It shivers and spurts, like blood beating against a clot until it breaks free.
It burns, it races. The feeling of freedom that children feel when they see a green hill, and know they’re allowed to stop pretending, and let themselves run and jump and roll through the grass and dirt, and finally breathe.
But it runs so deep and fast, and I’m afraid to give in, afraid of where it’ll take me and what I’ll have left when I get there.
But, anyway.
…
I read a story about making amends today. A brother who did something awful and finally came clean. The whole thing was a frantic question - what am I supposed to do because I don’t want to forgive him.
People offered sympathy, and someone gave him advice I didn’t know I needed. That it isn’t the same thing, saying you’re sorry and atoning, that there’s a difference between people confessing because they want to feel better and because they want to make right with you.
…
I want to forgive her, but I learned the hard way how perilous that kind of trust is.
I want to believe there’s a way for me to get over it, because she keeps coming back into my life, and every time she does I keep listening because I’m waiting for her to tell me, waiting for her to explain, because she has to know, doesn’t she? That this is what this has to be about.
She couldn’t have done what she did and just called me up because she wanted me to make her feel better, could she? It has to be because she has the answer, she can justify her presence in my life again.
I want to be able to look back and say to my friends, say to myself, that yeah, what she did was awful, but she owns it, she took responsibility, which is all the more admirable for how fucking terrible everything that happened was.
We were trapped in the burning building of our relationship, and I don’t blame her for getting out. But she climbed over me to get to the windows, and closed the doors behind to let me burn. I wish I knew if she ever looked back.
And you know what? It would be one thing to say that I know she hasn’t faced it yet, the reality of what she did. It would be shitty, and awful, but it would be one thing.
The truth is I don’t know. I don’t have a single fucking clue, because she still won’t let me in.
We meet up and she’s so surprised at herself, she doesn’t act this way around anyone these days, happy and carefree. She complains about the muscles in her face cramping from smiling. Her voice climbs an octave when she switches from talking to someone else to me, and she blushes whenever I point it out.
But I know, that’s just because this is her old mask, from the time when we knew each other. The mask she put on in high school when everyone thought she was the happiest girl on the planet. She was annoying as hell, and it wasn’t until I got a glimpse of the shit she had buried under it I thought she might be interesting enough to be worth getting to know.
Turns out those few glimpses were all I ever got, though. During our relationship I got the girlfriend mask, because she was terrified of showing me anything real, and I trusted her enough not to look for the cracks in the illusion.
…
We talk for hours, but she rarely volunteers a question, rarely offers a thought without prompting. And often then, like a student caught off-guard by a teacher.
I hate this, because even after all this time all I have of her are bad memories and a handful of impressions. I don’t know what she thinks about when she’s alone or how she really feels about me or what all the things she’s afraid of me finding out are.
I don’t know if the girl of my dreams is buried under all that emotional baggage or if I’m just kidding myself, because whatever else she is at least I know her phone number and could talk to her if I want to. Not like the nebulous idea of a girl I’ve never met.
I’ve told her all this, but then we’re still half a world apart with all our adult responsibilities. And I spend so much time trying to keep her far enough away she can’t hurt me… it’s hard to blame her for not trying harder to open up.
But I guess I do, because part of me wants it to be difficult, part of me doesn’t care, she dug her fucking hole and mine besides, and if this could ever work she has to do something, because once upon a time I did anything for her and she left me broken.
Loading comments...