Metro Station Call

The groans of the trains in the metro station are rivaled only by the trill of a man speaking rapid Spanish to his wife across the tracks. The red line roars through the metro station, heading to a destination somewhere outside the city. The cement bench under me is cold.

 I do not mind. 

My remorseful suitcase sits on the bench next to me. The process of packing felt like a dissociation, someone else, a hopeful lover, folding the clothes instead of me. My phone balances in my hand, and this call has been short. A voice inside me pushed me to do this now, I do not know what. I cannot tell the difference between my intuition and my anxiety, so I just followed both of them. My conversation partner, however, does not have this voice inside him. This call caught him by horrible surprise.

My letters are less and less frequent, while his remain the same diligent, loving, caring, calm rhythm. The cursive, black ink, and the white card stock his words inhabit are never-changing. I have one in my cold hand. I cannot look down to read it again, because I know that seeing the words next to my thumb would drive me deeper into my frigid solitude...

(I love you… You are the sunshine of my life. You are the reason I wake up every morning, you are the last dream I have before I go to sleep. Your smile brightens even the worst of my days. I lose myself in your eyes, and I hope I am never found. Every memory we have together is one that I cannot bear to forget. Being with you is everything to me. I want to make you my life. I want to make you my wife..)

Despite the cursive and the promises, something has shifted, or is dying, within me. 

I know that I am wounding him and his endless hope for the future. In his vision, I am perpetually next to him. We have children. We have dogs and horses, we live in the countryside, and we are hopelessly devoted to one another. He wears a suit every day, and we make love every night. He marries me with the witness of his family, and I am a shining example of his ideal-that everything can be worked for and achieved, if one tries hard enough. 

“I don’t understand what I did wrong?” He cries on the phone. “I did everything, everything I could think of. I love you too much. I gave you everything that I have. Why are you doing this to me?”

It is not something I am doing, but rather, something that I am not doing. But he cannot see that now. He will. 

My heart is a dying, hopeless thing. Or at least, it has been drifting asleep for months now. I am drudging through the motions of life, while this boy dances through them. I have begun to dwell on terrible things, and the rising of the sun is an unwelcome sight more often than not. Is this what falling in love feels like? I have begged to be re-animated, searched for something to fill the 6-foot hole that I have dug myself into. I wish for a softer heart. I am not granted it. 

Letter boy is hopelessly and unceasingly devoted to me. And yet, no amount of convincing can change what is true. I now feel exhausted in my short life, while he is endlessly chasing after a golden future. I cannot express my envy of him enough. 

I kill things and kick them aside. I kill a heart, I kill a dream, and I kill the future with a sentence.

“I don’t want to be in this relationship…I don’t think I am good for you.” 

...Silence… 

....and then something. It's his breathing. It has become shaky. With each breath, it sounds more like the trains than lungs. 

He tries to speak, rasping, “I do not know how to move on from this. I am terrified of losing you. You don’t know how afraid I am. You know more about me than anyone in the world. I want you to meet my family. I want you to be my wife. I want to dedicate my life to you. I share everything with you. I share everything with you. I share everything with you. I can only imagine having a family with you. I love you so much, why can’t you understand that?! Why can’t you see how much I love you? Won’t you at least do this in person? Am I not worth that? Is this what you want? Has all of this been worthless to you?! Am I worthless to you?! What could I possibly have done that made you want to leave me?!”

His tirade of panic is too much to handle, so I do not handle it. With each sentence, his grip on me tightens, but not the sort of grip that binds lovers and friends. His grip feels like nails dug into a strap to keep one from falling out into the unknown. 

I have already fallen. 

I have nothing left to say to him, so I just let him unravel on the phone, revealing a person I have never met before, someone who is afraid of the future. Someone who does not have golden dreams, but doubts and fears. I pray that he never becomes like me. I pray that he welcomes the sun each day. I pray that he loosens his grip on the strap that is tied to his ideal. I pray that his future outshines the one he wanted with me, and that this detour was fate, or something. I am not sure. I cannot stand thinking of the future. 

The last train- the blue line- finishes loading and grinds on to its destination. It is headed to the airport. I missed my train.

 I do not mind.