A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

It was a few weeks later that I saw Fiona again, though we spoke on the phone often and texted when too tired to speak. I learned about her past a bit more. She spent her youth upstate , where her old house still remained. The one that claimed her parents’ lives was in the suburbs, after they left behind the forest home. She enjoyed going back into the wilderness to revisit memories of the past. Luke was the only reason she did not want me to come over. There was no telling how he would react to my being close to Fiona. She was afraid that he would think he’d been replaced and lash out. She spent a lot of time worrying as his caretaker. That time spent apart only got us closer together, almost dangerously close. She wrote for me, both erotica quick-fire texts and serious ideas of the world underlined by comedy. I was getting to know her mind by this divide, and she got to know mine. I told her my fears, or at least the few I was aware of, and she confided in me about a few past event...

The next day was a Saturday, and I decided to call Fiona . While dialing the number, a thought flickered out to the flame-haired secretary I collided with. With that in mind, my heart skipped a beat when Fiona’s voice chimed in. I felt ashamed for thinking of another while calling the “one”. “Hello?” she asked. My hand almost dropped the phone from the mental reset. “Hi, it’s Finn here,” I said. “We met at the park yesterday.” There was a pause. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “Thought you’d call last night.” “I waited just in case there was some tradition,” I said, trying to stop the words from coming out of my mouth. The world I knew put strange barriers in place for these sorts of things. “But then I thought that it’s Saturday, and it would be great if we could meet up again.” There was another pause on her side. “Can I ask you a forward question?” She asked. I nodded, only to realize I was on the phone. In my mind, she was right in front of me. “Go ahead,” I answered, trying to imagine wha...