Heart's a Mess

You’re staring at the ceiling again and I know what you’re thinking. I know the thoughts behind that blank expression and I’m aware of how it only serves to spread as you close your eyes. The ceiling could fall, you think. It could crush you right now as you lay there with your pretty face all intact. You would die, and that’s somewhat relieving to think about. A smile pulls at the corners of your lips, but you never let them win anymore. I’m somewhat glad about that on this occasion.

Your eyelids flutter back open to reveal those eyes I still can’t pick the colour of, even after all these years, and I notice that you’re staring at me, now. I’m not her, you realise. I’m definitely not her. You don’t smile. You don’t speak. I see your chest rise a little higher as you breathe a little heavier, and then you let it go. You rise from your place on the bed and as you pass me to start your day, I almost start bawling as I remember who you are. I only get that split second each day to remember what you smell like, and how much I love that cologne you still wear on the odd occasion. Last night was one such occasion, apparently. I can see up close your appearance, and my, don’t you look exhausted. Sometimes I’m standing too far in the doorway and you’ll graze my arm with your own on your way past, and I remember how you always give me goose bumps when we touch. I remember how soft your fingers are, and your hair, and that part of your lower back where I used to rest my hands as we kissed. I remember your lips and how they always sit so perfectly parted as you mutter a ‘good morning’ to me on your way out, and I wish you’d place them on my cheek as you used to. I can hear the shower running. You take a lot longer in there these days.

You always try to sneak out of the bathroom when you’re done, but I’m always aware of your presence in the room. Even if you hadn’t knocked the vase on your rush to get back to the bedroom, I’d have seen you coming. One day, you might stop trying to live around me and do what we intended when we decided to move in together. I noticed the angry red gashes, and the way you walked as if it really was as painful as it looked. I cried when you shut that door. You shut me out. Sometimes I can hear you crying, too. Your heart’s a mess, Brian. You won’t admit to it.

I knew it was coming. I’d known for months that it was coming. One morning, you never came back in to pretend you wished to lie beside me. One morning, I never caught myself staring in that doorway down at your decay. I had to go looking for it, but where do you start looking for someone that doesn’t wish to be found?

I tried her place first and received what I figured I’d receive; she told me to fuck right off and deal with you on my own before slamming that familiar door in my face. I’d picked you up from here several times before, and the moans I sometimes caught the end of as I made my way down the hall were the first giveaway that this was not just a friend. The second came after I knocked on the door, and you answered wearing a sheet on most occasions. There were many other little things like this that I chose to ignore so I could go on pretending you felt the same way about me as you did when you slipped that ring on my finger 2 years ago. I love you, Brian, and I know it makes no sense.

It was as I was walking back down the flight of stairs she let slip that your pathetic self had shown up there last night, and that you were probably laying in the gutter where she’d found you all those years ago. I couldn’t believe she was right as I payed attention this time whilst passing the alley between her apartment complex and the next. You were there, laying in filth, and I thought at first you were asleep. I always assume the best of you, Brian.

The ambulance wasn’t long and I rode in the back with you, despite not wanting to look at you. Your clothes were torn. Your cheeks were pale. The paramedic was asking me questions and I realised I couldn’t answer any of them. She looked at me funny. Your own fiancée didn’t know of your location last night or of how you came to jump off the scaffolding outside the emergency exit from what she thought was at least the second floor. How was I supposed to know that? You never let me in. All I knew was that you hadn’t come home last night, because I never let you in.

I watched you as you dreamt, of pretty things I hoped, and my eyes lifted every time I thought you made a sound. There were months of this. Those months may as well have been years, for I felt myself breaking apart after one. I was lost after two. The rest were very much a blur, my hope being so far gone that my eyes didn’t lift from the floor as you did finally make a sound from your spot in that bed.

“Lisa?” I knew I’d heard my name, but I had nothing to say. You’d left me so alone, Brian. We stayed in our separate minds until the nurse came to see you were awake, and then I was told to leave.

I went home then and slept for what felt like the first time ever. I dreamt. I dreamt of when we met at the fare, behind the Ferris wheel where my dodgy, druggie friends happened to be the same ones you shared. You offered me a hit, and I refused. I thought I could change you, and it was your fault for letting me believe that for the longest time. You’d smiled, left your friends, and followed me on every ride that night. I thought you’d follow me forever. I thought I was your forever. In my dream, you strangled me in the parking lot. I woke with a shudder, your cold hands having left that feeling around my throat. Your cold hands were always around my throat, waiting for the perfect moment to squeeze. You’d done that now. Whatever life I might have had left within me was gone the moment I saw your body lying in that alley, mangled and bloody and nothing like the one I watched avoid me each day.

You were home after a few months, still on crutches and still staring at that ceiling. I no longer stood in the doorway and waited for you to see me. I no longer noticed as you left the bathroom only to return to your spot dreaming on the bed once more. We were living in separate places of the same house. I wondered if it bothered you nearly as much as it bothered me. I wondered a lot of things as I twirled that ring around my finger and watched the light catch the tiny diamond in the centre.

It was one of those cold, sleepless nights spent up late eating something microwavable sitting in front of the TV. There was nothing on and so I wasn’t too bothered when you blocked my view, just surprised. It was the first time I’d seen more than a glimpse of you in a very long time, and you looked as we first met. Your cheeks were pink and you had a certain something in your eye. You coughed, and I placed my plate on the table to one side and brought my knees up to my face to give you room to sit beside me. You did just that, and the warmth that I felt as you rested your hands on my feet was something I could hardly remember. You were looking down, and I wish you weren’t. You were always so beautiful when you were looking at anything else.

“Your heart’s a mess,” you said to me, and I almost wanted to fight you on it. “You won’t admit to it.” I wondered how you knew but more so, why you cared. We hadn’t spoken properly in so long I’d forgotten how much I loved your voice. I wondered if you still sung as you used to, pondering why you ever stopped doing so in the shower. I always thought you had a wonderful voice and if you hadn’t been that bit so slightly bemused by your lack of direction, you might have got somewhere with it.

“Why do you care, Brian? Why now?” I was struggling to keep my tears at bay, not wanting to deter you and your thoughts. I could see them pooling behind your eyes as you looked anywhere but back at me, and I wanted each one of them to surface. You hadn’t shared a single thought with me in so long I almost forgot other people had them, too.

“I can see you falling apart around me, living your separate life as I live mine. You think I haven’t noticed? You think I don’t care for your wellbeing?” I wanted to slap you. I wanted to scream at you for sounding so sincere when everything up to that point said that I was right to believe that no, you didn’t care for my wellbeing in the slightest. “I know it makes no sense,” you said softly, and I saw a shimmer trail itself down one of your cheeks. You looked at me then and your hands caught mine before I could get up and run away from you, back to my part of this house where I was sure to be left alone. Very alone. Your finger ran over the ring on mine, and you sighed as you looked down and seemed to only just remember that you’d placed it there yourself, once upon a time. The corners of your lips lifted into the first smile I’d seen on your face in forever, and it stayed there for a good while. I couldn’t stop staring at you as if it was unnatural, though certainly not unwanted. You leant forward then as you moistened your lips and I felt them on my own, just as soft and the exact shape I remembered them to be. Our fingers intertwined as you scooted closer and there was absolutely nothing in the world that could have come between us at that moment. The ceiling could have fallen but I was sure it wouldn’t have crushed us. Nothing could.

“I’m desperate to connect,” you whispered, pulling away, and I thought I’d never hear anything of the sort from you. I wondered what had changed you. I wondered how you came to this conclusion. “Because you… you can’t live like this.” If there was something I knew we shared an understanding of, it was most definitely that.