Georgia

She felt very empty, but it was hard for her to explain and hard for him to see. And as they sat there quietly, her drinking tea and him holding his knees tightly to his chest, neither were quite sure what could be said. In her head, she was thinking about how it could be said, if it would be said, and above all, why she was feeling this way to begin with. She thought maybe it was because of the past year, the absence in the house, the silence in the night. Though, she thought, she believed she had passed that emptiness and into something else. Something larger, or maybe smaller, and very very hard to observe, whereas she had watched herself whither down before.

This was a different kind of emptiness and it occurred most at home. Recently, just this morning, when she was sitting across from her mother as they discussed what to do with the living room walls. Her mother had turned to redecorating to cope with the silent dull ache in her chest. She claimed, though, that this was nothing to do with anything, only that the white walls bored her eyes and made her feel cold and unwelcome. It occurred then, when her mother shook her head at the suggestion of a maroon color, that a very sudden, very dull, emptiness began to bubble in her chest.

She looks over at him, and he looks right back at her. And he thinks he sees it in her eyes as she opens her mouth and says, “I feel empty.”