Obscure

I say my prayers, not because I believe in God. Because I don’t, and I haven’t for a long time. I say my prayers every night, praying for him, for the one who had to leave me. I pray for my mother, who sits in the hospital on endless nights, waiting for my father’s line to go straight, for his beeping to subside into the long sharp wail it makes when you know finally that someone has let go. They’re finally free! Because everyone’s always dying. There’s always someone leaving.

I pray for my little brother in college. He’s partying and having sex and doing drugs and drinking alcohol. He’s passing exams and smiling at his beautiful girlfriend, the one he swears to me he’ll marry. I pray for my cousin Gazelle, who’s crying in her bed while she waits for her husband of one year to come home from a “late” night at work. I pray for Bruce, the little Border Collie we bought together before he left us. He’s gotten so big. And he still waits for him to come home. He lies in front of the door, his nose barely touching it. And he waits. But I think he knows just as well as I do that he’s not coming back.

I don’t know why I pray.

“There’s something bigger out there,” his voice is quiet, completely comfortable with the fact that he’s talking to himself. “I wonder what I look like there,” he’s quiet for a moment. Then sighs. “Maybe it doesn’t exist anyways, this probably doesn’t either. Here, and now, it’s just an illusion. We’re all just illusions…” There’s a soft click, one that always makes me jump because I’m always half asleep by the end of the recording. I want to cry, because I’m only hearing the same things over and over again, and I know I’ll never hear him whisper my name while he wipes strands of hair away from my eyes. Like he use to when it was the middle of the night and neither of us were asleep because all we could do was feel each other.

All I can do now is feel the cool floor beneath my naked body.

Because I can’t sleep in the bed anymore, because it still smells too much like him, and I don’t want to lose that. And I don’t have to wear clothes anymore because all I need is his shirts in my clenched to my chest. All I need is to smell him near me again. And nobody comes to see me. I don’t comb my hair anymore; it’s just a knotted mess of brown strings. It’s a representation of what I was becoming. Sometimes I imagine it shrinking, pulling tighter into one big knot, and then falling and flailing in every direction. And then, with perfect lighting and slow motion cameras, it falls perfectly straight like I use to keep it. And I would be curled up on the floor again, just like I am now, and like I am most days, and I would be okay again. But I’m not sure if I can ever fix this aching in my chest, this gnawing in my stomach.

I don’t want to.

“It was a silly little fight,” his words perk my ears, and for some reason I know I’m hoping I can look up to see him actually standing there. But I’d checked too many times, looked up frantically wanting to sob out his name and have him wrap his arms around me. “One of those that when it’s over makes you want to die because you were being so stupid. It was my fault, but she keeps telling me it was hers. I don’t ever want her to feel like she’s the one tearing us apart. I want her to feel like she’s the one sewing us back up. I don’t like seeing her cry like she did.” Something forms in the back of my throat, forcing me on my back so I can let it out. Sometimes it won’t come, and I have to gasp for breaths trying to force it out. Sometimes I don’t want it to come, and I hold my breath so it’ll stay inside. But it won’t last long there, it’ll die, it has to come out. I don’t like when it dies, when it won’t come out, and I never realize that until it’s happening. I don’t like when it comes either, burning my throat and tearing up my lungs.

He’d be so torn to see me this way.

“Can you see me?” I sob softly. “Are you where you always talked about being?” Not all the words make it out, and Bruce lifts his head from my legs and looks at me, wondering why I keep doing this. It scares him; I can see it in his honey-colored eyes. “Come here, Bruce,” I whisper in my best doggy voice. He gets up and repositions himself so his head is in front of my face. I pull him into my arms, and sob into his shiny black coat. “I’m so sorry Bruce, I’m sorry!” He cries softly when I release him.

He understands me I think.

“-maybe if I had more money we’d be happier, she’d be happier,” I let out another soft sob. He’d never shared with me his worries like that. He always showed me his best, and only showed me his worst when I found him at it. “I just want her to be happy.” I grab the recorder and pause it, because I’m not happy and the tears in my eyes won’t stop forming and falling. I just want him to be happy, but I can’t be happy for him.

Wherever he is.

“Bruce,” I wail, cupping his soft ears in my hands, “I love you Bruce.” He licks my arm, his tail wagging slightly. I want to ask him if he knows where, he is, where Isaac’s at, but I know he’ll trot to the door and start crying. I’ve asked him before, when I’m too in the dumps and can’t stop crying, when I want someone to be sad with me, to feel this terrible heartache with me. Bruce is the closest thing I know that can understand my love for Isaac, the love draining out of my pores and seeping into the wooden floors.

The phones ringing.

It’s too far away, but I promised I’d answer last time we talked. He’s so worried about me, that I’ll die if I stay cooped up like this. But I’ve been just fine; I’m not dying, not physically. I told him I’d never be able to move on from this because he was everything inside of me. I love him, but my love for Isaac was melting, and I had to save it. I couldn’t forget anything about him, ever. I couldn’t get farther away from him. That would mean I’d lose what he felt like. I hope he could understand why I’m doing this.

