Interlude

In late January she came to visit me, and I made her tea. I have never been good at talking, so this is the way I tell her I love her, a warm drink in her hands, and a dry house to stay in for the few hours she is with me.

I sat across from her in the darkened living room, my hands around my own warm cup, watching steam waft up into the space between us. She told me about her plans for the future and I listened politely.

She burnt her tongue on my hospitality(hospitalitea), which I should have taken as a sign, especially as I sipped comfortably from a cup poured out of the same pot. But I try not to believe in omens and portents, so I just made sympathetic sounds and touched her hand.

I have never been good at talking so when she wanted to hear about me I laughed and cracked a joke. She was happy to keep talking about herself but I was getting a little tired of listening. It was late January, and I am accustomed to spending the winter months in comfortable silence, listening to the albums my friends have written. (I still recommend my ex's music to people, which she should have taken as a sign. As much as I love her I will always also love other people.)

By the time evening came it was snowing hard, so I offered to let her stay the night rather than drive home in the dark and the storm. She accepted, fell asleep, and woke up next to me in my bed. There is only one bed in the house, I am not one to spend money on extra furniture for guests I rarely if ever have. She did not mind. We woke up with our limbs intertwined, and She asked if she could stay.  I said okay. My mother never taught me how to ask people to leave once I’ve invited them in.

A month later when the winter was just starting to thaw,  she fell asleep and woke up in my bed alone.  I have never been good at talking so I spent the night outside, wandering through the woods around the house. I didn't bring a flashlight but I know the ground well enough that I don't need it. I didn’t come back inside until dawn, and I tracked mud through the whole house. I made breakfast for her and fell asleep on the couch, and she woke up alone. 

I woke up around noon. She was crying at my kitchen counter and I didn’t know what to do. I have always been bad at talking so I made her tea as an apology for staying out all night and falling asleep in my shoes on the couch (although it is my couch and my shoes, I give her the face of a penitent sinner I think she wants to see). I dried her eyes and dusted off the couch and invited her to sit next to me. She clung to me like a lost child and I absentmindedly held her back and murmured some comforting sounds. In some ways, I had grown comfortable with her presence in my house. I wondered how I would feel her absence if she was gone (I knew already how she would feel mine). I am enough for myself and quietly unsatisfying for everyone else. But she seemed desperate for whatever I was willing to give her. 

My mother never taught me how to ask people to leave once I had invited them in so it was then I began considering leaving myself. I did not need the house. I could easily enough go out for a walk and keep walking forever. The woods know me well, better than she does, better than I even know me. I have never known the trees or the animals to ask anything of me except that I should be gentle with their home, that I never take more than I need. I was happy with that sort of love, taking only what I need and nothing else, offering only what is needed from me in return. She wanted me to bind myself to her, to give to her everything, and to take everything from her in return.  She wanted me to need her like she thought she needed me. 

I have never been good with words so when I say out loud “I don’t need you the way you want me to” we are both surprised. She looks at me, shocked, asks me to explain myself, but I can’t. I tell her instead, “You don’t need me either, you only think you do.”  I think she might weep so I find my tongue again.  “I am not saying I do not love you. I am only saying I can’t love you the way you want me to. I am only saying you deserve better than thinking you need me.” She does not weep or cry, but looks at me, steadily. I look back at her. I wonder how long we will sit here before she realizes she has loved a ghost, that I have never been what she imagined me to be. I look away from her face and instead look straight ahead and think about this house. I have lived here for too long, I think. I stand up. 

“Are you leaving?” She asks. 

“I always do.” 

“I think a part of me knew you would.” she pauses. Thinks for a moment. “Do you want me to leave the house?” 

“No one can stand to stay here for long. Not even me. But you will be safe through the spring.” 

She moved to stand in front of me, placed her hand on my chest. I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “I really do love you.” 

“I think I knew that too.”

I left the house through the kitchen door. I didn’t bother to take anything with me. I knew I would have need of nothing where I was going.