"Eve in Donostia" de kenny Ching

Donostia seems like a long time ago.  Its gray promenades repelled Napoleon, after all.  And it felt older than that too, old like a lost age, like an aspiration or ideal forsaken, like Genevieve senior year.

And it was on a study abroad program in Donostia that I first felt old because I couldn't bring myself to make love to Genevieve there.  It seemed like destiny that we'd be brought together again, and amid such Basque and melancholy beauty.  I had wanted her so much when I knew her before.  And now I had the chance, but somehow I couldn't.  Obviously, it wasn't for lack of physical desire.  And it wasn't because of her boyfriend, who understood, she'd conveyed to me through a friend, that across an ocean "things happen."  And it wasn't because of Sarah.  I'd gotten the e-mail:  she was marrying the other guy. 

It was something that was happening to my soul, and it was the same thing that was happening to Donostia.  We used to believe; now we disbelieved; yet, we remembered our belief.  And it was the remembrance that made us so impotent and sad.

So when Genevieve asked me to come into her apartment above the plaza of El Buen Pastor, I did.  And when she turned off the lights, I stayed.  And when she said "lie down," I lay.  But when she turned to me, I turned away, thinking, in the ancient rhythm of Donostia, of how long ago it had been since we believed that perfection was possible, and how destiny had conspired to disappoint.