He wrote her, and he shouldn't have. Their time together was no more, but the crashing nostalgia and wetness of the memory bled through his shirt and clung to his skin. He was choked by the thought of what they'd had - by what he might not have again. The abject silence of his apartment was a crime of omission.
Everywhere he ran for refuge he was greeted by a visage, a virulent remembrance of better times. The pale glow of the computer screen illuminated the longing, the emptiness that ached inside him without outlet. Sure, he'd found others - ones who were able to distract him from the loneliness and desolation of those grey skies - but their influence was meager and inconsequential. They didn't have what he needed: they were incomplete pictures, vaguely out of focus and poorly composed.
The last time they were together, in Sonoma, was the last time they were actually really together. Things had gone awry - as things had had a habit of doing - but he was happy with her, even in their unhappiness. Just having her near him was enough to quell the ache of loneliness, the ennui of existence. With her, he didn't feel alone. There had been a misunderstanding and a fight - words poorly chosen, ideas poorly expressed. Their skin had been goose-pimpled then, small tacks and sharpened edges all around. If they could, I wonder if they'd take back the things they'd said then...the things they'd done.
What they had allowed to happen had been an essential component of their undoing, their inevitable and regrettable separation. In retrospect she's become a kind of standard, one that future relations and prospective partners will be measured by. Often though, they'd fallen short of what was there, then. The love, companionship, understanding, communion, warmth. The physical intimacy.
Each time he ventures out yet is unable to find what it is he's looking for. Sometimes he'll exempt himself entirely from the search, choosing to spare himself the heartache - the swelling sense of mediocrity.
Other times he'll fall victim to wistful flares of nostalgia; listening to old voicemails just to hear her say I love you.
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