dumped

Deciding I wouldn't be that pathetic, spaced-out straggler at closing time ("M'am... we closed ten minutes ago") as I had initially planned, I left only ten minutes after he did. I felt half alive, as though only half of me was functioning or willing to acknowledge life, as I walked down to the first floor of the coffee shop, out the door and toward the subway.



"So, basically, it's too hard for you to love me," I'd graciously summed it up for him.

A pause.

"I mean, yeah... I guess so," he agreed, reluctant to accept my phrasing. --Fuck euphemisms, I remember thinking. --Make him admit to what he's really saying.

This was after at least forty-five minutes of my questioning, which had begun as a level-headed attempt to get him to realize he didn't actually want to leave me but quickly turned into begging and pleading ("I can get better! I can work on things! Don't you want to try just once more?"). The stuff of humiliation.

The reality of what he was doing dawned on me along with the realization that, while I had been beginning all my sentences with "Our relationship is..." all along, he'd been replying in past tense, "The relationship was..." Not only in past tense, but already completely detached from the situation. No longer "ours" but "the." That thing. That thing he had decided isn't worth it. Isn't something worth salvaging, like an old animal with too many ailments, not worth the effort, the hope. If somebody could have taken a photo of our relationship right then, it would have been me sitting next to an empty chair with my arm around it, smiling like he was still next to me.

After determining when I'd pick up my stuff (Thursday, at one, while he's at work) we sat in a long, heavy silence that gave me a headache. Still, I expected that any moment he would rescind his decision, which was, admittedly, the main reason I asked him to meet me after work to "talk," my clever code word for "make up."

All throughout my shift, I'd imagined the feeling we'd have once he decided to stay so we could "work on things." I imagined how we'd hug and I'd feel light again, my stomach fluttering with happiness, flying away, escaping from my open smile, tickling my teeth, my uvula, which would be trembling from the chorus of laughter we would share. We would be relieved, excited for new times. We would think, "Well, that was a close one."

I gave this moment one last chance, one last opportunity to prove to me that it could happen. I hoped for it so hard, like my mind could rearrange my reality with enough concentration. I felt the force of my hope right then could literally move his mouth, make it form the words, "I love you enough to try this again."

"Do you have anything else you want to say to me," I asked, staring at him.

"Well, I love you... and... I still care about you, even if that isn't what I should say. I don't regret anything we had together. All of the times we had are very special to me."

"Not special enough, " I let myself say.

He didn't argue.

He asked me the same question, I wonder now if it was out of courtesy or if he really wanted to hear what I had to say when he knew exactly what it would be. I told him I love him and I think he's making a mistake. And then he said goodbye, and left. I didn't stand up or even let myself watch him as he left. I sat there, staring at the drink I had ordered when we walked in, the drink I assumed would be finished by the time we would leave there, together, hand-in-hand. Instead it had just sat there, the ice melting, condensation running down the sides of the clear plastic cup.




Later, outside, I walked toward the intersection with my eyes focusing on nothing. Just as I stepped down from the curb or maybe just before, a man leaning against the wall said to me, "It'll be aiight, shortie." I paused a moment before deciding not to look at him because I knew I would cry, and instead crossed the street, my lip trembling as wind blew my bangs back from my forehead, exposing whatever distorted expression on my face to all those waiting cars.