riverrun Vol. 47

Prayer House by Brandon Flanery
Her
Colors of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka dance on her olive skin, sunlight filtering
through their flags. We sit with coffee between us at the local prayer house in the
bookstore, while further in the building, diligent worshippers pace, kneel, cry.
But we are not pacing. We are not kneeling. We will be crying.
We’ve been laughing about nothing and everything for at least an hour. The coffee
is now lukewarm, and as the exchange dies down, and the only thing that
drowns out the silence is steaming milk and cherished memories…
…Kidnapping my best friend together to watch one of the most disappointing
sunrises in history on his birthday.
…Napping on a mini-golf bridge after watching the elderly powerwalk through
the mall.
…Dancing beside a pond under the moonlight after bailing out on Homecoming,
the silence and discarded Chik-fil-A far better company than the beating music
and throbbing bodies.
I smile as the memories return. Every moment meaning so much…
…meant so much.
“This has to end. We’re going in separate directions.” I coach myself with the wisdom
of an adult. But I’m not an adult. I’m sixteen. You don’t think about mature
things like marriage and the future and kids and jobs and all those heavy but
lovely things at sixteen. You’re barely thinking about college. Instead, you should
be thinking about the latest video game that just came out and the acne that refuses
to go away after you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on skin care and cliques
you both hate and want to be a part of and what homework you forgot about over
the weekend and, most importantly, cute, annoying, immature love.
But to me, it’s always been heavy. Love. It’s no joking matter. It’s for keeps. It’s
for a future together. For marriage. It’s for propagating the world with more of
your acne-ridden spawn. So this had to end.
I take a deep breath. I muster courage. I act mature.
“We’re going in different directions. You want to move to Africa and help people,
and I want to move to the inner city. I love you, but we’re eventually going to
have to part ways, and that’s not fair for either of us. We need to stop now before
this hurts worse than it already will. I can’t be your boyfriend, but the man who
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