How Had They Gotten Here?

by Anonymous

 

She knew something was wrong; had known it for weeks. She knew it in the way it felt like someone had wrapped her insides with barbed wire, and in the burn of unshed tears that constantly hovered behind her eyes.

“You’re crazy,” he dismissed her one day, when she finally voiced the fear that had been unrelentingly hissing in her brain. That phrase had become familiar, at that point, and rolled easily off his tongue after months of practice.

Is something wrong? Things have felt distant between us, lately.

Nothing’s wrong, you’re imagining things.

Has something changed in the way you feel? Her voice had cracked during that conversation, months ago, allowing past hurts and vulnerability to seep through.

Maybe if you stopped being insecure, you’d see everything is fine. You’re acting crazy.

Later that day, two little blue lines told her she wasn't.

***

The ensuing conversation seemed simpler than it should have been. A decision made, a quick Google search, and an appointment booked for a couple weeks later. The following conservations weren’t as easy– whether he’d go with her, if he’d help pay, and what would happen to her, after.

In the end, he went with her, but refused to go past the waiting room. She paid in full, stomach sinking at the amount, feeling dread burrowing into her, alongside the shame that had already made itself at home since that fateful night in the bathroom. The appointment was only an hour, and ended with a pitying smile and a small bag containing four pills.

***

That night, she lay in his bed, emotionally and physically exhausted. Her body still didn’t feel like her own as cramps seized her in their viscous, relentless grip– she was just a broken vessel, leaking blood and tears.

She wished he would stay in bed with her and hold her through the pain, but her quiet pleading earlier had been dismissed in favor of that night’s party. Hushed voices crept their way in through the cracked door, but she only managed to catch fragments of the conversation. “I can’t believe this… so selfish of her…”

She hugged her knees in closer, trying to become as small as possible, and wished for darkness to take her away in its embrace.

***

Two days later, she tried her best to be normal. She nodded and smiled at the right times, laughed when everyone else did, and made sure to carefully tuck her pain out of sight.

It was the fourth of July, and the air was heavy with humidity and things left unsaid. They were walking through a park, a rare reprieve from their urban neighborhood with its crowded duplexes and omnipresent concrete. She hadn’t had the courage to bring up the other night’s overheard conversation with him, hoping it was simply an imagined product of delirium.

He was smiling at her, dimples showing for what felt like the first time in ages, and she couldn’t help but smile back at him, despite her wariness. He had promised that today was for them, waving off her apologies when she admitted she wasn’t up to going to any of the evening’s festivities. She almost believed him when he said everything was okay.

She was a fool.

***

That night, after her famous home-made quesadillas, too much wine, and a movie she had cried far too hard over, they were laying in bed. He had his back to her, but she heard him when he whispered, “I need you to move out.”

Of everything she had gone through in the past 72 hours, those words hurt the worst. She cried, apologizing and swearing she would be better, and tried to reach for him. He just pulled further away, and all he said was, “Stop crying, I have work tomorrow and I need to sleep.”

In the morning, tense silence gripped the house in a chokehold. He said nothing about the previous night’s conversation, and it wasn’t until she was pulling into work that her phone beeped with a text– We should take a break from talking for a while.

She shoved her phone away, swallowed a sob, and headed into the office, a bright smile pasted on.

***

A couple hours before the end of the work day, she excused herself, feigning a headache, and drove back to the apartment. It had never felt like home, nowhere had, but it had come the closest. She carefully packed up her things and loaded her car, making sure there wasn’t a single trace of her left in that place.

***

The rest of the week dragged by, until he finally told her he was ready to talk. And they did talk, not about what happened, but about so many other things– how work was going, what they were looking forward to in their last year of college, and it had eventually delved into a deep conversation about what they thought would happen after death, about whether there was life after death.

He eventually sighed and turned to look at her, seeming to marvel at her just like the first time they had met, both standing on the subway and too stubborn to sit down first. “I can’t imagine having this conversation with anyone else. You’re my person, and I don’t want to lose that. I love you.”

There was that smile again, those dimples, and just like before, she was a fool to believe him.

***

It was only three weeks later when she found herself in bed with him, past midnight, getting her heart broken all over again.

“I want to break up… I’ve been thinking about it for a few months, and I needed to get it off my chest.”

Despite all those months of knowing something was wrong, of knowing the words You’re crazy were a flimsy defense against the obvious, she was caught blindsided.

She should have known– the peace brought on by their reconciliation hadn't lasted long before the fighting was back. She should have seen it coming– after their backpacking trip and his late night whisper screaming at her about all her inadequacies, about how awful she was. She should have known.

But just mere hours ago, things had been so good. They were at a wedding, her cousin’s wedding. They had smiled, laughed, had taken pictures and danced and drank too much spiked lemonade. They had been happy, whispering during the ceremony about what they wanted their wedding to be like. After the party, they had gone for a late night swim in the hotel pool, treading water and trading kisses like it was meant to be.

How had they gotten here? How did she go from all that joy, to sitting in a hotel bed, her tearstained face and the shattered pieces of her heart around them like a scene from a massacre.

Absent-mindedly, her hand fell to her stomach, to the emptiness inside of her and the phantom pains that hadn’t ceased, and she was reminded of what happened just earlier that month. She remembered the agony of it, hot like the blood that hadn’t stopped for days, hot like the tears that she still cried every night, hot like the shame she feared she would never stop feeling. She realized that today, the wedding, was the first time she had genuinely smiled in over a month. It hit her hard, how she should have known, nothing good ever lasts.