Grand Reunion

Grand Reunion • Kenna Johnson

I used to dream about the moment I would see him again. That moment colored the landscape behind my sleep-stained eyelids, and I lived in it.

I danced in it.

I imagined a hundred different settings and scenarios: The slick-tiled lobby of an airport.

The quiet breathlessness of the university library.

The cramped front porch of his house on Cottonwood Lane. I imagined running like all the girls do in all the movies and colliding into him with all the force and emotion of three years apart.

And the waiting, missing, hoping would culminate in one gorgeous supernova moment.

All the fruitless days would be nullified, their hurt sucked out by that grand reunion.

I can’t tell you how much I wanted it and never got it.

Because the first time I saw him after all those years felt like the moment on a rollercoaster when you’re suspended between track and sky,

And all your organs are lava-lamping around in your body. It wasn’t romantic.

No tearful hug. No impulsive kiss. Just nothing.

Whatever was warm and alive between us now lay pulseless and pale at our sneakered feet

Like roadkill.