Closure

It was a dream I hadn’t had in years, but it came to me that night. I was standing in a field, its hairs long and wispy green, holding a rope. On the other end of the rope stood a bull, the cord wrapping around its thick girth. We stood at a fence. I knew, in that elusive way one knows in dreams, that I needed to corral the bull into the pen, but he would not budge. I pulled on the rope and he stood, staring at me with stubborn eyes, wind whistling from his nose as he exhaled. I tried everything to get him to move. I commanded. I pleaded. I begged. I spoke to him in gentle, beckoning tones. I ignored him, one eye peering over my shoulder to see if he stirred without my watchful eyes upon him. I tried it all and still, he would not move. I grew more and more desperate, pulling on the rope with fervour until I woke from the dream with a start, the image of the immovable bull still fresh in my mind. The clock read 4:32 AM. I sighed, feeling the last of my connection to the sleeping world being severed, and begrudgingly began to get ready for the day.

****

“If you think any louder I’m gonna get a headache. What’s wrong?” I asked.

Tara stared at me, her hands nervously fingering her coffee cup. It seemed to be her fourth cup of the day. She was pure nerves. I was the picture of calm compared to her. Her hands shook as she spooned the sugar into her drink, three spoonfuls, as always. I remembered how I used to chide her for her sugar consumption. It’ll rot your teeth, I always said. I chose not to say anything now.

“Nothing,” she said at last, her gaze breaking. “You’re right. We weren’t happy.”

I raised my eyebrows in surprise, her you’re right echoing in my ears. They were words I hadn’t often heard come from her mouth. I remembered Tara’s stubbornness without much fondness. Once, I took her to the botanical gardens for a date. We roamed around, looking at the flowers and the plants, holding each other’s hands. Back then, our hands still reached for each other when they had nowhere to go. We came to a stop at a patch of beautiful blooming white flowers.

Chinese snowball viburnum, I informed her.

No, she said, those are annabelle hydrangeas. She looked at me proudly. She had just finished reading an introduction to botany. It had taken her over two years to pour through the vague descriptions of flowers and pollination. She read about a page every night. It took her an hour, curled up in bed with the weak yellow light of her bedside lamp shining on the page. I had offered to teach her. My mother had kept an immaculate garden since before I was born, trained me to recognize even the most niche genuses. But Tara refused, claimed she would learn it on her own, and worked through her book with enviable dedication. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she was wrong.

“Thank you,” I said, “for admitting that.” I smiled at her sadly. I could tell she wanted more than just coffee. Closure, perhaps. Maybe more. We had left things messy, and cut our cords quickly. We didn’t bother retrieving any items we had left at each other’s houses. She had called, twice, maybe three times, in the weeks after we said goodbye. I let the phone ring.

“I guess…” she began, sipping at her coffee, “I don’t know. I guess I just loved you more than you loved me.”

The words stung. I sat back in my chair. She was right, of course. I felt like a child caught in a lie. The imbalance of our love was palpable, but I had been naive enough to believe I was the only one who could perceive it. I looked up at her. She stared at me, her eyes worried, waiting for me to deny it. I paused, thinking.

I reached to take her hand but she recoiled at my touch, the length of my pause too long to be ignored. I stopped myself from protesting. I remembered how she used to crave my touch, how she would bloom like a tulip in the warmth of my hands. Those became the only times I enjoyed being with her, when the talking would stop and she would lay down willingly, like a toy for me to play with. I realized now she must have noticed that too.

“Wow,” she said. She looked down at her cup sadly. I could tell she had expected me to tell her no, to tell her how much I loved her, how much I still loved her. I wanted to lie, to offer some padding for her heart, but I couldn’t. As I looked at her from across the table, I felt nothing but pity for Tara, pity for the woman she had slowly become in front of my eyes. I didn’t want to consider whether I had anything to do with it. I cleared my throat.

“Do you remember when we took that trip to Maine?” I asked. She looked at me, eyes puzzled. She nodded. “You sat on the sand the whole time.”

“What?” she asked.

“It was 90 degrees out and you stayed on the sand the whole time. And it wasn’t like you’re scared of water or something. I’ve seen you swim before.”

“What’s your point, Ben?” she asked. Her voice lowered to a familiar growl, the exasperation seeping into her tone.

“You got… You got boring,” I admitted. I braced myself for her response.

“We had fun on that trip,” she said quietly.

“I didn’t,” I replied. She looked like I had slapped her.

“You know it’s really rude to call someone boring,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“Jesus,” she scoffed. “You know, you were always like this. Mean.”

I nodded. It wasn’t news to me. Tara brought out a cruelty I was not proud of. She hadn’t, at first. In the beginning, it was sweet. I relished in the sound of her laugh, the sight of her smile. I laughed at her stubbornness. I called it banter, not fighting. I wasn’t sure what had changed. I assumed it was her.

“Did you ever really love me?” she asked. I paused, considering my answer.

“I think so,” I said at last. “In the beginning I did. But it faded. Quickly.” I was growing annoyed with her questions. She was always there, questioning, never just doing.

“So why stay with me?” she asked. She posed the question like an accusation, as though I had betrayed her by staying with her. I wondered if I had.

“Come on, Tara,” I said. “You know why.”

“No, I don’t. Why?” she repeated.

“You loved me too much.” She looked at me, the corners of her mouth turning down slightly with disapproval. “Leaving you would have ruined you.”

“I’m not weak,” she said.

“You were,” I countered.

“Did you ever consider that it might hurt more for you to leave after three years than three months?” she asked. I hadn’t. “I thought you were the love of my life.”

Part of me wanted to laugh. I never imagined the love of my life to be so loveless.

“Look, Tara, we’re both better off now that this is over,” I said. That seemed to hurt her the most. She grabbed her coffee mug like it was a railing, leaning on the porcelain for support. I suppose it hurt to know I was happy. Happier. I didn’t care to know if she was.

“But it was fun while it lasted, right?” she asked, her eyes peering at me with the hope of an infant. She waited, her breath caught in her throat, for my response.

“It was fun while it lasted,” I agreed. She smiled and I felt my heart ache.