Short Story: Things fall apart... part III

 Sometimes fault didn’t matter. He knew that because he couldn’t decide who he was madder at: her or himself. He had made it easy for her to back off. He had gone back so often after stupid arguments. He went back even if she should have been the one apologizing. It had never mattered to him whose fault anything was. He only knew that he wanted her, wanted to be with her.

And now, here he was 6 months later moping. He realized he couldn’t mope anymore. He couldn’t keep thinking of her beautiful sad eyes. Even when she smiled there had always been a hint of serious lurking beneath the surface.

He had always wanted to make that sadness go away, to make her smile like there was no tomorrow or yesterday, as if that moment of happiness was enough forever. But he hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t been enough to save her from her haunting. He could only hope that she would be okay.

There was nothing else he could do.

He sighed heavily at the computer screen in his home office. His hand twitched on the mouse. He created a new folder and labeled it “The Past”. He transferred all of the pictures of their time together into the folder. He right clicked and made it hidden.

It still existed. He couldn’t bring himself to delete them, just like he couldn’t bring himself to delete the files in his office. This was the next best things. The files would still exist. Like the past they were still vivid and accessible but no longer on the forefront.

It was time for new memories, a new present and a new future.

He couldn’t keep thinking about what could have been. He couldn’t keep wondering what would happen if he went to her now. He was done. She wouldn’t try to save them. She never had, and he was beginning to accept that she never would. They were done.

She was a part of his formation, important but no longer present. It was something that he would have to learn to live with. It was too late to do anything about it.

It was time to move forward and put the past behind him.

Finally.

***

She sat in the dark eating a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Phish food while watching a marathon of sappy movies. The crunch of chocolate and the taste of caramel comforted her as the tears continued to roll down her cheeks. She had tried to go back to compartmentalizing but it wasn’t working.

He was haunting her. She was sure of it. Whenever she left her apartment, she could swear she saw him. She saw the back of his head walking blocks ahead of her, the cowlick apparent in his dark hair. She saw his weathered brown briefcase swinging to his jaunty gait. She saw his big hand hail a taxi. She saw his head tipped to the side holding the cell phone between his head and shoulder while he fiddled in his pocket for a pen. She saw him in everything and in everyone in gestures that her brain wouldn’t let her forget. But it was never him. He wasn’t actually there. She would do a double take, his name on her lips but it was never him. It was always someone else, a similar build, the same hair color.

It’s how she knew she was going crazy.

In the last few days, he was never far from her thoughts and tears were always close to the surface.

And it was frustrating because her thoughts kept running in circles back to him and the feeling that there was nothing she could do. It was a feeling of helplessness that she wasn’t used to. She had ultimately made him leave, let him walk out the door. She could have chased him, talked to him, and explained what had been going on in her head; the stress, the confusion. But instead she had shut herself off and started to clean the glass and water from the floor. She had let her favorite vase fall and break, the blue and white ceramic vase that he had given her on a random Tuesday the year before. She had let it crash and shatter... When he gave it to her it had been filled with her favorite sunflowers and poppies. She remembered looking up when he walked through the door vase in hands. She saw the flowers before she saw him and had jumped from the sofa, knocking her papers to the ground, laughing happily. “They’re gorgeous!” she had yelled and then launched herself into his arms, kissing him. They had been so happy, not always, but often.

And she had let the vase roll out of her grasp and shatter with the slamming of the door. She had let him go.

 She was lost because she had caused her own pain. And in retrospect, she had always caused her own pain. She had always gotten in her own way. She had talked herself out of feeling things, convinced herself that the emotions she felt weren’t real or valid or justified. She had always pulled back and kept her heart safe. Five years into the relationship and she had still been trying to protect herself. Look what protection had gotten her. Look what protection had done.

She still loved him. She still needed him but she had lost him due to her own stubbornness.

That kept repeating in her brain. It was her fault, everything was her fault. And she couldn’t figure out what to do about it.

There was a battle going on inside her. A stupid battle really. It was a battle of thought; whether to take action or to be still. Up until now she had always chosen stillness. She had always chosen to wait things out, to see what happened. She had never actively sought anything out in her life. She had never searched for a boyfriend. They had always chosen her. Her college had basically fallen into her lap, a random whim, something she had fallen into. She had chosen her concentrations; writing and psychology. But she had fallen into her career. It didn’t really relate back to her studies. She had fallen into it by luck, by word of mouth, because every now and then things worked out.

