Perfect

The night before, my mother had come to town. My daughter had been sick and instead of me taking another day off work, she would get to stay home with grandma. When she arrived around 11 pm, I was dressed but sleeping on the couch. I grabbed my keys, my mother worriedly blurts out, “ Are you sure you want to leave, I can sleep on the couch…”

I had fallen asleep over an hour ago and was barely awake. I responded with a harsh,“I’m leaving.”

I slowly walked towards my car and the dark felt strangely comforting. In the dark I can remind myself that the day is almost over, that the hell that happened the day before would be over soon. In the dark I can find comfort in knowing that my broken heart isn't frantically glittering away for the rest of the world to see beneath the harsh unrelenting light of day.

When I sat down to start the engine I hesitated. We’d been going back and forth for so long I don’t even remember when it used to be good, when we used to be happy…I had driven over there so many times with my stomach in knots, crying, in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night…we had once been perfect. Perfect.

I pulled in the same driveway that I had over 6 months ago, the first night I’d come to see him and his friends, just as friends- for a party. Except now, when I walk through the door and up those same stairs and climb into that same bed- our friendship wasn't the same, it was practically over- was our relationship over?

Nowadays, walking into that room either resulted in all-out war or worse, a tense cold peace.  It may not have been what either of us deserved or wanted- but  it was what we were now, and it was better than letting go- or it was for me.

Thursday was the day he told me it was over, again.  

It was now Sunday night, and he was on the couch watching a movie and I just went straight up to bed. I was exhausted, I had been, we both had been for so long now I think the only reason we kept holding on was to keep each other from falling down. I just wanted to sleep, to pretend this week, this weekend…this month…maybe this whole thing just never happened the way it did.

I’d spent so many nights hoping that the next day would be the day we would put down our weapons, we would surrender and start being what we were supposed to be from the beginning; happy. Happy, happy, the kind of happy that you never are until you finally find the One. Isn’t the One real?

I have to believe that  a better kind of happy and the One, exist.

When he came to bed he still smelt the same, it still felt the same, he still held me the same way. This night couldn’t have been so different from the first one? Here, in the very still, quiet beauty of the dark we were still; perfect.

But in the morning when I got home, my mother was leaving. My daughter had woken up in the middle of the night, she was exhausted. What am I doing? Why wasn’t I here?  My mom left and I peeked into my daughter’s room. There she was, enveloped in her purple and pink bedding, clinging to her stuffed penguin from the zoo.  I shut the door and backed down the hallway; I leaned on my couch and slumped onto the floor. And then I cried. And then I couldn't stop crying. 

I texted him, I called him, I begged for the last time. Don’t do this.

I don’t know if I’d ever begged like that before, but if anyone ever in the history of saying no, had ever had an easier time saying no, it was him, in this moment. 

I pleaded, I don’t want this, I need you and I need you to help me….but he couldn’t. 

He was sorry, but I don’t understand sorry anymore.

“ I recommend you call your sister or your mother,” he said and then I hung up.