When did you become so like everyone else?
Deaf to my pleading words
Until I’m screaming in your ear.
Day 376
The paper under my bare thighs crackles a little as I adjust. My thick blue socks—cerulean, by my guess—peek up at me. They kind of match the hospital gown, though that wasn’t planned at all.
I hate how sterile this place feels. Sterile of disease and feelings.
I close my eyes and try not to remember.
The way the doctor barely looked in my eyes. The only reason I knew what he was saying was real was because I could feel Sabrina squeezing my hand tighter and tighter with every word the man said.
There’s a knock at the door and I’m out of my nightmarish haze.
“Yes?”
A woman pokes her head inside, her brown hair pulled back and her blue eyes wide and alert.
“Hi, there!”
I already like her. She smiles and offers her hand as she introduces herself.
“I’m Dr. Gandy. Nice to meet you.”
Her hand is warm, and her smile reaches her eyes as she focuses on me, then on the laptop in her hands.
“Can you just verify some information for me?”
We go over my personal details as I stare down at my cerulean socks.
I wiggle my toes, feeling tiny in this room. My shoulders are slumped and it’s like I’m folding into myself.
Your body isn’t your safe place anymore.
Places like these were never good to me. Call me a little skittish.
“Denise?”
“Hm?” I look up at Dr. Gandy.
“Your bloodwork came back normal. I just wanted to take a look at things, physically. It’s been a while since you’ve had an exam.”
I nod.
There’s nothing normal about me anymore.
A lone tear slips out and I turn and wipe it away with the back of my hand, hopefully before she can catch sight of it.
She leans in close and places one of her warm palms on my knee.
“This is good news, Denise.”
Was it?
“Your hormone levels are back to normal.”
Normal.
She leans back and starts typing on her laptop and I wonder if she would think anything was normal if it’d happened to her. I wonder why I search for kindness and understanding in others. Could be that I had none left for myself.
Maybe if I found someone with some, it would inspire my own fountain of kindness to spring. Things were looking rather dry these days.
Looking for sympathy in strangers is a dangerous idea.
But looking for sympathy from Gavin was even harder, these days.
Because he was here . . . but he wasn’t here.
A stranger could apologize, even insincerely and without a second thought, for my misfortune but Gavin could not even bring himself to feel saddened for the loss of what should’ve been.
Still. I didn’t want Gavin’s sadness.
I just wanted him to care about my own.
More and more, my sadness was a weight dragging us down. I wasn’t who I used to be. And now, neither was Gavin.
Dr. Gandy listens to my heart and pokes and prods at me while I reflect internally.
As soon as she leaves the room, I grab my phone.
Me: Everything came back normal.
I’m pulling my shirt on when my phone vibrates.
Gavin: That’s good.
Good. Normal.
These relative terms are meant to encourage but . . . they just make me feel like less of a person.
Everyone else seems to have a grasp on these ideas of everything being okay while I suffer in my own little bubble. There are no good and normal in my hell.
Having Gavin back from Pakistan did little to assuage my heartache. I wore it on my body, in the rigid steps I’d take, keeping my purse clutched close to my body. In the ache in my back from tossing and turning and finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning from pure exhaustion. Dark circles under my eyes attested to this. And more often than not, I waited for him.
For a sign that he cared more than he’d let on these past few weeks.
After everything, I thought it was he and I in this together.
But the more time that passed he proved otherwise.
I pull out my phone once I’m out of the office and under the weak sunlight, the breeze chilling.
Me: We haven’t talked much.
I try to soften myself, to make my grief a little more bearable.
I tell myself that no one would want to be stuck with me right now. That the only reason Sabrina deals with me is because she has to.
Gavin: What do you mean? I saw you yesterday.
But we didn’t speak, I want to tell him.
The type of quality conversation I crave. The kind of conversations we used to have; where questions were asked and answered, and I wasn’t attacked or misunderstood.
I’m standing at the corner, watching the orange hand telling me not to walk just yet, phone in my hand, right leg kicking out as I think it all over. Cars pass, horns honk, people gather around, waiting to cross the street.
I know I have to get to work soon but . . .
I make the calculations; how long would it take; would I be able to make it there and then to work?
Should I tell him?
I feel a little high on my impulses. But I crave another hit of whatever energy it is that keeps me coming back for more.
