It had been seven years — seven years, three months, six days, nine hours, and twenty-seven… twenty-eight minutes.
The seconds didn’t matter.
The seconds couldn’t be trusted anyways.
There had been a schism in the space-time continuum when they parted ways. Her current reality existed several, maybe even dozens, of seconds off the timeline where they had kissed each other softly and not said goodbye.
But this wasn’t that timeline and now she was going to see him again for the first time in seven years, three months, six…
Sun filtered through the windows of Shelley’s fifth floor walk-up bachelor suite. Glass as old as the city, the sunlight warped softly over as she dug through her bedside table drawer. Inside, hiding beneath a thick, pristine journal (cover print: Van Gogh’s almond blossoms) and a half-eaten bag of scotch mints, she found her stash of condoms. As she extracted them, one particularly withered-looking foil tumbled to the ground. Its expiration date stared up at her: five months ago.
Damn.
She sorted through the rest, tossing the good ones into her duffel bag and marching the remaining expired, or nearly, to the kitchen garbage.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she slipped them into the trash before touching her fingers to her forehead, shoulders, and chest in respect, in the name of the Mother, the Daughter, and the Holy Orgasm.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Love and the Multiverse to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.