\nNat was Openminded. She told me so the first time we hung out, sitting on opposite sides of my brother\u2019s truck bed drinking slushies in the heat and mosquitos of an August convenience store parking lot evening.\n<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like having the TV of your mind turned on, all the time, to this channel you can\u2019t change whether or not you like it,\u201d she said. \u201cDrives my parents nuts. Can you imagine what it\u2019s like being told to watch what you think? I wish.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\nOpenmindedness only went one way and she was a transmitter, not a receiver. The syrupy taste of watermelon slush and the way our shoes pointed at each other, wanting to touch across the plastic ridges of the truck bed, I didn\u2019t care. It wasn\u2019t enough to make me not like her, or not want to taste her cherry limeade lips.\n<\/p>\n
\nWhich I did. Not that night, but a different night, and without the cherry limeade. We\u2019d been hanging out so regularly that everyone at the store sensed us making eyes across the linoleum walkway separating Women\u2019s Plus, my section, from Sportswear, hers. If you like me the way I like you, Nat, why should I be afraid of what you think? <\/em>I thought it for weeks before I built up the courage to lean across the gear shift, clammy hands sticking to the steering wheel, and I was still thinking it when I pressed my lips to hers, hoping she\u2019d be able to receive what I was thinking.\n<\/p>\n \nInstead, a flood. Deluge. Oh my god oh my god finally, no, what are you doing I\u2019m so sweaty why are her lips so cold what does my hair look like I wasn\u2019t even ready for that; of course I was I\u2019ve been waiting forever; no, I wouldn\u2019t wish me on anybody, I shouldn\u2019t have said yes to going out the first time, I wish I could make this stop but I didn\u2019t start it did I and besides, I warned her. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nOur lips came apart but the flood of words didn\u2019t stop, only quieted a bit with the distance. I sat blitzed, lost in the flow, those last words echoing in my head: I warned her. I warned her. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nThe first thing that surprised me about hearing someone\u2019s inner thoughts wasn\u2019t their jumbled nature or brutal honesty, I was ready for those, but the way they bounced between referring to me in second or third person. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether she was talking to herself or thinking at me when she used the word \u2018you.\u2019 Was it any less strange to hear her think of me as \u2018her\u2019 or \u2018Krista\u2019 or \u2018my girl?\u2019 No, I liked the last one. I couldn\u2019t help but smile, and she smiled in return, knowing why I did, and we laughed without having to explain ourselves, and laced our fingers together in a clutch of polished nails, her highlighter yellow and my deep maroon alternating, pulling in complementary fashion at the soft skin between knuckles.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd I wish I could say it was perfect, like those romantic comedies about being Openminded and the quirky misunderstandings that unspool from the condition. Except people aren\u2019t perfect and movies aren\u2019t life. She was right to say it was like having an unmutable TV channel in your mind. Closeness strengthened the connection, but some nights I could hear her across town, thoughts scrambling, cycling, finally wavering off into sleep. Sometimes at work they were so distracting, deafening, that I forgot what I was doing halfway through, or couldn\u2019t pay attention to a customer, or had to fight the urge to walk over to her section and insert my opinions into her internal conversation. It was agonizing, almost, knowing what both of us were thinking about each other when we had to stock racks and fold tank tops.\n<\/p>\n \nDoubts still riddled her thoughts: What am I thinking starting this, is this serious or not, how serious am I, how serious can it be after THREE WEEKS do I like her do I love her or what, what, what; am I supposed to be thinking about the rest of my life with her, when do you do that, how long do we wait to have sex, what\u2019s the right way, shut up, she knows everything you\u2019re thinking, stop thinking at all; no, that never works and you know it, think about food. What\u2019s for lunch? Chimichangas? Taquitos? Did I even bring my lunch?<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nI had the same questions, hesitations, minus the awkwardness of knowing they\u2019d be projected outside my mind. But it seemed like the more these questions came up for her, the more I had to think them, too. Why should it matter, these were the questions of how a relationship began. Answering them was how a relationship progressed.\n<\/p>\n \nIt wasn\u2019t her worries that cut to the quick, though, but rather her knee-jerk reaction to a customer in my section. I fought to remain focused on explaining different jean styles even while words like bitch <\/em>and cow <\/em>crashed through the back of my skull. My inner voice wanted nothing more than to scream back at her across the linoleum walkway, Who do you think you\u2019re fooling? Look at who you\u2019re dating and keep thinking that.<\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nLater, while I was driving her home, she looked over at me, apologetic. \u201cI thought she was flirting with you.