Just to remind me what it feels like, I think to myself, my eyes closed. Yesterday wasn’t enough after months apart.
I open my eyes and make a snap decision to head toward the restaurant, hoping he’d be there.
Wishing even more he wouldn’t be so I could reminisce in peace, knowing that even though he may not be there, he’s still somewhere in this city, as opposed to across the world.
I figure if I just speed walk the few blocks it’d take to get me to the restaurant, I could still make it to at least two more stores today. I was supposed to have done four, but I had the rest of the week to get to all of them.
I’m halfway there when I start to lose my nerve, working up a sweat.
What if he is there? Then what?
Showing up where he was in the past was never a problem. In fact, I’d always been invited.
A sign of the times, I suppose. Of the fact that we were no longer where we were.
I ignore the trepidation building up inside me, with each step I take. Like the closer I got to the possibility of seeing him, the higher my anxiety level.
What side of love was this?
I have no time to ponder it because I’m crossing the street and it’s all coming back to me.
The day we met, the days following, the weeks and months, the laughter and love and sex. A slow smile spreads across my face and as I approach, I’m reminding myself that with everything we shared, the entirety of our story, there was no reason to be afraid.
I stop just outside, peeking through the glass exterior, hoping to catch a glimpse of him inside. My eyes scan, looking for caramel skin and a head of dark, smooth hair. I’m trained by the image of him in my mind, going through my personal catalogue of Gavin moments. His smile, his eyes when he’s excited, angry, defeated, frustrated with me. It all lives inside my head, perfectly preserved.
Still, I don’t see him. Only a few people inside, eating. Not one of them familiar to me.
His family’s restaurant, serving authentic Pakistani food for over six years now, where his sister and her husband had taken over running while Gavin lives in Pakistan.
Except . . . his brother-in-law passed away a few weeks ago. So, he’s back. For how long? I don’t know. I don’t know if Gavin doesn’t know or just won’t tell me. Then again, there are plenty of things I don’t know.
But I do know this: Gavin returning to Pakistan is inevitable. His parents want him there, living his culture, helping them in their old age . . . finding a wife.
My sigh is sad. For me, for us, for the situation. For the dead and dying possibilities between us.
Just when I’m about to accept defeat and head out, I see him.
And it’s just like the first time.
Except I’m not the woman he’s smiling at inside.
I watch as he brings her a plate of food from the back, something he’d surely prepared for her himself. He speaks to her in that passionate and charismatic way of his, all bright eyes and direct eye contact.
She smiles and touches his hand, gratitude in her expression. She isn’t alone; there’s another woman sitting across from her. The one staring up at him has dark hair and her skin tone is similar to his and I wonder . . .
There are only a few steps between me and the door. When I grab the handle, Gavin looks up, his smile still on his face. Until he sees me.
All of our arguments these past few weeks, all of my hurt, none of it compares to the fact that the pleasure leaves his face at the sight of me.
I let go of the door and start to walk away just as the woman he was speaking to turns to see whatever’s taken his attention away from her.
I should’ve gone with my instincts. I should’ve . . .
Why did I feel like such an outsider in his life?
Winter is brutally kind to me, attempting to embrace me, not knowing that its icy grip pushes me further into my sadness as I rush to any destination.
Anywhere but here.
“Denise!” I hear Gavin behind me and I stop. There’d be no use continuing to walk, knowing he’d just catch up to me anyway.
And that hidden hope . . . the one that forever hopes he’ll keep me.
He walks up behind me, beside me, until he’s in front of me, facing me.
“What the hell was that?” He tosses an arm out to the restaurant, as if I require the reminder. It’d be hard to forget how similar the woman inside looked to Gavin, like she belonged beside him; how peaceful she looked as opposed to the hurricane standing in front of him.
I had no business softening myself for this man. I was tumultuous, a massive emotional storm heading toward him, ruin in my wake, willing him to love every destructive fiber of myself. Even as I promised to bring him to his knees.
“I could ask the same thing. But I’d ask who that was, instead.”
My eyes are determined to maintain contact with his gaze, no matter how hard it is. Those eyes that’d looked at me on a hundred different days, a hundred different ways. I’d never seen this look in his eyes before.
As if I’d made good on the promise to bring him to his knees already.
