It Only Makes Sense to Us

Your eyes have run dry, and your spirit is slowly fading. You play last night's fight over and over again in your head.

"I'm done with you. I'm done with your crying, and your screaming, and your indecisiveness, and I'm just done. I tried so hard to make you feel better, all the time, and you just sat there and cried. You go ahead. Run away. I'm staying here, and I'll finally be free of someone like you. But you, you'll never be free of yourself. You'll always look to others for validation and hate yourself and cry but I can't be there to help you anymore. And I'm sorry, but you know you can't blame this on me," you said.

It wasn't meant to sting this way. It usually doesn't. But you had to shake me. You threw words at me like spears, and they hurt more than if you were to use that gun you were hiding. You were sent to leave me broken. You were sent to scare me away, so I would forget the secrets you whispered to me when we were friends. You weren't supposed to fall in love with me. I know you did, because it's easy to tell that someone's in love with you when you love them too.

You could've stayed, you could've given it up. I know I wasn't worth it, but you could've tried. Instead, you stand in line at the train station, blankly smiling at people and trying not to let your anguish show. You talk about how love can't fix anything, but you fell in love with me. You talk about honesty, but you are a liar. You talk about bravery, but you are a coward. You talk about changing the way this world is run, but you act just like the people you're trying to change. The words you threw at me were fake, and they'll haunt you.

You board the train going to a city half way across the country where you will never fit in. You allow yourself to think about my smile, and the way my eyes are bluer when I cry. You know I know that you are abandoning me, when you accused me of going to abandon you. You put your headphones on and turn the music higher than is advised. You drown your thoughts out with 90s guitars and drums that I always loved. You check your phone, even though it's stolen and no one has your number. You scroll through the news, the biased news that you hate. You allow yourself to think of me again, chuckling at my idiocy. The guy next to you gives you a weird look but you know that if I were there, he would give that look to me. I was always more abstract than you, even though you claimed to be "above it all."

When your face gets that nostalgic look again, I tap you on the shoulder. It's pathetic, that I stole your stolen phone, manipulated it to show your real searches, read between the lines and spied on the spies long enough to get a ticket for the train that almost no one knows exists. You knew I would, though, because I'm not one to let it go. You never thought I'd follow through, but you knew I would try. A tear almost slips out of my right eye but you glare at me before it has a chance. I know you aren't annoyed, though, because there is a softness there, too. A tear slips out your left eye, but I let it slide. The guy next to you is giving me a strange look, like you knew he would.

I speak first, because this is how we work. I'm pathetic, and you do your best to accept it.

"Got any pretzels?" I ask, and you laugh knowingly. You hand me the bags you'd kept underneath your seat, just in case. I take them hungrily, and hand you peppermints in return. I'd taken more than my fair share from the kind woman in front of me from the security check. I am allergic to them, and that's why you love them so much, because I can't take them from you. The guy next to you agrees to switch seats with me because he's had enough of your nonsense, and I lean my head on your shoulder, and you allow it because you know I'm exhausted.

"So, where are we going?" I ask, and this is where your fantasy ends.

You don't know where you're going, and I'm not coming with you. I didn't give you any peppermints, and you didn't hide any pretzels for me either. My head isn't on your shoulder, but you do know that I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted of having to come through for you, of figuring out all your schemes, of you not being able to be vulnerable with me. You know this. You know that you chose to be a spy over being with me, and that you were right. I just sat there and cried. I cried because we are two halves of one stupidly messy whole, one big lump of regret. You were right. I'll never be free of myself. I'll never forget how I didn't have it in me to forgive you, how I didn't even try to find you.

But I was right too. You are a coward. You are a liar. You are someone who acts like everyone you hate. I wanted to find you, but you didn't want me to. Not this time.

I sit at my messy kitchen counter and think of you. You sit in your unclean seat and think of me. And then, your phone rings. It's your boss. I told him everything.

You are a spy; you are trained to break people. I was already broken. You could do nothing to me. I am a spy, trained to ruin people like you. You couldn't let yourself believe it, and that's why you are now ruined.

That's the story we'll stick with. But for now, I hand you your peppermints and you hand me my pretzels and your boss gives us a weird look as we tell him the story that only makes sense to us.