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nI grunted. She didn\u2019t have to say it because I\u2019d already heard as much. And besides, even as she said it her mind rephrased the statement slightly but significantly: Or you were flirting with her. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cDon\u2019t tell me what you think,\u201d I said.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cWhat else am I supposed to\u2014\u201d\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou can\u2019t unthink it, don\u2019t try to make it sound better with words.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nShe frowned down at her knees. \u201cI wish I could make myself think differently, all right, but I can\u2019t,\u201d she said. And thought: I warned you and now I\u2019m the bad guy; I never would\u2019ve tried to kiss you first and this is why, you know what, Krista, you did this to us. Both of us. You wanted to have your own way so much well now you do and this is what you get, that\u2019s a relationship, you get the good and the bad except with me you can never shut it off. Any of it. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cYou have no idea what I was thinking,\u201d I said, before I could stop myself. \u201cYou never have and you never will.\u201d\n<\/p>\n \nTears leapt to her eyes, frustrated and furious, and it took an effort to reach over and lace my fingers in hers. To drive her the rest of the way home with her thoughts amplified and raking at the contact. A migraine pounded, relentless, by the time I parked in her building\u2019s lot.\n<\/p>\n \n\u201cIt\u2019s late,\u201d she said. And thought: Leave me alone. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n \nI watched her gather her bag and open the door, and couldn\u2019t help bitterly realizing that, already, I put more stock in her thoughts than her words. As though the raw impulses of the mind meant more than the way she navigated them into reality. My own response nagged me: You have no idea what I\u2019m thinking. <\/em>Thank god for that, or how much would she hate me for the fact that the memory of our shoes, so close but not touching, squeezed my heart with longing now?\n<\/p>\n \nShe didn\u2019t show up for work the next day, and I didn\u2019t work for a few days after that. It helped the migraine fade, and the connection. The signal of that TV channel grew weak, distant. In the few transmissions I received, it sounded like it was a relief for her as well. To not have to know someone was always eavesdropping on her, judging her, overthinking her every unguarded moment and impulsive, imperfect thought.\n<\/p>\n \nWhen I next went to work they said she was transferring to another location. One closer to her home. I knew where she lived so I knew there was no closer location.\n<\/p>\n \nI waited. Waited for her to text and ask to see me again. Or to show up at work. Or for her internal monologue to spontaneously pop into my head so I didn\u2019t have to be alone with mine. I wanted things to go back to how they had been, no longer wistful about our pairs of sneakers pointed together, but aching for the crazy rhythm of maroon and fluorescent yellow nails clasped in a steady cacophony, a hopeful chaos of connection.\n<\/p>\n \nAnd still, I wait. I want her to be the one to choose this time.\n<\/p>\n \nLate at night, over morning coffee, in the lulls when folding tank tops at work, I direct my thoughts toward her and hope she\u2019ll catch my message. What I should\u2019ve known to say back when I had the chance:\n<\/p>\n \nI\u2019m listening, Nat. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n As a fine art professional, Mar has wielded katanas and handled Lady Gaga’s shoes. As a veterinary assistant, she has cared for hairless cats, hedgehogs, and, one time, a coyote. As a writer, her short fiction can be found or is forthcoming in Analog, Escape Pod, Apex’s Robotic Ambitions anthology, and many other publications. She is a reader for Interstellar Flight Press, and a graduate of the Wayward Wormhole. She resides in the Pacific Northwest or can be found on various social media @MaroftheBooks.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nat was Openminded. She told me so the first time we hung out, sitting on opposite sides of my brother\u2019s truck bed drinking slushies in the heat and mosquitos of an August convenience store parking lot evening. \u201cIt\u2019s like having the TV of your mind turned on, all the time, to this channel you can\u2019t …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107986,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20142],"tags":[20143],"class_list":["post-140825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-tcl-54-winter-2025","tag-the-colored-lens-54-winter-2025","entry entry-center"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/107986"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=140825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140826,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140825\/revisions\/140826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=140825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=140825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecoloredlens.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=140825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}