Glass Shatters
This…well, this is something that some might see as a bit of a departure from what I normally do. Hell, I almost see it as that as well. This isn’t just another one of my rants, this is something different. Why I’m showing this, I don’t know. I’ve been sitting on it for over two years, and have only let it see the light of day about three or four times other than the close-knit circle of people who I show most of what I write to.
Before I go any farther into this, I may as well supply the answer to almost every question that comes up about this. No, no it isn’t. Those four (well, technically three if you’re being picky) sum up everything that I’ve had to say about this over the time span that I’ve had it. You probably don’t understand that right now, but by the end you might. Should you have any actual comments or questions, just ask, and you might get lucky; for once I might tell the truth, but then that would mean I would have to admit it to myself.
...
...shit.
“Look in my face, stare in my soul, I begin to stupefy”
--“Stupefy” by Disturbed
“It’s over you know,” she said. Just hearing her say it seemed to shake him out from whatever dream world he was living in for the moment. She layed there in bed, half naked, and just staring at him. “It was nice while it lasted though wasn’t it...right?” She waited for him to say something, waiting for him to agree with her like he does most of the time. However, this time was different. This time he didn’t say anything. She tried once again to get his attention by putting her hand on his shoulder. “Right?”
He kept sitting there on the edge of the bed with his pants half on. The words kept ringing in his head like a train horn in a tunnel. It’s over you know…It’s over. Sadly though, he knew that it was going to happen like this soon; he was just not expecting it to happen now. He thought that he had prepared himself for it; that he would be ready for the shock of it hitting him. It seemed that all the mental planning that he had been working on was about as effective as hiding from a nuclear blast by standing behind a screen door. To make matters worse she reached out and touched him while saying it. Her hand felt cold, like a corpse to him. Some part of his mind made him want to laugh about that; it seemed almost fitting.
“Yeah, sure,” he managed to get out without choking on his words too much. He felt like he was almost going to start crying, but he hadn’t actually cried in years; why would he feel this way now? He was not known by most to be an emotional person by a long shot anyway. That is, at least not anymore. What the fuck is happening to me? he kept thinking. Why should I care about her…it’s fairly clear that she doesn’t care about me. "May I ask why?”
"You know why,” she said still looking at him. “We never talk anymore. We never go out anymore. We never do anything anymore.” She was starting to look away from him now, like she was trying to avoid eye contact with him because even she knew it was all bullshit. “I just feel like I don’t love you anymore.”
“Did you ever care for me?” he asked her without looking up from the floor. “I mean, was it all complete shit that you fed me? All the times you said it, all the times that I said it back….was I saying it to someone who wasn’t feeling the same way?”
She wouldn’t even look at him now. Her eyes began to fill with tears. Yes, there was a time that she loved him. Perhaps part of her still even loves him now, but she doesn’t know. She does know however that she loves someone else, and one of them has to go. Why the one that clearly is devoted to her with everything that he has and is must go she’s not quite sure, but since it’s been started it must be finished.
“Oh, you’re not even going to give me an answer?” he asked. “You were the one who started this, and now you’re not even going to finish it? Fine, but I want you to know that I love you more than anything; more than life, more than myself. You are everything to me. I wake in the morning knowing that I can bear it because I have you. It seems that now all that doesn’t add up to a pinch of shit though…..”
He began to put his pants on. She looked up at him with a kind of shock, and possibly pity. Her make-up was running down her face along with the salt filled tears that she was shedding for something that needn’t happen.
“It’s just that…I need a friend right now more than anything,” she said. “I am really confused about what I feel. I just need a really good friend…..” She seemed to be reaching for anything that might be salvaged. He saw it too. Every word that came from her now was killing him. Friend. Confused about what I feel. All this was getting too much for him.
“Sure,” he said. Goddamn idiot! a part of him was screaming. He just wanted to still be close to her, even though she didn’t feel for him anymore. He now saw himself as less than nothing. She was the first person to say that she loved me…she actually got me to believe all of it too…ME of all people.
“You mean it?” she said wiping her eyes. “You still want to be friends with me?” To her it seemed unbelievable that he would still want to be. Was he was hoping that perhaps she might see that some part of her might see that he does in fact care for her so very much? Most other people would absolutely explode on her for something like this. However, this was not the first problem. There were times similar to this, and now that he thinks back on them, he wishes to whatever higher power there is that he had ended it then.
“Yeah, I guess that I do,” he said half not even paying attention to what he was saying. His mind was on its own little trip right now. It’s doubtful that there would be much that would snap him out of this little journey. He was remembering the first time that he held her. The very first time that their eyes were inches apart. If I died right now, I wouldn’t care. With this I would have gotten everything that I wanted. Those were the thoughts that were going through his mind at that time. At this time the thoughts that were going through his head were, for the most part, incoherent.
