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.
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