Chapter 33: Maybe Tomorrow

Today is the last day I’ll ever see you.

I never thought I’d say that. You were supposed to be my forever. My person.

But now, I think of forever and it makes me want to curl up and hide.

I don’t hate you. I hate me. That’s the worst part of all of this. That I don’t hate what you’ve done, but that I hate how small it’s made me. How aware of the space around me I have become. How terrified I am over the smallest changes in the air between us.

I hate that I continue to blame myself. That I alone hold the burden of fixing the things that you broke.

Maybe it would be easier if you were mean all the time. If you were better at lying or not as good at convincing me that the truth isn’t true. Maybe it would be easier if you hit me…if you left a bruise that I could look at and say, “he did that to me.” But instead, the marks you leave live beneath the flesh, hidden from sight. I’m the only one who knows they’re even there. It would be easier if I couldn’t remember the last time you smiled, or the way your dimple digs into your cheek when you laugh. It would be easier if the sound of your yelling made me forget the melody of your happiness. How can someone so capable of shredding me apart have a laugh that dances so effortlessly between my thoughts?

Maybe it would be easier if I could stand up for myself and not be ashamed of the space I take up. Maybe it would be easier if I could remember all of the time: he made me this way. Maybe, after today, it will become easier to remember that. I will smile cautiously; I will let you lead the conversation the way I always have. I will let you pretend like everything is fine, like you are entitled to my time and space the way you always have. I will study your face and commit it to memory, file it away between the harsh words and the shouted curses, and I will remember that despite the way you’ve broken me, you still smile. That dimple still sits upon your cheek while the hole you’ve created within me sits heavy upon my chest. And despite my shaking, despite your ability to make me question my own mind, I will stand, and I will say goodbye, and that file of memories will be the only place you exist anymore.

Hello, I hope you’re well.

Hello, you look nice.

Thanks, I’ve done my best to hide the tape and glue.

And while you sit across from me, coffee cup in hand, the sun shining behind your head like a halo of false promise and peace, goodbye feels sticky on my tongue. Maybe it would be easier if I wasn’t watching your lips around the rim, remembering how they feel against my skin. Maybe it would be easier if you weren’t so good at making me forget how much you love your ego more than you can ever love me. Yesterday, I would have swallowed goodbye down and let it churn in my stomach until it hardened into a new brick to place upon the wall I’ve built around myself.

But today, right now, it’s just sticky enough to trust that you’ll hear it. You’ll watch me stand, you’ll sit back against your chair and drop your jaw and narrow your eyes as I dare to turn and walk away. And you’ll realize that I’ve finally found the courage to say goodbye not only to you, but to the shadow you turned me into, and to the maybe's that kept me trapped beneath your heels.

And maybe…

The day will come when I believe that too.