta shuffle my feet. "Yeah, it's--really weird... you know, walking around the store, doing store stuff."

"... Where are you going again?"

"Volunteer work. Arts orgs. Probably Epic Arts."

Nods. "Ah." We are both not looking at each other, and the more-than-words is pretty rich. "So anways," he says, heading to the door, "call my cell phone sometime, you'll hear the message."

"Oh--I don't have that number."

"What? Really?" He smiles, whips out his cell phone, and moves toward me. "Well then..." I pull out my cell and we do the number exchange. (We are SO twenty-first century.) Oh how close we were. Our cell phones were nearly touching. "Got it?" "Got it." "Okay." We switched into our work-minds and moved along.

I... ugh. I can't say goodbye to you, fool. So you'd better call me.
Ditto.

He got off work before I did. I was called in to the office to get my paycheck, and he was there counting out. I took my paycheck and walked out. He went to the breakroom, and I was thinking, Aaa, maybe I'll turn around, give him a hug, because even if we see each other again, this is the end of a something. I turned around, and at that moment, he walked out and stopped me with this expression that said, "I am happy, dammit... happy. I love you and I am not going to say goodbye to you. Everything will be okay, dammit. Don't say anything."

Awh, it was epic, that moment. Just a rocket-sized push and pull of attraction, denial, emotion, and heart, all heart. He sort of rushed past me, and I said, "Are you out?" "Theoretically," he replied over his shoulder. If I'm recalling our vocal tones correctly, I cried out, and he sobbed and ran away.

All in all, it went better than I could have hoped. A parting in which we determined never to say goodbye.

Oh! It is Belthainn! Last night, couples leaped over the bonfire and made mad love under the moonlight.

8:48 p.m. 2004-05-01�

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