Most people don’t concentrate fully on the person they’re standing with. They accept that presence, occupy the space beside them, perhaps, but there’s a sort of wall between them, an identity for each of them that isn’t shared. Even with the space I’d set between us, there was no distance. We were in danger of merging, of becoming one soul.
I know that makes no sense, but there was something in the way Timothy looked at me that told me that he was filling himself with my presence, breathing in or imbibing, so to speak. I stepped forward without meaning to and placed my hand on his chest. I don’t know why. I wasn’t brazen. I was the cowardly lion of the Wiz. But, touching him felt right. It felt like the stroke of my hand on his suit jacket allowed more of that transference, that strange soul merging.
The French have a word we Americans have accepted as part of our language. We now label the feeling déjà vu, or literally, already seen. It’s a strange familiarity with something, as if we’ve been in that exact situation before or felt we knew a person even though we hadn’t. It’s probably only our brains playing tricks on us. But at that moment, déjà vu was the sensation I was feeling. It was if I’d always known Timothy, as if we’d done this all before and had this same conversation over and over.
My hand lay still on his chest. I started to remove it, but he stopped me. “I like having you touch me,” he said. “I like our connection, this familiarity. You feel it, too. I can tell.”
“Yes,” I admitted rather shyly. “But, I don’t want to. I need to slow this down. You make me dizzy. And you gave me too many presents. Please, don’t . . .”
“Dizzy? That describes my feelings for you, too. I am dizzy with the strength of my love for you.”
I jerked my hand away, disappointed that he was back at it again, confusing me with his gushing outpourings of love. I rejected those words, was suspicious of them, and felt a sudden distrust of Timothy whenever he said things like that.
“I feel your fear. I am sorry. But try to understand: Money has little value to one who has failed to find the true essence of life. But now I have done so. I have found you. You are that essence.
“I want to give you much more than I have done today, but I will heed your words. I seemed to have troubled your soul. I can feel that unease. I do not want that.”
He sighed like a puppy who’d been whipped. My heart almost broke looking into his sad eyes. “I . . .”