I miss you. I miss the old you; I even miss the new you. I miss the entirety of you. I wished I said that, but I didn’t say that.
I want my life back, I told her.
She asked what the heck did that mean.
I looked deep into her eyes and told her, that I had meant her.
I badly wanted to say she chose the wrong guy. I wanted to say she was going to regret this all of her life. I wanted to say, most of all, that I know she knows she made the biggest mistake of her life. But I wasn’t there to win her back, so I kept my trap shut. Maybe I shouldn’t have.
There was just silence.
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Maybe a part of her didn’t expect what I would say. She was maybe expecting ‘what happened?’ or the proverbial and accusatory ‘why?’ We were here in a place either of us was sure we did not want to be. We haven’t talked in ages since the split. Concerned and engaging friends arranged for this, and I couldn’t really decide whether I agreed with this idea of theirs, this ‘closure’ thing. I went on with my life, and so did she. Here we were, all of a sudden, reopening closed books and old wounds, at least mine I thought. And was there anything to be had? I always kidded we were sadists; she the teenage drama queen, and me the emotional vampire. We never really needed closure. I thought I did before, compared to her. I realize now it is better bitter sweet; frozen in time and etched in memory.
Everything from the talks at the libe, to bad hair days, to early morning breakfasts, and before school coffee, after school dinners and the cab rides in the rain or on a hot day, our Saturday’s out, I treasure those days. I regrettably too, treasure her cold stares, her verbal spitfires, and her increasing indifference. I always carried a chip on my shoulder, and arguably having a hole in my heart suits me just fine. Right here, right now, we were engulfed in this silence.
It would have affected me before when we first went out; were the silence meant a conversational lull and equated boredom. But as we get to know each other, we somehow got to experience the serenity of the peace and quiet of just sitting with each other. Oddly, we reached a point we didn’t need to talk to communicate. We did everything fast and it didn’t cost us the translational loss like how others had despite their years together. That is the awesomeness we had, and lost.
That is why I will forever relish the early days of my being twenty-three. I was young, I was stupid, I was nonchalant. I was madly in love.
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Here we are again; she short of being tied and gagged to a chair, but nonetheless reflected the same emotional immobility. And I get the same indifference, and with that the same nostalgia of the good times. I accept I have to take the good and the bad; and that is what makes it all worth it. So I stare back and smile at her, and she understands she needs not to say anything. We leave the room meeting minds for the meantime, like in the good old days. It ends at that. Or so I think.
She confessed she was sorry.
Sorry about what I asked? I said I was the one that needed to apologize.
She said she was sorry about everything.
I said I was too.
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Years later and she haunts me. Her haunting me maybe a strong word, but she does. Her influence and presence stun me to this day, like the ghost of the past nagging at a troubled conscience. I look at couples and I see her. When I look at window sills and shop display’s reflections, I see her grinning. When I see a little girl, I see her eyes disappear as she begins smiling widely. I see her in anything and everything and the void eats me up. I will admit I am to this day a shell of a man, a mere shade of my former self. And it aggravates me I made it reach to this point, to such a putrid, sorry state. Friends notice this degeneration, and are present to try and thankfully ever misdirect my troubles. The thing is, it stops were we separate and the void grows once again, and fills my mind with doubts and my heart with darkness. It is continually being nourished by this spin cycle of growing weariness from my inner battles.
I have learned to succumb to cigarettes and scotch for comfort, and like the burn nearing the butt and the booze nearing the brim, the same void is there, lurking. The full glass, or so they call it, is continually becoming more empty.
I find myself staring into empty spaces lately. I notice the bad habit to be growingly unhealthy, eating my focus and depleting my drive. I am inimitably surprised at my own stubbornness; why want something that doesn’t want you. It eats me. It consumes me. This love affair with the ideal is driving me in-fucking-sane. And I hate myself for letting me do this to me.
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We looked at each other for a deep second. I could see in her eyes she wanted to say so many things. Knowing her though, she wouldn’t. She was like a guy in the way; she bottled that shit up.
She couldn’t stand the silence, and it didn’t surprise me.
She said she couldn’t stay.
I said I wasn’t asking her too.
That was the last conversation we would ever share.
