II - Alone
In the mornings, I roll over and, with the light slightly blinding me, I forget that your side of the bed is empty. It is all just a terrible misunderstanding - a bad dream - nothing is changed. Then I blink, my pupils adjust and my senses reach out to verify. Yes, I slept alone again. The heating blanket is kicked to the foot of the bed, sheets tangled around my calves, pillows strewn in my attempts to create shapes that could cradle my limbs - the way I would have been wrapped in you over various positions throughout our sleep state. In the moments between dreams and waking, my reality is still unshaped, and my body warms with the sense that you will begin touching me as I stir.
This is not so. You have left me, or been stolen. However I work to phrase it, I am alone before I could possibly have been ready.
On this day, I have slept even later than the others in my attempt to delay knowing. The clock across the room indicates it is well into the afternoon. My nights have become more sleepless, distracting myself with writing and researching and pretending that I can do meaningful things if I can just understand more, find one more thing. The house is quiet, I haven't plugged the phone back in since the first day. No one needs me now, and I am tired of sympathy - the silence is as close to you as I can get. Peaceful, commanding, invasive.
I miss you so much. My heart clunks around as I let myself fall into the feeling.
There is a banging. It takes me a moment to realize it is coming from reality, not my imagined heart malfunction. I contemplate ignoring it. The rumpled bed is a haven we shared and I hate the intrusion of the outside world. The pounding on the front door continues with increasing insistence, so I sigh and unfurl, pulling your worn undershirt from the nest of pillows and tugging it over my head; I sniff to find a last vestige of your smell. I pad through the hall to the entryway of our house – it feels like an empty shell now. Looking through the hole I see the last person I ever wanted to see again. Sam. Fuck, shit, cunt, dick, Sam.
I should have known. I throw the deadbolt but keep the chain latched. Crack the door. "Go away." My voice is clear and I am impressed at the lack of emotion I manage.
His hands are in fists, and I guess that he never released the tight balls even once he realized he didn't have to beat the door down any longer. He steps as close as he can to the open space, filling the frame with his ridiculous body.
"Open the fucking door Love." The way he says fucking is so weird, it is almost sexy with his aggravated Southern twang, though the clipped delivery makes it seem inappropriate, like it shouldn't even be in his vocabulary.
I shake my head. "Really, I want you to go. I just want to be alone."
I sense his features tighten but then his face is a mask of controlled planes and smooth surfaces, unperturbed. "I am not leaving. You will let me in or I will break your pretty door."
I weight his words for truth. Not worth the mess.
I remember the time you pushed me up against it and fucked me off the ground. Your ghost is everywhere. I unlatch the chain and turn away for the kitchen; coffee is the only thing to look forward to now. I hear the door swing and shut behind me, the bolt hit home, and I move with intention so that I don't have to face Sam yet.
Pulling yesterday's filter from the machine that will prevent me from committing murder or suicide, I wonder if you'd be mad at me for being such a shitty hostess. Maybe I can dream up a spanking tonight. I feel Sam before I hear him, and then he is blocking my movements. I have coffee grounds in my hand. Get out of my way.
Instead I say nothing. I just stand still, waiting patiently until he caves and moves to let me throw them in the trash. The battle of wills won, I go back to my task of readying the coffeemaker, and he stands aside. I hover a finger over the power button. He reaches around me and presses it.
"Now, Love, we need to talk." No, no, no. No thank you. I don't want to talk. My head shakes with the cadence of my negative response.
"Love..." his eyes are boring into the back of my skull. I know what he is thinking. I am a broken toy now. I was yours and you are gone, now what am I? I think the same things. That means it's time to turn my brain off. I try to walk away and he snatches my wrist. I turn back and try to find my best glare. He looks at me as if he is genuinely curious, searching every line on my face. "Love. You have to stop this."
Stop what? Living? I wish. I shrug. What else is there to do?