She sat there in bed, her eyes still wet from crying, staring at him. Did she love him? If it were asked to her at another time, she would have to say yes. She sat there, the only noise coming from her being her quiet breath, watching him light a cigarette and begin to smoke it. He never smokes anymore she thought. He had only started up for a short time, and just as suddenly quit. She thought that it was strange that he should start again now. She supposed that she loved him; she had to have loved him at some point. The real question was: when did she love him? The more she thinks about it though, the more she wants to stop.
“We were both young, we didn’t know what we were doing or feeling, right?” she asked.
After she said that he took a deep drag of his cigarette. He started smoking a while ago because he found it stress relieving. His father used to smoke, so he figured that it just reminded him of better times. Then he just quit, and it didn’t seem to bother him again. When this started happening, his body started to go through extreme withdrawals like he was on coke. He absorbed the words like taking a bullet in his side. Young? It was only less than two years since we first met! Christ, he wanted to yell that in her face. He found he was balling his fist up like he was going to turn and strike her. NO! he thought. If one thing was not going to be done, he was not going to hit her. He felt like a piece of shit for even thinking that. Never had the thought passed through his head, not even for an instant. This has got to end he thought.
“Yeah, sure,” he said rather indifferently. He began to finish putting on his pants. He had sat there the whole time with only one leg in them. Under different circumstances he would have found that very comical and she may have as well, but this was not those circumstances. He searched with his eyes the whereabouts of the rest of his clothes. If you’re going to do something son, now is the time to make your play he thought.
The way that he had answered her question hit her rather hard. She had thought that he would beg for her to not leave him. Something was wrong this time though. Has he decided to say fuck it? No, it wasn’t possible in her mind. He wouldn’t dare give her up; she was the only thing that he had. He was nothing when they met. Would he want to go back to that?
“You don’t seem to care much about this,” she said. There, that’ll get him coming back she thought. She seemed to like that he would jump at her every call. There seemed to be nothing that he wouldn’t do for her. Is that all she’s getting out of this relationship, just a slave?
“Neither do you,” he said after taking another drag. At the same moment that she was thinking about him doing everything for her, he was thinking the same thing. He did not see much more than that in the two of them other than that fact that was looking him in the face. She didn’t care about you; she only cared about the things you did for her he thought. “This shit’s gotta end,” he muttered under his breath.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “Well, if that’s that, then there’s no more reason for me to even be here. I’ll just get my jacket and leave.”
With those words something came undone in her. She didn’t actually think that he would do something like this. She expected him to beg for her not to leave him. Maybe there is something to him she thought, but then dismissed that notion. He got up and grabbed his jacket, put it on, and started for the door. How the fuck does he get off being so high and mighty? Who the fuck does he think that he is? If there is one person who can’t do something like this to me, it’s him she thinks. She bursts into tears and gets up out of the bed to follow him.
“You fucking dick!” she screams at him as he gets closer to leaving. She reaches down for anything that her hand might come upon and finds an empty bottle. She picks it up and throws it at him, but it misses just to his left. “Fine, fucking leave me here! I never loved you at all!”
The sound of the bottle breaking to his side didn’t startle him, or at least he didn’t let it known that it did. He just kept walking, listening to what she was blurting out at him; or rather, trying to listen as half of what she was screaming was indecipherable. Time for me to now make my play he thought. Remember, this play is the one you have to act on. Gotta go with the cards that are thrown on the table and all that shit. That’s it, no going back.
He grabs the doorknob, turns it, and looks back at her. The girl who owned his very soul was now standing in front of him with makeup running down her face, half naked, and gasping for air heavily while screaming at him. Man, she must put on a lot he thought.
“Well, I loved you,” he said as he began to walk out the door. “Even now I still do, but if this is the way is has to be, then this is the way it has to be.”
With that he closed the door and began to walk down the apartment building hallway. He heard her fall against the door scratching at the knob, but then she stopped. He could still hear her crying loudly as he reached the stairs. He half thought about going back and saying that he was sorry, but he knew inside that he was right with what he said to her.
He walked out the door and blocked his eyes from the sunlight. Off in the distance he could see that clouds were beginning to roll in, bringing with them the possibilities of a storm. It seemed fitting, that the rain would come and wash away everything and cleanse all below. Then again, it may not rain. Who knows? He pulls his hat out of his coat and pulls it over his head. He also lights up another cigarette. Was his life better with her, or will it be better without her….
After taking a drag and beginning to walk down the street with a slight smile he says: “Who knows….,”
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