I’m not wrong, I’m not wrong.
His hands are on his hips when he scoffs. The wind is kinder, still, tussling his hair, reddening his cheeks. I realize he’s out here with only a white button-down shirt on.
A thoughtless follow.
“Just like that, I’m guilty?”
“You could always answer the quest—”
“No, fuck that!”
I flinch at the volume of his anger. He takes a moment, runs his hands over his face. Hands that once touched me, once brought me to peaks of pleasure.
“What are we doing?”
A man on his knees, wondering how he got here; wondering how it’ll end.
“What are you doing?”
What aren’t you doing? That’s what I really want to say. I want to scream it at him. I want him to feel the words, deep in his pores, down to the very core of him.
“Entertaining a guest that my parents suggested I meet.”
It all sounds so simple.
So fucking innocent.
“We’re still in a fucking relationship! Fuck you, Gavin.”
My breaths are coming out in soft sobs.
“We’re in a relationship and I went through one of the hardest things in my life. We decided that we’d be together. Why do I feel so alone?” By the end of my words, I’m whispering.
He presses his lips together and lets out a sound of frustration.
“What do you want from me?!”
“I want you to give a shit about how I feel.” My voice shakes under the sheer volume of it and I hate the weakness in it. “How you should be here for me, helping me get past our loss because I didn’t get here alone, Gavin! This isn’t all my fault!”
I want to bury my face in my hands, but I won’t miss this moment. The sheer honesty makes my hands shake.
“Do you think I’d be here, freezing my ass off if I didn’t?”
“Honestly, I don’t know why you’re here! Because I’ve been alone all this time anyway! And you’re inside with some woman that your parents hope you end up falling in love with.”
“Don’t you bring my parents into this—”
My shaking hands want to hurt him, want him to shut the hell up and feel. Instead, I push him and he grabs my arms so hard, it pinches.
We’re screaming in the middle of the street and I wonder what once made this love and if it’s here still.
“It’s like you don’t hear me, you don’t care to hear me,” I yell, my hands on my head, as if the outside pressure will keep it from exploding with frustration. “We don’t speak the same language anymore.”
“I don’t even recognize you at this point, Denise!”
The rest of the words are muffled out in the ringing aftermath of that explosion.
Because I can’t recognize myself, either. This screaming woman, I don’t know who she is.
But . . .
Couldn’t he see?
Couldn’t he see my suffering?
Couldn’t he see I just needed someone to lift me out of this abysmal place?
My hands are still shaking, my eyes are closed, and my head starts to reject this entire conversation, jerking violently from side to side.
Hands grip my wrists and I open my eyes.
“Don’t walk away,” he says, his tone lower but still angry.
I hadn’t realized I’d even moved.
“I stay here, and then what?” I hear the exhaustion and defeat in my tone.
“I don’t know! I have no idea what to do from here because it isn’t like I’m staying.”
We can already know something deep in our hearts, know it deep down, and still hold a veil of denial over it. Push it back inside us and just never pay it any mind. That Gavin would be heading back to Pakistan and I’d still be alone was something I knew. But accepting that this was likely going to be the end for us?
That was the part that had my fists clenched, my nails digging into my palms.
I feel the pain on the outside and it distracts from the pain on the inside.
“So, what do you want, Denise? What will make this better?”
A random passerby would think we were just a couple arguing. That we were finally coming to a solution and that Gavin was a good man; one who would do anything I suggested to make this work.
But I know better.
He isn’t looking for a solution.
He’d be looking for holes in my suggestions.
His stance, the way he let my hands go, the way he posed the question, as if he’s daring me to make the impossible, possible.
“I just want a place in your life,” I whisper. He shakes his head now.
“We both know that isn’t true.” He grabs my wrists again but this time, gentler. A lot like the man I’ve been missing. “You want to be my whole world. And you deserve that.” His hands drop my wrists and move to my shoulders and up my neck, squeezing gently before cupping my face. “But we both also know that isn’t something I can give you right now.”
I let him kiss me, soft and sweet, little presses of nostalgia against yearnful skin.
Because for the first time in weeks, I understand him.
We’re two people, afraid to let go, afraid of missing out on something that once felt like fate; so tired of holding on because of the madness it was turning into.
But it felt like Gavin was finally ready to let go.