What We Were Afraid to Say

She was floating; the room now shone like the sun, and then, then she was falling, falling into darkness.

She awoke with a start. The body next to her rolled over towards her, having noticed she was awake. “Hey Peaches.”

She let out a sigh. They had been married ten years, and he never called her by her real name. “Hey.” She was disappointed, having been tricked into the cruelty of such a vivid dream. She sighed again.

“Did you have a bad dream, Peaches?” he asked having learned that this was what a sensitive guy was supposed to do. He smiled proudly at her.

“No, not at all, actually a very good dream,” she sighed.

“Then what’s wrong? This is the life, babe. I mean, we’ve got it made. You have everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“Yes, everything I’ve ever wanted,” she echoed numbly. He patted her back and hurried out the door, heading to work.

She stumbled down the immaculate stair case into the kitchen. Her silk robe flowed gracefully around her, just barely skimming the hardwood floor. She turned abruptly, her robe twirling in a cloud about her, and hustled back up the stairs.

Twenty minutes later she was ready. She made the normally ten minute drive in less than five minutes and pulled into the empty parking lot. She slammed the car door behind her, not bothering to lock it. The wrought iron gate was open. She made her way through it, knowing exactly where she was going. The dew soaked through her shoes as she trekked through the overgrown grass.

Then she was there. She sat down in the cold dampness, leaning her back against the stone. She didn’t need to read the inscription. Sitting here, against this dull, unforgiving stone, she felt a certain closeness to him. She remembered everything so clearly, and that wonderful, vivid dream had only brought the memories rushing back to her.

Those few weeks were amazing. If only she had been able to tell him that…

“What am I to you?” he started. “I want to know. Right now, every time we meet, it seems like you’re just using my presence to hide from something. I mean, that’s okay, but it would be nice if maybe you’d see me as more of a human being. I just don’t know what to say; I can’t do this. I can’t just be another rock to hide behind, so can you just tell me something?”
She stood proudly, silently, her inner resolve set to never let him know what she was afraid to say.

“Please, just say something? Can you just talk to me?”

She just stared at him, no expression on her face.

“So this really is what I am to you. Nothing. Look, I just can’t do this; I care too much, and maybe the best thing is just to get away from this for a while,” he sighed, close to tears, in his head repeating to himself that boys don’t cry. He turned to leave, leave her behind.

She had stayed silent and watched, watched him walk out of her life forever. When the door had slammed, then she cried. She knew what she should have said, but how could she be blamed? She was drunk; she wasn’t thinking straight. She’d get another chance now. He would come back, right?

After such a tiring day, she let herself pass out on his pillow, knowing he would come back; he always did.

At 10 AM the next morning, she woke up, noting he still had not returned. She didn’t think too much of it at the time.

She was hungry so she decided to go get something to eat. She almost tripped on a newspaper on her way out. One never was delivered to her room, but apparently Nick got one. She glanced at the front page.

“College Student Killed in Crash” This was the first article she had read about it; she remembered them all. At 3 AM this morning, police found a silver Toyota smashed into a light post. The driver was pronounced dead on the scene and no passengers were found. He remains unidentified, and his autopsy should reveal more information, officers said… She knew immediately that it was him. Sure, there were plenty of silver Toyotas on the road, but intuitively, she knew it was him. The next couple of weeks she had devoted her life to gathering any newspaper clipping about the accident that she could find. His body had been identified, his family notified, cause of death: head trauma. There had been alcohol found in his blood, under the legal limit, but since he was under twenty-one, this was considered illegal. She despised them for judging him, dismissing him as another unruly college student when he had been so much more than that. It wasn’t his fault.

After a month, she had pieced the sequence together pretty well in her head. 11 PM was when he left the dorm room; he must have gotten in his car, very upset. He had driven about a block when he crashed into the light post; she remembered walking with him past it, less than an hour before the accident. She had visited the site and saw the horrible bend in it. She remembered running her hand gently against it, trying to pick up some leftover essence of him.

The car had crumpled around it; the airbags never opened, and his head slammed against the front of the car. She had seen the pictures of that face she had known so well bloodied and broken, his glasses planted against his skull. An artery had burst inside his head, causing major internal bleeding. The build up of the blood had put pressure on his brain, forcing it to shut down. He would have died definitely before midnight.

It was her fault too. If she hadn’t been so afraid to say to him what she really felt, he would not have died that night. He might be with her now even. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, the tears exploding into loud uncontrolled sobs, “I’m sorry!” Sorry wasn’t enough; sorry could not bring him back. She had killed him, and for this, she could never forgive herself.