Back Again (Part Three)
Making out by her front door, I no longer sense the cold air around me. I only feel her, her lips against my own, her body so close yet forever away under her winter jacket. In this moment, a moment I admit now I’ve been hoping for since I first saw her again, I’m acutely aware of her warm face in front of mine.
I hear her start to cry.
“Fuck you,” she manages to choke out. She begins to beat her fists on my chest and then grabs my jacket. “Fuck you!”
I stop holding her, my hands hovering hesitantly by her sides as she sobs into me. The weight of what I’ve done finally hits me. She looks up at me through tears.
“I’m supposed to be in love with someone else,” she pleads, helplessly. “He loves me, I –” A new wave of tears cuts her off. We stand in this non-embrace as she cries even harder. I’m dumbfounded by my own impulsiveness. I can only stammer that I’m sorry.
She pulls off my scarf and then her own. She throws her scarf around my neck. She huffily ties mine around hers.
“There,” she says, “now you have to see me again.” She gives me one last sad and angry look before going inside, taking my scarf hostage. I walk off in a daze to catch the night bus home.
Waiting for the bus I get a text from her, the first one in years.
Is this still your number?
Yes, I text back. It’s still me.
How do I know it’s still you?
This is me, and what I just did is the worst thing I’ve ever done to you.
My bus arrives and I get on. I’m only ten minutes away from home. She asks if she can call. I tell her to wait.
I can’t not hear from you right now, she texts. I just can’t.
I get home. The lights are off; my family’s asleep. I put my jacket and sweater away. I throw her scarf on my bed, not willing to figure out what to do with it yet. I head to the washroom, away from the paper-thin walls of my bedroom. Still dressed, I sit in the bathtub, and give her a call.
“Hey,” she answers. I can’t tell if she’s still crying. She’s using her small sweet-and-sad voice. It’s a voice that’s preceded most of the more emotionally weighted moments of our history, both good and bad. I steel myself for either outcome as I ask what she wanted to say. “Well,” she starts, “I love you.”
“I love you, too”, I reply. I don’t feel guilty anymore.
We start to talk about us. The hushed tones I use to keep from waking my family make the scene feel illicit. The acoustics of the tub amplify my words back to me, letting me hear myself say that I’ve done nothing but miss her all this time. To be as honest as possible about our time apart, I tell her I’d only slept with one other person in the time since our last breakup. It was the worst sex I’d ever had, only because it was the worst I’d ever done; I wasn’t as into the girl as I’d hoped. The whole experience just served to make me miss her — my ex — more.
She tells me she should be honest about those three years, too. At some point she became very broke; she was unable to find a job and her family was unwilling to help. She tells me she did some things she’s not proud of to be able to get by. She’s ashamed to tell me this, and think I’ll hate her now, but I tell her that it isn’t that bad. I wish I could retroactively be there for her, but I don’t think what she did is shameful. I tell her this and I mean it.
We talk a while longer. It’s almost four in the morning, though. The roller coaster of emotions, from the pangs of guilt to the waves of relief, has finally worn us out, and we decide to go to bed. We say goodnight, ending our phone call and starting up a relationship for the third time. Sure, there’s a huge caveat to it, but to my surprise I don’t care.
I go to sleep. Her scarf is on the pillow beside mine, next to my face.
Way It Was is a writing project and ongoing attempt to work through a lot of relationship related shit. Find out more about it here.
