Bridges Burned

A dark haired young man pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he sat at the bus stop. His fingers curled into fists in his pockets. He looked forward and gazed at the advertisement across the empty street. Even in the darkened area, he could clearly see a couple frozen in an endless dance. The males hand placed on the girl’s lower back, their other hands meeting at their sides. Her dress was swayed as if she was spinning. Both of them looked happy with their perpetual smiles.

The man had to look away; it was dragging up memories again. His fingers ran over the change in his pocket as he eyed the vacant payphone a few feet away. Her beautiful face was still fresh in his mind. He wanted nothing more than to call her, to hear her voice. This wasn’t the first time he was kicked out. There were many others.

Despite his head telling him not too, he walked over to the phone and pushed the change in. He quietly dialed the number and waited for it to ring. Suddenly, a voice rang out, “Hello?”

“Scarlet!” He said, his body turning numb. “I-” and with that, she hung up. He put the receiver down and tried again. Every time he spoke, she hung up. But he refused to let it go. He put his last bit of change in and dialed the number one last time. “Scar! Don’t hang up!” He yelled.

“I don’t want to hear it, Liam.” She sighed loudly, but stayed on the phone. “You can’t keep calling me tonight, I have things to do. I have an exam in the morning.”

As Liam listened to her, he leaned against the payphone and gazed at the billboard. “I-I know.” He bit his lip lightly before speaking again, “I miss you. Can we fix this?”

He listened to the door shut on her end. “Fix what? What is left to fix, Liam?” She sounded annoyed; of course, he had just left no more than an hour ago. The bitterness of the last argument was still lingering. He could hear it. “This isn’t a fairytale or a stupid love song. We can’t keep going in circles like we have been.” There was a sudden faint dog bark; Liam listened as the door opened again. His heart started aching as he realized it was Dez’s last rounds outside for the night. “Goodbye, Liam!” The annoyed Scarlet yelled.

“No! No, please! You need to hear me out!” Liam begged, his hand hitting the phone lightly as he pleaded.

“Why? We’ve played this game far too long, Li. This isn’t Monopoly or something. This is real life; we can’t just play until the end. We can’t trade or buy things; nothing is going to fix this. Nothing will make us work out. We just…we got married too young.” Liam looked out at the empty street with a blank expression.

He rested his head against one of the walls and sighed, “We didn’t get married too young. I was ready, you were ready. We were living in the honeymoon phase and I think we forgot about reality. Scar, Babe…we can do this. We just had some rough patches.” His eyes started burning as he tried to hold the tears back. Everything she said just broke his heart more and more.

“I don’t think so. Liam, love doesn’t always last. Sometimes it fades away. I think we’ve faded.” She started sounding more and more tired. She sounded fed up, yet motherly, like she was trying to break bad news to a child.

“Please….” He whispered. The tears were falling now. He slid down one of the payphones walls and sat down. He sat with his legs crossed, his free hand covering his face. “I can’t imagine my life without you. I can’t see my life with anyone else.”

Scarlet remained silent. Liam thought for a moment she had hung up, but he heard a small sniffle, “We are not the same people we were before we married.” He could hear her pain, she was falling apart now. He longed to hug her, to hold her until she stopped crying. “Our friends say it, we’ve changed. We changed for the worst. We are always grumpy, always fighting, always yelling and screaming. Hell, you broke your cell this time. There are pieces all over the floor. If we keep trying, we are going to break more than that.”

“I am not a quitter.”

“It’s not quitting. When you love something, you have to let it free. I love you, I will always love you, but we are not meant to be.”

“You’ve given up, how can it work when you’ve given up?” Liam pulled at his hair, growing more and more frustrated with her babble, with her giving up.

There was a good minute of silence before Scarlet spoke up again, “I’m getting the divorce papers in the morning. I’ll send them to wherever you are going after I sign them. Goodbye, Liam.” The line went dead.

Liam sat there with the phone to his ear, the buzzing sending him in a teary trance. ‘This can’t be over. It can’t.’ He thought. He slowly picked himself up and hung up the phone. He searched his pockets, knowing he had no change, but it didn’t stop him. His fists pounded against the machine. His angry cries ringing out.

In the distance, lights were slowly making their way up the street. Liam walked back to the bench and looked at his bags, 2 of them sat side by side on one half of the bench. He grabbed them just as the bus stopped and opened its doors. “Goodbye, Scarlet.” He said before climbing on the bus. He knew there was no use fighting a hopeless battle. He hated to admit it, but Scarlet was right, they were young and foolish. They changed. Their love changed. It faded. It didn’t matter how hard they tried. It wasn’t meant to be.

He sat down at the back of the bus and watched the billboard slowly disappear.