I don't even know who's POV this is. It's just random. I haven’t slept since he left. I sit with my back on the edge of the couch most nights staring straight ahead, praying he’ll walk through the door. I always leave it unlocked just in case. Maybe we got too close to fast. It was one of those breakups that afterwards you couldn’t really tell who broke up with who, it was just over. I know I never saw it coming. Sometimes when I’m lying awake at night, wishing for sleep to come and take me I wonder if he saw it looming ahead, like a fork in the road, and he knew he’d have to decide which way to go. I wonder why he didn’t take me with him. The way he held me and the way his warm body felt next to mine might be what keeps me awake. Or it might be the undying hope that he’ll walk through the door, or leave a message on my answering machine, begging me to take him back. Sometimes after I’ve watched a female empowerment type TV show, or something good happened at work I’ll think ‘If he calls I’ll just say fuck off, I don’t need you.’ My will power evaporates as soon as I come home and check my messages and see the red blinking ‘1’ on my answering machine, signaling I have a new message. It turns out to be a telemarketer and my heart sinks a little further down my body. I think my heart is lying near my feet now, but I really can’t be sure. When I’m cold my knees turn purple, so maybe that’s were my wounded vital organ has landed. I had stopped trying to go to sleep, just I had stopped trying to forget him. I tossed on the couch instead of my small bedroom. It was only big enough for a mattress and about a billion memories of him and me. There’s no room for my tiny body. The scratchy fabric of the couch itches my bare legs and the dry summer heat makes me sweat without moving. Something feels different. I find myself thinking that maybe he’ll come back tonight. I know I sound pathetic, but I’m so far past caring. I left caring in my dust months ago. The sun is rising or setting, I can’t be sure and dust swirls around in the golden light like fairy dust. I try to catch some but it seems just beyond my fingertips. Like him, elusive and magical. It’s been forever since he was here but sometimes when the wind blows the right way I convince myself can still smell his sent. I look to the fridge and read the list he left. A grocery list scrawled in his messy writing: milk, bread, cookies… The black pen he used is faded now, much like my memories of him. I remember him padding quietly across the floor but I don’t remember why or when. I remember a red shirt that he used to wear, but I don’t remember the slogan on the back. I resisted the urge to open the door and check if he’s outside in the narrow dingy hallway. Maybe he’s been there all along and I hadn’t been looking hard enough. Maybe he’s in the cramped hall closet or in the bathtub with the burgundy curtain pulled over, waiting to leap out and tickle me when I found him and he couldn’t hide anymore. ‘Come out come out where ever you are.’ I thought hopelessly. My fingers felt tight so I cracked them. I held my breath and listened to the silence around me. The air felt so close that I wanted to take off my skin so I could breath. I let out the air I was holding in my chest and looked over at the door again. My mind screamed at me that he wasn’t coming back, and he’d probably forgotten all about me. I remembered him whispering in my ear that we’d last forever, and I strained my ears, hoping against hope that I’d hear it again. I heard a phone ringing in the apartment above me and I stupidly wondered if it could be him. As I watched the second hand of the clock make its way around the large face I wondered if he left because of his mother. I remember the long messages that she used to leave on the answering machine, wondering where he was and if he was coming home for dinner any night that week –any night at all. It wasn’t that his mother didn’t like me, she just missed him, and didn’t think it was a good idea to move in unless we were married. We both knew it was a brilliant idea, and even though we had to scrape rent together at the end of each month we were happy. Or I thought we had been. Two nights before he went away he had spoken up while we lay in each other’s arms. It wasn’t like him, and I loved him because he understood me completely. Everyone thought it was so strange that he had opened up to me so quickly. He was so stubborn usually that anything he relented on I took and ran with. I snapped back into the present as memories played in my head. “I have to leave.” I could hear his voice reverberating within the paper thin stained walls. Like echoes that hadn’t yet come back around. “Why?” I said out loud, replaying the scenario over again, as I did almost every night now. I felt a lump form in my throat and looked at the calendar. It was 4 months today. 4 months that seemed like eternity. The days didn’t blend into each other as they’re supposed to do. I could remember each day like pinpricks in my skin, each painful and each left a small scar. I ran my hand along my bare arm, trying to recreate his gentle touch. I knew it was useless to try. It was like writing the greatest literature the world has ever read, and then your computer freezing before you could save it. I closed my eyes tight and then opened them again, hoping it had all been a dream. My brown eyes carefully inspected the apartment. The same as before, nothing had changed, I was still alone. I licked my cracked, dry lips and lost myself in memories. His fingers running through my hair, laughing about nothing at all, rainy Sundays watching whatever was on TV. I gazed down at my right hand and took off the cheap neon orange bubble gum machine ring that I always wore on my pinky. He gave it to me as a joke. I rubbed the scripted letters that lay underneath it, as if trying to remove it from my skin. 'In Love' was what it said, almost taunting me. I had started to save up money to have it removed, thinking that if I took away the permanent the things that he left behind on my skin, that I could move on. I forgot that I couldn’t forget the permanent things he had left on my memory. I slipped the small plastic ring on each finger, and took it off again, making a smooth pattern. I focused my eyes on my hands, refusing to look at the wooden door again. A ripple went through my stomach as his face popped into my mind. It was as clear as if he was standing right in front of me, and I swore that if I tried hard enough I could reach out and touch it. My mind went uncharacteristically blank as I heard a light tap on the door. “I have to.” He had said that night, picking up his black suitcase. I remember the rain had been relentless all that week, as if some cosmic foreshadowing to what was about to happen. “Why?” “I love you.” He had kissed me once, and I was too shocked, or too stupid to realize it would be the last time he kissed me. If I knew then what I know now, I would have hung on to that kiss for the rest of eternity. Instead I had pulled back first, gazing up into his tear-filled eyes. “I love you too.” I had cursed my words after they had left my mouth. They sounded like a good-bye. They sounded like I understood. Did my brain know something it wasn’t telling the rest of body? I heard the tapping again and now it was impossible to say it was a figment of my imagination. “It’s open.” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. I thought at first that whoever it was on the other side of the door didn’t hear me, because nobody entered. I was embarrassed because I thought I had fallen for another one of the tricks that my mind tended to play on itself. I watched as the bronze colored doorknob turned slowly in a semi circle, teasing me with its slow rotation. My breath caught in my throat as a large figure stepped into the room. I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the couch. I almost rubbed my eyes with my fists, like a little kid on Christmas morning, wondering if they were still dreaming. He looked so awkward, standing the doorway of the place he used to call home. He stepped inside, holding the same suitcase he left carrying and I wondered for a minute if any time had passed at all. It wasn’t like I thought it would be. I didn’t rush to meet him, smothering him with kisses. I stood slowly, daring him to move, to speak first. I thought my pride had been washed away by all the tears I had cried when he left, but it resurfaced now, not letting any sound pass through my lips. “I love you.” He said simply, as if it was enough for all the sleepless nights he had caused me. It was. OptionsAdd Story to FavoritesAdd Author to FavoritesSubmit a Review