The balloon floated away metaphorically.
"You know," he said, squinting into the afternoon sun, "sometimes I worry about you drifting away like that."
He had a good eye for metaphor and she liked that about him. She squeezed his hand and laughed lightly. "It's just a balloon babe."
"Yeah. Yeah," he said. "You're right."
"I love you too," she said. With a happy sigh, she leaned into his arm, nestling her head on his shoulder. They sat there quietly for some time, so content with each other, their love, the way her hair gently tickled his neck, the way his clavicle gently dug into her cheek, so content that they did not notice the darkening sky until the first fat drops fell splat on their outstretched legs. In their mad race to pack up the leftover cherries and Oreo's and fold the blanket and cram everything into his bag and peddle madly for home before the storm broke in earnest, he completely missed this second metaphor.
Over the next few months, she slowly drifted away. At last, he confronted her about it: the un-returned calls, the postponed date nights, the whole birthday episode. "What happened?" he asked. "We were so happy."
She didn't know. It was as if, as if the force that had held them together for so long had been severed, snapped, let go of. As if there had been some sort of string binding them as one and that now that it was gone, she felt freer and, as much as she wanted to lift him up with her, she didn't feel strong enough to do so. Although she felt all these things, she had a hard time expressing them. She wished there was some apt metaphor for the situation, but metaphors were always his thing. And so instead, she said something pretty hurtful about him being a burden on her life. Their words grew bitter and louder. His bony clavicle was mentioned. He countered that her hair was far too ticklish.
"Oh, yeah?! Ticklishiness is a perfectly acceptable quality of perfectly good hair and who are
to comment on
hair, Mr. 7-in-1 Old Spice?!"
"It's 10-in-1 you illiterate sponge! I brush my teeth with it too. And ticklishiness isn't even a real word!"
"We should see other people!"
In the days that followed, dark clouds rumbled over his thoughts and like a summer storm on a sunny picnic, his eyes would pour tears suddenly and uncontrollably. "Hey," said his brother, whose apartment he had slunk to that night and whose couch had been generously offered, but now whose supply of tissues, ice cream and patience was running desperately low. "Hey," his brother said, "we should go fishing."