A Thousand Letters
"For all of you."
"For all of us. You’re a part of this, Elliot."
Her name, a word still foreign, though familiar as if it were my own.
"The nurse will be here in a couple of hours," I continued, "and I think Jeannie and Lou are bringing dinner again. Will you be staying?"
She nodded as we approached the cascade. "If it’s all right."
I pulled her to a stop across from the waterfall with my hand cupping her elbow, frustration and agitation mounting. She still wanted to disappear, as if she held no power. She didn’t know she held all the power over me; my heart was in her hands as it ever was.
In her face, I found surprise tinged with regret and want. A mixture of wishes and apologies hung on her breath.
"Please, stop," I demanded.
"Stop what?" Her voice was quiet, the words trembling ever so slightly.
"Stop apologizing for your presence," I said, persuasion heavy in my words, in my heart. "Stop assuming you’re not wanted. You have every right to be here with us, for us, for him. So stop disappearing. Stop hiding from what you wish for. Stop sacrificing yourself for everyone else."
Her eyes held their sadness close. "It’s not so easy as that."
"It is." I’d pulled her closer without realizing it, unable to help myself. My hand was still on her arm, and before I could stop myself, she was pressed against me with her hand resting on my chest. "Elliot, it’s always been that easy. That’s what you never understood."
I let her go and stepped back, feeling the loss of her with the snap of cold air between us. The pull of her was undeniable, even after everything — time couldn’t erase her from my heart.
When I looked her over, I realized I didn’t know her anymore, and she didn’t know me. I wondered distantly, as one watches the horizon, if I was only in love with the idea of her, a version of her that existed in the past. Or maybe it had never existed at all outside of my mind.
I was in love with a girl who had dreams, a girl who loved quietly and without expectation. But the girl before me had her dreams dashed, and she loved submissively, putting everyone else before herself until she found herself buried and gone.
Maybe she had vanished after all, the seven years had passed by, erasing the features I had loved so well.
I walked away, and she stood rooted to the spot for a few heartbeats before moving her feet. And feeling her there by my side, I knew I was wrong. I loved her still, and that love was real. And I only wanted her happiness, but I had no rights, no means to provide it.
We circled back, walking the edge of the pond called The Pool in silence, waiting for the moment to be behind us, waiting to get back to the place where we could pretend. Waiting for the polite pretense that covered the truth where we couldn’t see it. Didn’t matter that we could still feel it.
But I didn’t want to feel it, not now. I didn’t want to feel her there, the pull so strong that I could barely fight it. I hoped I could find the strength to hold up the wall between us, wondering for a beat what would happen if I let it go, let it fall. Let myself fall back into her. Would she catch me, or would I tumble to the ground?
A flash of relief hit me at the thought of submission; I imagined yielding to her would be to breathe again, knocking the dust from my lungs. Just the illusion of that comfort was transcendent.
But it was just that — an illusion, a falsity, fictitious and fabricated by my desire to find my way back to the fantasy of her.
10
Bring It On Home
Home is not a place,
Not a smell,
Not a face,
But a space
In your heart.
* * *
-M. White
* * *
Elliot
My hands were ice in my pockets as we walked in silence, his thoughts rolling off him in waves as we walked through the park, saying nothing.
He was right, and he was wrong. True and false. Yes and no. The words warred through him, through me.
The fight was the same as the last we’d had, and the years had changed little about it. He was the same as he always was; there was nothing I could say to change his mind. There never had been, though I wished I’d given him the answers he’d wanted so long ago. But the ship had sailed and left me on the shore. And his words now were right, and they were wrong.
He was still angry, still hurt, and even as he spoke of the ways he wished me to change, he pulled me closer. Hot and cold. One extreme or the other.
I was left reeling.
My breath was shallow, my chest hollow, my pain dull and aching. I could think of nothing to say; there was nothing to defend. But I found no words of agreement either.
Same fight, but everything else was different, somehow more true than it had been the first time, his words an arrow, sharp and barbed, running me through.
How could I explain that when he’d left, he’d taken me with him? How could I tell him he was all I wanted, and when he was lost to me, I lost all hope?
I couldn’t. I could barely whisper the words to my own heart, never mind where his ears would hear.
So I walked next to him in the cold, feeling ashamed and wrong, feeling that I’d been put back in my place. I accepted it, shrinking back into that small space where I could hide, disappear, even though he’d asked me not to while he pushed me into the role with his own hands.
I didn’t know how to exist any other way, not anymore. My light had gone out when he left me years before.
I was turned so inward that I didn’t feel that his frustration had ebbed, softened, though the tension between us snapped as we approached the steps to his house.
He stopped in front of me, bringing me to a halt.
"Elliot, wait."
My heart thumped in my throat as I waited for him to speak, looking up into his hard face.