She disliked the life she had fallen into. She had disliked it for months, if not years and she had convinced herself it was okay. It was what grownups do. They fall in line and take responsibility. They find a job, create a life that suites their needs.

The problem was, she had been so unhappy and frustrated that she had lost the one blip of good in her horizon. She had lost the one man who loved her and who she loved because she hadn’t been able to let go of preconceived notions. She had pushed him out when she needed him most, when he had just been trying to help her.

And now, she had to figure out a way to fix it, all of it on her own.

She couldn’t call him broken and in pieces expecting him to step back into her life as if nothing had happened with a glue gun in hand. She realized that he had always wanted to do that, help her pick up the pieces of a puzzle that she hadn’t even realized was incomplete and scattered.

The problem was she had always denied the wrongness. She had pretended that it didn’t matter when she knew it did. At least subconsciously she had always known. The stress had manifested in different ways pushing her away from those she loved.

He had tried to push to keep her. She had let it fall apart.

It was rare for her to feel such resolve, but if she wanted him or anyone for that matter she would have to fix herself first. She couldn’t keep fighting invisible opponents that no one could see but everyone could feel.

And then if fate was on her side, she would find the right opportunity to get him back before he found someone new, if he hadn’t already.

Oneword: Fiction

It was fic­tion. Every­thing that he’d ever said to her was a com­plete work of fic­tion. He had lied from the begin­ning, fab­bri­cated every sin­gle thing he’d ever said to her. From his rea­sons to being at the restau­rant, to his rela­tion­ship sta­tus, to his home­town… Now she couldn’t tell where the truth began, if it was even there at all… Now, she thought, even his feel­ings were a work of fic­tion, a beau­ti­ful piece of fan­tasy elab­o­rately written…

Oneword: Notice

It's what I saw.  The red hair flaming in the water, like a beacon, like the sundry call of a mermaid.  It waved, flashed in the sunlight.  I wanted that hair. I wanted to be noticed like she would be, all because of the Jessica Rabbit hair gleaming in the sunlight, dancing in the water. 


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Short Story: Things fall apart... part II

At home he let his thoughts wander as he sipped at a beer. There was a soccer match on the TV but he wasn’t focused like he normally would be. No his thoughts went back to her. Her face, those green eyes piercing him. He went back to that first time they had met in the bar that he used to go often, the bar that had been his second home. He hadn’t been there in months because he could remember her too clearly there. That first time he had met her was spring and the world cup had been on; Italy vs. South Korea. He didn’t remember exactly what she had been wearing but it was blue for the Azzuri. She had been laughing watching the screen intently while intermittently answering her friends who weren’t nearly as interested in the game. He mostly watched the game that day.  It had been a good one.  But he had been frequently drawn to her laughter.  He would catch a glimpse of her golden hair swinging through the air as she turned back to her friends. There was something about her that had pulled him towards her. He had known that he wanted to talk to her. He had wanted to know her, wanted to know that vivid smile and crystalline laugh.

But he didn’t want to interrupt. He didn’t want to be the guy that hit on her in a bar.  He didn't want to be remembered that way. So he waited patiently and tried to think of what he could do. He had approached other women successfully in the bar but there was something about her. He didn’t want to send her a drink. He didn’t want to make an overt pass. He wasn’t interested in the one night stand. Not with her anyway.

So when she came up to the bar at the end of the game, right next to him, to get the bartenders attention, he had started chatting about the game. She responded enthusiastically. Not only did she watch soccer, but she knew the terminology. She had played. He didn’t notice but they spoke for over an hour about the game, soccer, and various otherintersecting topics of common interest. It wasn’t until a friend of hers tapped her on the shoulder that either of them noticed that he’d been monopolizing her attention. They had laughed and he noticed the dimple on her left cheek.

He was hooked and she wasn’t remotely aware. She had kept her distance, laughed, smiled, even flirted a little but he couldn’t tell if she was interested or if the animationon her face was solely for the subject matter. So he didn’t ask for her number.