“Dear God, don’t let me lose his touch.”

I sat up slowly, pulling myself along the floor and grabbing the phone I’d stretched from the kitchen. I had to take several deep breaths before saying hello, I didn’t want to sound as broken as I was. He didn’t know how bad I was, he didn’t know I lied in the middle of my empty living room with only a lamp and a blanket and Isaac’s precious tapes. He didn’t know I sobbed and pounded my fists against the ground, leaving them aching with hollow pains.

“Hello?”

“You sound awful, Corin, just awful!” he tells me. It’s nothing new to hear this from him. I attempt running my hand through my hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m okay,” I go on, trying to save time. He was going to ask.

“Have you eaten today?”

“Yes,” I lied. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning.

“Corin?”

“Yes, Kyle?”

“I’m coming to see you.”

“Not today, please,” I gave in, my tone turned to a sharp beg. “Not today.”

“Corin, you haven’t left your house in months. You haven’t seen any of us since the-“

“I know,” I cut him off before I had to remember that day. “I’m fine, I’m fine, leave me alone.”

“Corin,” he sounds defeated. “I don’t like hearing you like this.”

I hold back more tears, and a sob forms deep in my throat but I can’t let him hear me cry, I can’t show him how terrible I am. He doesn’t know, he doesn’t know how skinny I’ve become, how long my hair has grown, how I don’t sleep at night, how I haven’t gone a day without crying. I don’t want to be sad anymore; I want to be happy for him. I want him to see me happy from wherever he is. I can’t have him feeling bad; I can’t have him feel like this is his fault. I can’t have him thinking that I’m blaming him. I want to be happy for him.

But how do I be happy when I know he’s so far away?

I slowly lower the phone back to its rightful place, ignoring Kyle’s questioning voice calling my name. He can’t hear me being weak; he can’t hear me crying like this. But I can’t hold it in, not like I could before. Even then I was terrible at keeping my emotions hidden, he always told me. He read me like a book, guessed everything I liked and didn’t like. He knew me better than I knew myself.

“I need you.”

They escape me, feeling like a fire exploding from within. Everything burns this time, my skin feels raw and my eyes feel dry. Bruce whines as I let myself roll onto my stomach, everything that I haven’t eaten reveals itself in front of me. It tastes awful, it feels awful. I must be dying. I crawl away from the mess I’ve made, away from where all my shame as emptied. I can’t hide from it anymore. Because now it can see me. It always could though. I collapse, because my bones feel like they’re snapping under my weight, they feel so bad. Everything feels so bad.

I need his voice.

I reach for the recorder, pressing play so I can hear him speaking so calming like he always had. It’s no different. It’s the same. He’s here with me now as he speaks. I can’t hear him much, not over my loud sobs of pain. Because I’ve made this pain real. I’ve made it hurt. What would he say to me now? What would he do if he saw me this way? This is his fault! He left me here alone! He lied to me, telling me he’d back before I’d wake up from my nap. But He never came home. He left me here, here by myself. What was he thinking? Didn’t he know what he would put me through? He wanted me happy! That’s what he keeps saying! He wants me happy, never to feel any pain or sadness. Never to be exposed with such raw, aching feelings.

But that’s all wrong.

He didn’t do it on purpose. He didn’t leave me intentionally. It was all a huge mistake, a huge accident meant for somebody else. If I’d have just pulled him back to bed with me, he never would have gone out, he never would have disappeared from my life. He’d still be here with me if I’d have just protested. But I was too tired, I was far too tired and I let him slip through my fingers. And the time we spent together quickly wasted away. It wasn’t enough.

He didn’t even make it out of the car.

I didn’t even say goodbye, I didn’t even kiss him one last time. What I would do for one last touch. Because I’m losing it, and I can’t remember what his skin felt like pressed against mine. I can’t remember his lips on my fingertips, or his funny striped socks against the balls of my feet. I can’t remember the way his breath felt against my neck, or the way his curly hair felt between my fingers. I’m forgetting him; I’m forgetting how he feels. I can’t forget. I can’t forget.

I can’t, because it’s the most important thing in the world.

I can’t move my eyes to see who barged into my never locked door. I can only hold on tighter to the recorder, the one that his voice continues to flow from. It was all so real, but I know it’s only as real as fake can get. It’s the closest thing I have to having him here with me. It’s the last thing I have. If I didn’t have his voice how would I have lasted this long? I would’ve forgotten how he sounds; I would’ve started to lose everything about him. It’s all I have, those precious tapes.

“Corin,” I smile hearing my name, before I would’ve frowned. But I smile. “What have you done to yourself, Corin?” And he’s not just speaking. He’s crying, just like me, and he’s got me pulled against his chest, his head buried in the crook of my neck. And my fingers lose grip of the recorder, and it hits the ground with a thud. And I can’t even let out a sob to show how painful it feels to lose him. Because it didn’t hurt, it didn’t. Because I’m going to show him I can be happy for him. Not even dying can bring us back together.

“Corin, you’re my everything. Without you I’d be nothing, and I just want to see you happy.”