Her blue eyes search his and he can only hold her gaze for a moment before he has to turn away. There is such intimacy there, the way she looks at him, and he does not know how to react.
Her eyes are blue as the sky, and he thinks of looking up through the water at the sky. Was that him? Was that his memory? Everything blue and blurred and then nothing. Then this. Whatever this is. He is lost and scrambling and this woman, this stranger, she so clearly wants something from him, has so clearly mistaken him, except she saw him, or said she did, so maybe they know each other.
(She looks at him like she knows him. She touched him like she knew him. So why can’t he remember her? Surely she couldn’t be forgotten.)
Are you alright, she asks, and he can’t help it. He laughs, a thin, high sound, less humorous and more hysterical. I am not all right, he thinks, in fact, I think I have lost my mind. Or I am lost. Something’s lost. But he can’t say that to her. Or, he shouldn’t. He doesn’t want to run her off.
(Though maybe it would be better. The sooner she’s gone the less memories he’ll have of her, the easier he can forget her. She looks like the type who will haunt him and he thinks part of him is used to being haunted.)
“No,” he says, then, “I woke up – I guess that’s the word – on the riverbank. I don’t…I don’t know what happened. I don’t even know who you are, though you’re nice to stick around like this. I’m sorry for wasting your time. I’m sorry I’m not…whoever you think I am.”
The apologies come easy on the tongue, like they are a familiar taste. He clings to it, this sliver of familiarity, even if it isn’t the most pleasant thing.
His name, too – he has that. He will give her that and she will acknowledge her mistake and that will be the end of this. Whatever this is.
“I’m Garbage,” he says, then, “I’m sorry. Again. For all this.”
@[Agetta]