blue striped sock

We were in the car parked in front of the alley of my house. The car wasn’t yours, it’s an object your parents trusted you and it comes with a lot of conditions, like how you’re starting to seem to me. None of us wanted to say goodbye, and I was gripping your hands like I was sure I was going to lose you after you drive away.

You found a sock on the back seat. It’s navy with tiny white and light blue stripes, you had planned to wear it but you didn’t because you forgot the other one. You told me I could have it,

“A keepsake if you will.”

We had only met once and it’s the only physical object I have that was once yours, and so I held it like it’s an extension of you.

It’s been weeks and I still remember the one-minute walk back home after you left, I would have cried harder if I knew things would fall apart soon after.

It’s silly. It’s an otherwise meaningless everyday object, yet it’s the only tangible thing of you that I can hold. I wasn’t done holding your hands, if it was up to me I would have never let them go.

We were never in control of anything. So I stare into this stupid, lone sock every night trying to get a sense of your presence again. It doesn’t smell like you anymore, it doesn’t smell like the laundry detergent your disapproving mom use to wash it before you took it into that car to my house that fateful day. It’s gathering a lot of cat hair but I don’t have the heart to wash it because then it’ll only smell like me, and my house, and not you. Nothing is you.

It’s silly. And it doesn’t smell like you anymore. I'm running out of ways to look for you in the dark, I almost forgot what your voice sounds like. Maybe, for now, my job is to look after this sock until it doesn’t have to be a separated pair anymore, or maybe it is what it is. A keepsake, a memory.

I’ll keep it on my nightstand, just in case you can come back into the picture.

Goodnight.