The Light

It still hurts.

It’s a surprising kind of hurt, though, like brushing up against an old bruise you thought had healed, or like smiling with a cut lip.

It isn’t that I think of him often, because I rarely do. It isn’t that what I remember is too painful to think back on. But sometimes, most often in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep and I’m awake, alone, this raw memory surfaces.

Inevitably, repetitively, nearly bi-weekly, there would be a fight. Over what? Doesn’t matter. Nothing in particular.

“Get the fuck out,” he’d say flatly.

But why? What did I do? I’d protest, argue, plead, beg.

“I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

Voices would be raised and words would be thrown like punches; I’d start to cry sooner rather than later. Sometimes it would take hours of yelling before I would take the hint and stumble out of his house, gasping desperate nonsense under my breath between sobs. And because I couldn’t see through my tears well enough to drive home, I would sit in my car and cry until there was nothing left. Gripping the steering wheel like a life preserver, I would fight the hopelessness threatening to break me by reassuring myself that any second, he would come to me, tell me that everything was going to be okay, that he loved me, would never mean to hurt me.

I would wait for hours.

I could see the lights on in his bedroom window. Every night, they clicked off with a finality I could feel from all the way across the street.

It hurts that I can quantify our entire relationship in these memories.

I waited for him, he turned out the light, and I went home.