When a relationship ends with a man youād given serious, quiet contemplation to what it would be like to share a life with, and what you feel, in between missing his smile or how heād look at you, hungry and marveled and flattened by whatever bloomed and bred behind his eyes as he tried to take you in, is relief and firm understanding that it is over, it is different.
I donāt feel hope. I donāt yearn for a reconciliation, I am not looking for a plea bargain. This one is Done. This one was Different.
I think of the last man I loved before him, years ago, and how alike and different (TWO HOUSES) the experience was. One, that it makes itself known. I didnāt have to wonder, did not have to ask, did not have to seek out what it meant. And two, I was concerned with my feelings. I am at a place in my career, in my life, I can call both of them by their given names after working hard to establish them both, where I have things to lose if I lose myself in love. That is the selfish luxury of the unmarried, barely tethered, childless, early 30ā²s woman. We are allowed to sit back and go, āOh, but I like all of this. It fits just rightā.
I want a child. I have downgraded it from children (for the sake of my metaphorical heart, my very literal body) plural, which this man has. The concept of a child, our child, half him, half me, was not open for discussion. We laid, intertwined, on the grass after a picnic, tall trees lacy and lazy above us, and he told me things, then pushed my hair out of my face and saidĀ āYouāll be a great mother. I can tellā. It hurt in a way a compliment shouldnāt. It meant he wonāt be there to see it.
I want a few other things, which he had, or has, currently, and he didnāt feel about them the way that I did. Do.
He was older, is older, a full decade, and that means there were new things. References I did not get at all, and paternal knowledge, watchfulness. Was I all right? Did I need something. Letās get you something to eat. Me first, through the doors, up the stairs, weaving through the crowd his arm raised above my head, his fingers intertwined with mine, so he could keep track. I made him feel ālike a Teenagerā.
Bed was different. He slept with a mask on, over his mouth, and had lost the thousand-plus-dollar mattress to his Ex. He knew, in the way that men whoāve spent a lot of time sleeping next to a woman, the same woman, how to hold me in the morning, paused on his return from the bathroom to kiss me -- sleepy, still melted into bed. You are right here, his hands on the side of my face said, anchoring me until he pulled me up, handed me a t-shirt, helped me pull it down over my head.
Sometimes his body turned timid. And when his heart did, timid to tentative, he still walked into my door, placed his hands on the side of my face, and leaned in. I miss you, he said, with his voice, his mouth. Over and over again until we crawled into bed and talked, kissing, his hands on my hips, in my hair, on my face. You are right here.Ā
When it ended, it lasted two weeks, and then we met for a Conversation in a Public Place. I was tan and happy, strong, hollowed out from spending a lot of time with myself. I was able to hide for those two weeks, near water, the day after he ended the relationship. And then new work started two days before, which meant I was lit with purpose. And that man I was willing to alter my whole life for stood before me, wearing a Dad outfit. Shorts. His haircut too fresh. Heād gained a little weight. And he greeted me with caution, his hands staying high, his lips on my jaw. āDo you want to talk?ā He asked, gesturing to a bench.
We did. āYouāre gorgeous. You know that, though. You know that, right?ā And my hand flew to his soft, round face, cupping the pudgy bristled jaw, fingers curling under his chin. It had done so automatically, as it had many times, and while I steeled my body against the rest of what usually happened when this man made me feel like he did, my hand was there, scritching a little. He shivered, eyelids fluttering, a muttering, a little laugh. āDonāt do that,ā He whispered. āYou know what happens when you touch my face-- you canāt do that to me in public...ā
We said our goodbyes, the second round, and I had what Iād come for in my bag. And then he cupped the side of my face and began to kiss me. I am small enough, short enough, that my innocence is truth. I cannot lunge for someoneās mouth. So he did the work, and it was familiar and known and the whole time I couldnāt do anything but run my hands down his chest. He was wearing the shirt heād given me to pull over my head while he made coffee, last time. Iām sucker for nostalgia.
Itās so gross. Itās so hard. Sometimes we mess up this Silence Forever thing and have stunted, stammering text conversations until someone says they canāt do this but not before saying things that give weight to the idea that they could. He and I both. Sometimes he gets mean, and punctures me, and I think about the limp weight of him in my mouth, or how heād make a point of pulling me closer, holding my hand, leaning down to kiss me in front of the waiters and baristas and clerks older than me but younger than him.Ā
On one of our first dates, we walked down the busy uptown streets, from one of those lots of wine and lots of cheese and meat and lots of feeding each other like idiot birds Dinners, and the park where he sat in front of me on a stone ledge as I stood, back to the street, his hands on my waist, in the small of my back, asking me questions about the future. Would I, did I, should we. We decided to get cake and coffee, two Lovers full-stop, unable to keep their hands off of each others in the dim bistro, as a woman in her fifties sat next to us, lips pursed, making a complicated order of cucumber salad, then soup and a single flute of champagne. I imagined, as she lifted the glass to her thin mouth, she was cursing the two of us. Such jerks, she probably thought.
And sometimes I really, really miss it.
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