I dreamed you were in Argentina. Returned for some reason I can’t recall, undoubtedly not related to me or us. But in my mind, it was an opening.

This, despite a complete lack of overtures. You, still tanned and gorgeous. Hair wavy and sandier than I remember. The reversed sun the cause of all your changes, I convinced myself.

You talked about enrolling in graduate school in some national university. Pharmacy. Though you had no prior experience it was one of your many hobbies turned obsessions. Like that time you spent an entire summer indoors learning countries’ capitals; each country written in pencil next to the corresponding city as you quizzed yourself alphabetically. No regard for geography.

Who knows how long it would last.

And though I was surprised, always in awe, I immediately let the jealousy slip in. Thinking of the women in the program, the plazas, the studio apartments that you cycled through. How quickly you adapted to their language and late hours. How love was never in question, and how somehow that made it worse.

You asked about me, a generous line thrown that I could only see as pity. Since you left I had only thought about you, even if I thought of you less and less often. I had played around with some local boys when I felt exceptionally lonely (though I told myself I was finally feeling strong). Let them take me to their thin white-walled apartments, stained grey carpets, and mattresses laid right on the floor.

I seldom stayed.

I lied to you and said I’d been so busy I’d kept to myself.

At this point the dream ended or faded. I can’t recall which. Was it the middle of the night or did I awake into the morning? Did that feeling linger all day: that I missed the things around you (your dad, your blackened flip-flops, your choice of gum) perhaps more than you? Did I let myself finally realize that to lose you was to love you, the opposite the same?

I dreamed you were in Argentina. Because that seems as good a place as any to expect your next return.

Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Banco_de_la_Naci%C3%B3n_Argentina,Buenos_Aires,_29th._Dec._2010-Flickr-_PhillipC.jpg used through Creative Commons.