Sun and Heat.

Once I flew to the other side of the country for a boy I had only met once before.

I did it for moral cleansing. I had to undo what I had done, even if in order to undo it I must repeat the same actions that had created the original moral upheaval.

He suggested it. Not for the moral reasons that nagged me into doing it, but for his own reasons. Perhaps to repeat the events in a warmer setting, or perhaps to actually get to know me better. Or maybe he had his own moral reasons for it.

I called off work for the weekend. I walked down to STA Travel and booked a flight. Over fourth of july weekend. To an “exotic” location. I lied to my Mom; said the ticket was purchased for me. It wasn’t.

I found a ride to the airport, an hour away. I spent the night before on the lawn watching explosions of me and being hit by debris falling down to earth. Was I nervous? Probably. Was I scared? More than likely. Was I relieved? Undoubtedly.

I found myself on an airplane and I found myself suddenly in a totally unknown place. And there he was waiting for me, an unknown himself. He kissed me, and it was both strange and comfortable.

He warned me that sometimes it would just start raining for no reason. We walked down the street, hand in hand, and then the skies opened up—just like he said they would. But I had been prepared.

What was done became undone.

He treated me to movies, to dinners, to lunches. He took me to the beach, and one night we were on our way to the Keys before we realized we didn’t have the time for that. This was temporary.

We spent our last night watching a movie and eating a pizza. And then the anxiety hit me and I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t get comfortable; there was no sense in getting comfortable.

He was more distant, but still beside me.

I got up and walked out to the patio, just needing fresh air. I was going to force my lungs to function. I was going to slow down my breathing and just relax. But I couldn’t. It was at that point that I had realized just what I had done: I had covered up one moral episode with a whole new one, one that was much heavier.

I should have left things as they were.

He came out and pointed to a light in the sky.

“When I was younger, “ he said, “I lived near an airport and I would spend my nights watching the lights, thinking they were stars. But then they would start to move and I would realize those lights were really the planes.”

He said this to calm me down. And for a second it worked.

But then I realized: I should have just kept him and the memory of that moral transgression as a solitary star instead of waiting for it to take motion and land. I had now set in motion a whole other chain of events that had been better off left alone.

He dropped me off at the airport that morning and his lack of any emotion cut deep. I wanted the emotions, just for the sake of it.

That was the last I ever heard from him.

Or at least it would have been better had it been that way. Had I just walked away and never looked back.