Pit
She brought a box of my stuff over — our stuff. I didn’t look through it cause I knew everything that was going to be in there.
I’ve never been fully committed to anything. I used to practice karate, I quit; I studied law, I quit that; I also figured out a very peaceful way to get up at six in the morning, I wake up at noon. My friend — I mean, ex-friend, Camila, used to try to help me with this by telling me, “If you do this, I will get you a cupcake” or some other pastry product and most of the time I followed through, but our relationship ended on account of her husband helping her accomplish things by telling her, “If you don’t eat that pasta, I’ll have sex with you.” On Thursdays, I go to the grocery store which is the only thing I’ve committed to in the past 6 months. Last week, I saw this mom yelling at her children, an older man talking to his possibly dead wife, and this person squeezing and throwing avocados into their basket. They threw them with such force, but with a simple elegance; As they did this we made eye contact, it was extremely brief, but I think I’m in love? — No, it’s lust.
When they found the perfect avocado, they pulled out a pocket knife, cut it open, and ate it right there in the veggie aisle, in front of the mom arguing with her children and the old man having a conversation with Chrissy. I wanted to be that avocado, I would feel them cutting me open and eating my gooey green center right there, just us, committing to that moment. Today was Monday, so that meant that I had to wait a whole 4 days until I could possibly see them again, but did I even want to see them again? And if I did see them would I go up to them? What would I even say? I never thought of myself as someone who could fall head over heels for someone she just glanced at, but maybe avocados did something to me. I’d never know for sure.
I set up my kitchen to make it look like the produce section at Ron’s grocery store. The layout definitely didn’t match, but I could make it work. I drew a few avocados on a piece of paper, cut them out, and set them on the stove; a.k.a: where they were. I marked off where I was standing when this all went down. I would stand here almost the entire day, replaying the scene over and over. They grabbed the avocado, threw one into the cart, and then ripped one open with such force that it flew all over the store, some on them, and almost all on me. In most of the scenes, we would just stand there and stare at one another, but in this one, they came up to me.
“Whatcha name?” they said while standing intensely.
“Meg… and you?”
“Whatcha zodiac sign.”
I told them I was a libra, they didn’t tell me theirs, but I could tell they were a Leo. Then we had sex, it was extremely quick and out of my control, but effective. They disappeared by the knock at my kitchen window, it was Camila. She stood in a long pink dress with a bulky cardigan over it, she used to barely wear any clothes.
We sat at my small dining table in the corner of the kitchen. She brought a box of my stuff over — our stuff. I didn’t look through it cause I knew everything that was going to be in there. A collection of CDs that we made for each other, a few pairs of sweatshirts that she borrowed from me, and the love that we once had for each other, it was all right here, in a cardboard box.
“He’s really sweet to me, you know,” Camila said as her leg shook the table, it was a little shake, yet I could still feel it on my end.
“Yeah?”
“He lets me buy dresses and run my own clothing brand. It’s called Legs 4 Days.”
“Nice.”
“I’m sorry we can’t hang out together anymore.”
“Why is that?”
“He thinks you’re too… I don’t know. Immature for him — for us.”
“I get food. I go to the grocery store.”
“You do? I didn’t realize.”
“And I met someone.”
Camila’s face started to get red, I couldn’t tell if it was out of embarrassment or jealousy. I went on to explain every detail leading up to where she found me. She asked if we could do it together. One last hurrah before we part. So, I set up the scene again, this time she was where they were standing and I was in my original position. We went over it a few times because Camila wanted to get through it with the best performance one could give in a situation like this. She did the avocado thing, but she said it felt too unrealistic and if she could use real avocados. I handed her some fresh ones from my fridge and she did the scene perfectly without skipping a beat. She came up to me and grazed my arm.
“And that’s where it would end.” I moved over to where she had just been.
“That’s it?”
“Yep. You did a great job.”
Camila went to grab her purse and walk out the door, I could tell she didn’t want to leave, she didn’t want to go back to him because he forced her to do things and that’s just not who she was. I suggested that we do it one more time. Camila agreed, so we went through the scene again without any problems. Then, like in the scene, she came up to me. When our skin connected together, my heart began to race and my brow became sweaty. We kissed, briefly, but powerfully, sort of like the war stopped, but only for about 10 seconds. Camila started to cry, hot tears sunk into the sleeve of her cardigan. We sat on my kitchen floor, not talking, it would just ruin everything we just did. We ate the rest of the avocados that were now room temperature; feeling committed to this moment, to each other.
Thank you for reading… If you would like to support this mess, buy me a cup of coffee.
