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 Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 5:07 pm
Torn
There are times she forgets. Quiet, happy little moments when things are right, and worry is elsewhere. These moments are precious, and she longs for them, wishes she could keep them when they appear, but so often, the realization is enough to shatter the calm and bring reality crashing down again.
These moments are precious. Because sometimes--when she's in his arms, and she can hear the steady beat of his heart beneath hear ear when she lays against his chest--she can forget the rest of the year. Every awful thing that had left a stain or a scar. For just a little while, she can feel normal(even though she's not), or wanted(a selfish desire), or cared for(she doesn't deserve him, he's too good for her).
These moments are precious, and she needs them.
To be without is to drown in grief, and anger, and hopelessness.
These moments are terrifying, because she needs them, and she knows it won't last. It never does.
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Posted: Wed Dec 30, 2015 5:53 pm
Nerves
Read it later.
It's a request she has no trouble honoring. The note is set aside while he's there, briefly forgotten as the rest of the gifts are exchanged, and grateful hug turns into a kiss, and another, and another. She doesn't remember until after he's left to deliver more holiday cheer, though even then she doesn't read it. Nor the next morning, or the day after.
She's afraid, because what could he have possibly written that he wouldn't want her to see while he was present? She's afraid because she has an inkling she already knows, and she doesn't have a clue what to do with that knowledge, or how it might change things.
A few times she's come close. Turning the envelope in her hands over and over as she listens to the soft chiming of the bangles he gave her sliding along her slender wrist. Her nails slide along the flap, prying it up, but she can't quite bring herself to pull it free to read it, because at least in this--now, after everything else--she's a coward.
When she finally does, perched on the side of her bed with the empty envelope laying on the mattress beside her, it's after what seems like an entire day dredged up drama over twitter. About her, but not including her. It's after realizing how little those old wounds hurt now. Not just scabbed over, but healing. Healed.
She reads the note with an anxious knot in her stomach and shoulders hunched, chewing nervously at the side of one painted nail.
It's shorter than she was expecting, simpler than she expected, and that's a relief, but it's still a little heavier than she would have liked.
(Because she's broken, and the idea of love is now terrifying)
Trepidation blends with relief, and when she's read the note twice she folds it neatly and tucks it back in the envelope with her name on it. This is placed in the drawer of the bedside table next to her. She doesn't know what to do, or if she should do anything about it at all.
Maybe she doesn't have to do anything.
Maybe it doesn't change anything.
(Please don't let it change anything)
Maybe, if she's honest with herself, and she thinks beyond how much she needs, she's starting to feel the same.
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2016 4:34 pm
The road to redemption
It's over due, has been for months now, but it's still terrifying. Still so incredibly difficult that even when she's set her mind to it, vowed that today was the day, she almost lets herself run from it. But she can't, because if she doesn't face this, she'll never be able to let go.
And she needs to let go. It's sat like a weight on her heart for months now. Still heavy, still sore, but no longer the aching thing it had once been. No longer festering and toxic. The acute agony has faded to something almost numb, but it's still there, and she needs to purge herself, to lighten the load. She needs to be able to move on, and continue living. She can't afford to be a shell of her former self.
The problem, of course, is having to address feelings that have been buried. Not just the normal mourning pain, but the resentment she's buried so she doesn't have to look at it. The anger at him, and what his choices had done to her, to them, and how nothing could ever be the same again. Not her, not the others left behind to pick up the pieces. The ones left to try to make sense of it all, when there was no sense to find. Because, what he's done, is senseless to her.
It's selfish.
So she makes her way tot he little cemetery tucked neatly out of the way, and she finds the stone with is name so freshly carved into the marble. It's the first time she's been here. The first time she's had the strength for it, and for that, at least, she's sorry. She should have visited before now, under different circumstances, and not for this.
The grass feels cold beneath her shins as she kneels there, hands clenching in the loose weave of the sweater that hangs down into her lap. For a long time she doesn't say anything, the words like lead in her mouth. But they're all there, because she's recited them, over and over in her head, for weeks now. She's just got to open her mouth...
"You left us." It's an accusation, even if her voice is empty, even if her eyes are empty. She's already cried for him, for them, for all of it. "You're a coward, and you're weak, and you didn't love us like you said you did. You didn't.." Emotion creeps in, making the words heavy. "You didn't care enough to try. You didn't care enough to think about anyone but yourself!" It feels like the entire island is listening, down to the very last grain of sand on the beach.
"It's your fault," she continues after a moment, a few seconds to breath, to reign in that careful calm. That blessed calmness. "You didn't just leave, you took things with you. You took her compassion, you took my trust. You took so much, and you'll never realize it, and who even knows if there's any getting it back. If there's any way to fix what you broke." Her throat feels tight, so she swallows. It doesn't help. "But you didn't think about that. You didn't think about the void you left behind, or what it cost the people you claimed to love. You didn't think about the people that depended on you, the ones that loved you. Or, if you did, you didn't ******** care."
Looking away from the headstone, she hakes her head, letting out a heavy breath. "You couldn't have." It just didn't make sense to her. This was no noble sacrifice meant to save the ones you loved. This had been an escape. Running away.
"You're such a coward..."
(You were supposed to be better than this)
"I loved you. I needed you, and you just left."
(She'd needed them both, and they'd both left)
"How could you?"
But there's no answer to that, because here, at least, the dead seldom answer.
It's a while yet before she moves from her spot. The grass isn't cold anymore, but warm, leaving funny imprints against her skin. Stray pieces clinging until she brushes them free.
She doesn't know if she feels better, or worst, at the moment she just feels numb, worn out, drained. It would help, she thinks, if she could just hate him for what he's done, and maybe a small part of her does, but it's only a small part. A small piece of the whole of her feelings for him.
Later, she'd feel lighter. When numbness wore away, and she'd had a chance to rest for a bit.
It's not gone, that weight--maybe it'll never be gone--but it's smaller, and for the first time in months, she doesn't feel quite so trapped, quite so overwhelmed, or quite so guilty.
For the first time in a long time, she feels something a little closer to hope.
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