It was her friend that had insured he would see her again. “We’ll probably be seeing you tomorrow Mike. Amy wants to watch the game at 3pm.” So even though he hadn’t planned on watching that particular game he went to the bar hoping to talk to her again. Amy.

Her name seemed to echo in his head needlessly. They had dated for almost 5 years. At first on and off and then steadily. When they fought, he’d always wind up calling her to apologize.

She was always in his head. She was his drug of choice, charming, sweet and fun and then alternatively closed, passive aggressive, and insecure. But within months of starting seeing her he had fallen in love, more deeply than he had thought possible. So although they fought and she occasionally dove him insane, he couldn’t get her out of his head.

And now six months after he’d walked out, called for it all to end, he was still in love with her. She was never far from his thoughts, from his heart. But he couldn’t go back to her. Not after six months. Not after that last fight where everything had blown up in their faces. Because it hadn’t been one argument.  It had been like 100 arguments rolled into one. The prior months had been filled with him asking her “What’s wrong?” and her answering, “Nothing, it’s fine. I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

And then finally she had lost it, that calm composure had been a façade just like he had thought. And they’d had a shouting match that seemed to go on for hours. It probably had gone on for hours. There’d been screaming and tears and throwing. In the five years he’d known her, it was the most extensive display of emotion he’d seen from her. And part of him had been glad. It was the part of him that prodded the argument that ignored the other part of him that wanted to hold her, calm her, and make everything all better.

But he knew he couldn’t do that. If she went back to holding it all in, he would lose her. They would never be able to be happy.

In the end he had lost her anyway. The argument of hours turned into a silence that was painful to the ears. That had lasted a week and then he had picked another fight; anything to get her talking again. And at the end she had coldly told him to get out and to not come back. There was no hint of the girl he knew.

It was his breaking point. He simply nodded and turned. He went into their bedroom and packed his bags. He had given her what she wanted.

That Thursday he had slammed the door behind him. He heard glass break. He didn’t think she had thrown anything. He had an image in his head of the vase of flowers she had been holding when he had walked past her. He could imagine the vase rolling out of her hands, crashing to the ground.

He had leaned against the door and took a deep breath. He had wanted to go back inside and clean the mess… But he couldn’t. Not then.

Now he took a deep breath and tried to focus on the game in front of him. He wondered if she was watching the same game and sighed. He put his head in his hands, arms propped on his knees.

It was a struggle not to pick up the phone.

This ache had to stop. He would go crazy if it didn’t…

***

Her ache had just begun and because she had only just acknowledged it, it hurt all the more. She wanted to go back to pretending as if he didn’t exist as if he had never existed in her life, had not led this flood of emotion to hit her.

She had always been so controlled. So capable and then he’d come along and changed everything.  She had spent five years resisting. She had spent five years fighting him for freedom; freedom that he had always given her. She had spent five years falling hopelessly and utterly in love with him and hadn’t noticed because he head had been too far up her ass.

She knew when she had first fallen in love with him. She remembered it precisely. It was four months, almost five months into the relationship. She called it the point of no return. It was the point where she usually ran. She never stayed in a relationship longer than five months. She remembered wanting to end it. She had wanted to stop because she was already too attached as far as she was concerned.

He had taken her to dinner on a Wednesday night and then they had wandered around the city hand in hand in the crisp night air. And then when they had passed a playground he had insisted they stop. And he had pushed her on the swings. They had giggled like children running around by the monkey bars and sliding down the metal slide. It had turned into a game of tag and she felt like a child again. He had caught her up in his arms and swung her around and kissed her. She had known it was over. She had fallen in that moonlit moment. She knew that she was in love with him then.

So she spent the next weeks panicking and trying to figure a way out. She had tried to walk away. She had tried to break up with him.

But he hadn’t let her walk away. Every time she tried, he stepped in. He would surprise her; make her fall further in love with him. And yet he never acknowledged her fall. He made it easy. He had made it so easy to love him and only him. He was patient. He waited for her and he always came back to help her work out whatever she had said. He was what she needed. He was what made it all better.

It had taken her forever to realize that. It had taken her six months of make believe, of pretending that everything was getting easier to realize that nothing had gotten better. She wasn’t whole without him. She didn’t know what to do.