Loneliness
He leaves me.
He walks out with a kiss and a faint air of cologne. I sit immobile, waiting, seeing nothing. I sit there for three days.
Of course I move. I get up and eat and sleep and go to work and even laugh a little. But inside I don't move a muscle in case the tickle his moustache left on my lip goes away and I stop smelling his cologne.
I keep finding his things around the house. They're all there, if I look for them, if I walk into a room. But the little things, like a scrap of paper with his handwriting or a shirt he forgot to wash, catch me and I stare and stare and stare.
I count the days since he's been gone. I don't count one two three four five, but differently. Six days since he kissed me. A week since he snuck up on me in the shower. Ten days since he made me dinner. Two weeks since he tickled me all over and we laughed and laughed until we were crying and touching and being.
He didn't tell me when he'd come back. Open-ended, he said. Weeks, or months, it all could change.
It's been a week and I still don't know. But I have a feeling he'll return on a Sunday night late. He'll slip in while I'm asleep and leave for work before I'm awake, and I'll see the suitcase and the imprint on the pillow and spend the whole day shivering and waiting and trying to seem casual sitting on the couch facing the door.
I visit friends for the weekend.
They plead and beg me before I agree to go, but I don't want to leave the phone in case weeksmonths is resolved. I spend the weekend walking and smiling and drinking too much in the evenings. We pick apples and throw them at each other. At night I cling to the sheets and can't close my eyes.
When I get home I don't look at the answering machine for hours. I plot my life around avoiding it. Before I go to bed I look and the blinking red zero doesn't hurt as much as I thought it would.
I write letters I never send, countless letters. I find notes I don't remember writing, in the crevices of the couch, beneath my pillow, littering the kitchen.
Every week I collect as many as I can find and feed them to the fire one by two by handful and try and try and try not to reach in after them.
Brushing my hair takes longer because I look in the mirror for endless lengths of time. I try to see what has changed, where I am different. I stare into my eyes to see if it shows that he's not there anymore. My cheeks are thinner and my skin paler but my eyes look the same and I don't think it is right.
I dance alone at night and whisper to the dark. I don't talk to him, or myself, but just say meaningless little phrases that weigh more than my thoughts.
I remember the way he folded his clothes, and I do it completely different. There are more suitcases, more boxes, even a truck for the furniture. I leave his things and tell the landlady to sell them. I find more letters as I pack, letters I smooth out and save and throw away and then retrieve hours later.
The key bites into my hand as I pick it up from the last table, stripped and scrubbed clean. The room smells sterile and I can't remember what he looked like when he went away. I lock the door as quietly as I can and walk to the end of the hall before I turn around and watch it for what could be minutes, what could be hours.
I leave.