And in that moment, I hated him for having the power to make me nothing. And I hated myself for allowing him to.
I called his name, again and again. I waited for him to look up, but the only notion of acknowledgement I earned from him was a slight turn of hand to switch his headphones on to drown out my voice.
I watched as he stared at his phone, lounging on our unmade bed, one leg resting comfortably on one of our pillows and one hand playing with his mustache. If my mind was clear and I had seen him like this, I would think that nothing was wrong, that today was a good day, that I hadn’t ruined it by telling him to leave and never come back. The scene in front of me only proved one thing; what hurts me barely affects him. He oozed confidence and nonchalance, but I could see by the way his mouth was slightly squeezed in one corner, that he was burning with barely controlled anger, which is why the best route would be to leave him alone. I should leave him alone.
I poked his arm, “Johnnie,” urging him to look at me. Tears rolled down my face as my pleas became more desperate and the force of my pulls became stronger. I wondered if this was really my Johnnie, or if someone had replaced him. The resistance of his arm against my hold was all that confirmed that I was real. He was fighting my grip. I was real.
When he finally turned in my direction, he crawled to the edge of the bed, stood up and made his way to the bathroom. He left the door open so I followed him. I stared at him through the mirror while he shaved his beard. It was like a scene from a movie, I was the ghost. I was watching another person live their life right in front of me, but I had no place there, because I was not there. He and I were not on the same plane of existence. All I could do was follow his eyes in the mirror, and hope that his would wonder to mine for just a second. But I did not exist there.
