She Came Out of the Past

I've got special powers that render me invisible to everyone but you

Tara rolled down the mountain.

In an old car. With bad brakes.

She rolled down like the fog rolling in. Like an old memory that jabs your brain in the middle of the night, waking you from a sound sleep.

She came into town with a vengeance. With memory banks armed to the teeth.

She had information. Some of it true, most of it not.

Years earlier, she'd been one way. Then she'd changed.

I could spend hours speculating about what happened. Hours explaining it.

But that's all it would be -- speculation.

Which rolls under doors like the fog. Or the old car with bad brakes gunning down the mountain pass.

What exactly was this? Dread? Anger? Guilt? The thawing of long-frozen engines?

"Tara's coming back," I told a friend.

"I hope not," he answered.

I told a few other friends. They all had the same answer.

"Isn't she the one who tore your still-beating heart from your chest, ran it up a flagpole, and shot missiles through it?"

Yes. Not literally, of course. But if she'd had the power.

"What makes you think anything's different?" a friend asked me.

I don't know. I don't know how to answer that.

"What makes you think anything's the same?" someone else said.

I don't know that either.

All I know is the feeling. Hard to put into words. Hard to distinguish from memory. Or anger. Or fantasy.

Tara's coming.

So it shouldn't have been a surprise when her text appeared: "I am storming the Bastille of your heart."

Days late. Or maybe years.

I wasn't sure when. I wasn't sure where. I was definitely not sure why.

But one thing was certain: Tara was coming back.