She took me to the flea market and said, “Why don’t you make yourself at home?”
My breath catches, and I shift awkwardly, not wanting to move. I haven’t been loved this well before, and her goodness reminds me of a desire I had learnt to quiet. My stomach churns with shame but she pulls me in before I can even compose myself. My eyes move to her cargo pants and cropped shirt, a stark contrast to the polo I stole from my brother. Handle with care, I think to myself.
We rifle through a thrift store bin while she tells me about the men and women she had loved. I tried to mask the sting of jealousy gnawing at my composure, but it peeled at the edges of my expression, slipping free despite my efforts. My fault for bringing up the topic in the first place. After what seemed like hours, she finally grabs my arm, and we wander around some more.
I follow her around, our skin touching every now and then from the traffic of bodies that push us closer. I couldn’t help but feel amazed by the fixation she has for this place — a maze of odd trinkets and hidden corners that feels foreign, a sight for sore eyes, but she examines each object with a kind of reverence, a world she knows like the back of her hand. Handle with care, I repeat.
We come across another stall, brimming with twice as many clothes. Again, I hesitate. Her curiosity finds me pausing at the doorway — one foot inside while the other can barely move an inch. She notices and adjusts closer, and I point at the mess, the imperfections laid out in unison, but she doesn’t mind the flaws.
She lets out a light chuckle, a small smile tugging at her lips as her eyes soften, and says, “Everything has the potential to be precious.”
While scanning the clothes, she would hum a familiar tune, one that I can never recall but somehow always stuck on the tip of my tongue. Her gentleness scares me more than my father’s anger; the latter I can define, I understand.
I used to despise my wanting, both in my sickness and self-apathy. The words echo in my head, and I am hungry for a love withheld. She finds me in the corner of the stall next to a box of trinkets that are ever so fragile, weeping in front of a mirror. But she holds me in the margins of my existence when I am hardly myself.
Handle me with care, please.
