We're not meant to be

I thought we were the perfect couple, for one time in my life, I thought I had met the guy that I would spend the rest of my life with. In the beginning, we were inseparable. Hours would be spent talking on the phone, my whole inbox and outbox of text messages would be to his number, and when we kissed, even hugged, butterflies would go crazy in my stomach, making it feel like the first embrace or kiss we ever had. For the first year we experienced this, I truly did believe that he was the one.

After our one year, everything started to slow down. It felt like we had nothing to talk about, which eventually lead to us having no reason to talk to each other. Diners together would be silent, when we went to bed we would say goodnight and then fall asleep. The usual stories of the crazy road trip antics between him, Sidney, and Jordan were gone, the invitation to go to games was gone, and my text messages were soon outnumbering his by a large margin. We had drifted into strangers, and it was only a year.

“I’ve got a flight to catch”, Evgeni called through the house, his heavily accented voice that used to make me smile no matter what he said was now just a normal sound in my life, and instead of smiling and running up to him to bid him goodbye, I stood up from the couch and leaned against the back of it, watching as he walked down the stairs in his button up shirt and pants. The normal happy look in his eyes was gone. “I’ll text you when I get to Chicago?” Leaning down he placed a quick kiss on my lips, then grabbed his coat and beanie and put them on.

Nodding, I crossed my arms against my chest and looked down, letting my bangs fall in front of my eyes. I was tired of sitting around this house alone; I was tired of just a peck on the lips or a simple text message that said, ‘I’m here’. It was like I was a burden to him, something that he used, and now that it had lost its shine, it was garbage, on the pile waiting to go out when he cleaned the house.

“I love you”, he called as he opened the door and looked back at me, waiting for me to reply. Consumed in thought, I looked at him and shook my head. Tears pushing at the back of my eyes, I turned on my heels and instead of watching him drive down the street again, I walked up to our room, slammed the door shut, sat on the bed, and pressed my face into my hands as tears of frustration and anger ran down my face.

I loved him, I really did, but I was so tired. I was tired of the last few weeks just staring at each other in silence. I was tired of the forced emotions and confused feelings. I wanted him to kiss me like he used to, I wanted to feel those feelings I did when we were in that year of bliss. I wanted to be in love with him, but for some reason what I wanted didn’t mean anything. We were a miserable couple. If we were so miserable, why were we even together?

The thought of calling him and springing all of my thoughts on him sent a cramp into my stomach. We may not be on the best terms at the moment, but putting all of my worry on him all at once was just going to do him in for the rest of the season, he was already having it rough, he didn’t need my problems too.

Sighing heavily, I wiped under my eyes trying to remove all of the tears I had shed in my momentary breakdown. Blinking a few times trying to get the sting of my mascara in my eyes out, my body fell back against the bed. Staring at the ceiling, I wished, practically begged for a reason as to why my once perfect relationship was now non-existent. But as I laid there, pain running through my body, I received no signs.

There was no reason as to why we had crumbled into loveless beings. And now, what were we going to do about it? Were we capable of jumpstarting a relationship that had practically flat lined when neither of us knew why it did so? Was there any hope for us at all? There was time to change this, we could be happy again, but how?

One week later.

We made progress, or so I thought.

Early the next morning after his departure, I had received a lengthy text message, that was perfectly typed out which meant he had one of his teammates do it for him, about how he realized what was happening to us, but didn’t know what to do. He said he loved me, but he just couldn’t think of anything else he could do.

In reply, I questioned what had happened to the stories, the invites, and all of the other team related activities that I used to be involved in. I begged him to try to make this work, saying I didn’t want this last year of bliss to go to waste. I said I loved him, but like him, couldn’t think of anything to do.

After hours of texting back and forth, we had decided to make ourselves in more devoted to the relationship. We were going to talk even if there was nothing to talk about, we were going to spice up the passion, we were going to spend more time together, and everything we did before this cluster fuck we entered.

It seemed perfect for the next few days. It felt like the beginning of our relationship again. My inbox was filled with his texts, the smile and spring to my step was back, and as I watched the games he played against Chicago, Detroit, and Columbus, he had multi-point games.

For that week, I had thought everything was fixed, but the second he walked back into the house, it all faded away.

“I missed you so much!” his right arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me in for a tight hug and a passionate kiss, but when we pulled away, there was no tingling sensation, there was no glitter in our eyes, there were just fake smiles, fake emotions, fake everything. These last few days were us acting, acting so maybe we could get back into the swing of being madly in love, but it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t the same.

The smile I had practiced over and over again had fallen from my face, leaving the real emotions boiling in my stomach to show through on my face. “What is going on, Evgeni”, I whispered as the mask he was wearing fell off along with mine. “How could this just happen? Do you remember a year ago, do you remember how happy we were?” My voice quickly escalated to a scream. “We were in love, how could all of that just fade so quickly?”

“Calm down, calm down, Alisha”, he snapped dropping his bags to the floor and running a hand through his dark brown hair. “Why are you always so angry?”

“Because of us,” I screamed throwing my arms down to my side, as my eyes filled to the brim with tears. “I thought you were the one, I thought this was the last relationship I ever had to get into. We seemed perfect, absolutely perfect; I just can’t understand how we turned into this. I thought we were close this week, but it just made it worse!” The tears I had not wanted to shed found their way out of the corners of my eyes.

The boy standing in front of me fell into silence. His huge brown eyes that I couldn’t help from staring into months before were now dull and boring. The smile that used to be on his face was replaced with a thin line, and the normal confident stature he had been crumbled into slumped shoulders and a defeated look. He wasn’t the man I knew a year ago, and I wasn’t the girl either. I had changed, I had taken all of it for granted. Thinking we would never fight like this, it was stupid. I was stupid. I was stupid to think this could work.

“What do you want, Alisha? Anything”, he said, begging me for an answer.

“I just want what we had back”, I whispered looking up into his huge brown eyes. Staring at each other, a loss for words covering us, he shook his head and turned away from me, putting both of his hands in his hair and cursing lightly. After a few minutes he turned to me, and with glassy eyes he shook his head.

“I can’t do that, Alisha”

That was the end. He couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it, and we were nothing now. We are two angry twenty year olds trying to repair a relationship that was doomed from the start. No matter what we do, say, or try, nothing is going to work. Whatever we do, it’s just going to turn back into this mind-numbing confusion, and I didn’t want this anymore.

Pushing more tears from my eyes, I looked up at the tall boy standing in front of me. Staring at him, I saw the adorable boy I fell in love with, but as he repeated his words again, the beauty fell away, and left only the broken man standing in front of me, broken from the stress of trying to keep this together, the same stress that was killing his career, his smile. This relationship was killing him, and I just couldn’t do that anymore.

As I opened my mouth, I stood up and walked over to him. Reaching up, I placed my hands on either side of his face. As I pushed the single tear off of his cheek, I lightly pressed my lips against his lips. Pulling away without the smallest spark, I blinked the last few tears out of my eyes and took a step away from him.

“I’m moving out”, the words hung in the air for a moment, but as the settled in, they seemed right. “I can’t keep doing this to you”, another tear had rolled down his face, but it was for him to take care of now. We we’re done, it was over. That year, it would be an amazing memory, but that was it, it was going to be nothing more.

“Did you come up with a reason?” Evgeni asked looking down at his shoes.

Inhaling sharply, I nodded and locked eyes with him for the last time. “We’re not meant to be.”