I didn’t change the sheets last night after all. Instead I touched the empty space next to me and admitted I had not been ready to let go of that yet. I admonished myself for a while, then I slept. Mercifully, I did not dream. That I couldn’t have handled.
This morning I opened my eyes and bcame determined that today would be better. Once I got in the shower, I remembered him telling me how he was not all men. How he was going to prove to me that some men are different. And I realized he had failed. He had done exactly what men before him have done. Exactly what I actually trusted him not to do. I tried to get angry over it, but I couldn’t. So I tried not to cry instead. Also, I couldn’t.
Then it happened. I started finding the things he left behind. I must have looked at the spot a thousand times last night, but this morning I saw a bottle of his just laying there in that spot in my bedroom. There was no doubt, it was his. I picked it up to throw it out and got as far as the kitchen, but I couldn’t. So I set it on the counter and stared. A bottle of Tums. This is ridiculous. But there it sits.
I got down to my car and realized he was the last one to drive it. Everything was set differently. I had to take time to put it back. I tried not to cry. I saw the momento he had taken from the restaurant where we had brunch Sunday, sitting in my car. Not with him now, but with me. I remembered how he had talked to my friends while I was in the restroom and told them how he could really see himself with me. I wondered why that wasn’t worth at least a shot. A chance that this could be different, for both of us.
And yet the fear has made it exactly the same as so many things that came before it. Another reason to be broken. Another reason to hurt. And I am so profoundly sad because I truly believed this would not come to this. I haven’t been willing to believe like this in literally years. And if something in this doesn’t give it will be so many more before I do again. My friends insist this will come around, because there was so much there for both of us. I tell them I can’t afford to hope anymore. And yet I think we all know a tiny corner of my heart is still lit with exactly that.
I remember the crushed look on his face when he told me he never wanted me to have another night like I did two nights ago. When I fell asleep crying in his arms. What he never knew is that that night was so much better than last night. Where I ached and hurt and cried and there was no one to talk to or hold me. When I knew that he would not be there to do it again. Last night was infintely worse, and I wonder now if he’ll ever know that. If we can ever fix it.
This morning I remembered all the half formed plans I already had for us. Concerts, and conferences, and roller coasters. How I had already looked at my calendar to see when in the coming months I could go there to see him. How I had already thought out how we could make some events affordable for him to come and see me. How I was mapping things out carefully in my head to make it work, even though it broke all of my rules too. Even though.
But right now he is shutting me out. And there is nothing I can do. I’m helpless. And all I can think is that despite all hope and belief and promises, right now he is exactly like so many who came before. And I’m desperate for him to prove me wrong.
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