Little Ribbons

I crawled up the stairs to my apartment, feeling the boundless nothing taking hold of me tighter with every step. I was hollowed out, empty, yet there was a tremendous heaviness that weighed me down. It was a feeling I had never experienced before.

A piece of the world had just been ripped out, stolen away, so why are all my neighbors walking about as if nothing happened? I wanted to scream at them. How could they not feel it, this horrible grief that plagued me? Why me? Why her?

I was so tired, so exhausted from the pain she left me with, that I did not notice my door was already unlocked when I opened it. I was so weak after lending her my strength for all these months, that I did not pay mind to the soft clicking of footsteps coming from the living room. And I was so rung out dry, so stripped of every part of me that is good, that I could not gather the strength to scream when I saw a man working to unhook my TV from the wall.

He jumped when he saw me standing there, though I hardly noticed that either. He looked startled for a moment, more startled than I could manage, that is, before, with a shaky hand, he brought what looked to be a gun slowly from his coat pocket. Instead of falling to my knees to beg him to spare what little bit of life I had left in me, instead of running out of the room, instead of trembling with raised hands of surrender, instead of doing any of the logical things a normal person would do in this situation, I sat on the couch. I deserved at least that, to sit on my own couch when I die.

He brought the gun to my head, I could feel it push against me, and said in a less than confident voice, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”

But I did move. I moved my face into my hands and began to sob. It wasn’t the kind of sob you have when you know you have minutes to live, it was the kind that you hold in for months. The kind that you shouldn’t have buried for so long, but you did and now it’s here. The kind that forces itself out of you at the worst time. The kind that comes like a flood or a hurricane, that doesn’t stop until you're all dried out again. It was the kind that started as little cries but escalated into uncontrollable howls. The kind that shakes your body. That shakes your soul. 

I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to.

I began to curl in on myself. I leaned over my legs and hugged my chest as if I could catch my heart if it decided to dance right out of me. I just knew that I was making the worst sounds and the ugliest faces, but I didn’t care. If this man was going to kill me, the least he could do was give me the courtesy of allowing my last moments to haunt him for the rest of his life. Vulnerability can be a harrowing thing, after all, especially my own. It was the vulnerability I could not afford to have these past few months.

I was heaving and bawling so violently that I did not realize the man had lowered his gun from my head until I felt him sit carefully next to me. My cries lessened and I peeked up at him, snot and tears still caked on my face. 

I examined him for a long time as, to my surprise, he hiccuped between his own silent weeps. His coat and pants were adorned in holes and stains. His hair was black and shiny with grease. His shoes were falling apart at the seams. It was clear that he did not come from money.

He was a careful creature, I noticed, from the way he placed his gun neatly in his lap. From the way he held his knees so close to each other. From the way he sat on the very edge of the couch and from the way he held his arms so close to himself. Even his cries were cautious and even. I became very aware that he was extremely out of his element here, and that should have been enough to make me bolt out the door, but I didn’t. I stayed and watched this man dissolve on my couch.

“I’m so sorry,” he rasped out, “I never wanted it to come to this.”

My eyes widened.

“This isn’t even a real gun. What was I thinking?” he looked up at me with his sunken eyes and a scruffy face, “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

I stared at him, bewildered, but I didn’t show it. I turned away from him, and looked at my TV which now swung loosely off of the wall.  A resignation settled over me. “You didn’t,” I began, “you should have, but you didn’t.”

He said nothing.

“My sister died today. From cancer. You should have scared me but I didn’t feel anything at all when I saw you. I have nothing left,” I stated simply. I surprised myself with this. I hadn’t really talked about my sister’s cancer journey with anyone, not even my friends, but now I found it so easy to open up to this complete stranger.

He responded earnestly, “My mom has cancer, too. I’m drowning in medical bills and am on the brink of homelessness. I never wanted it to come to this, but I didn’t see a way out. I’m so sorry. I truly am.”

We stared at each other for a few moments and basked in the knowledge that someone else knows what it's like to know that a piece of the world, of our world, has been ripped out. We know what it’s like to be empty and hollow for a long time afterwards. We know what it's like to only hope we will find something that will fill us up once more.

It did not take long before that very knowledge caused us to break down again. Not as hard or as violently, though, just soft sniffles that filled the room and wrapped around us like little ribbons. We continued to share things with each other in short streams of sentences, like the tears that streaked our cheeks one by one. 

He told me that his mother was almost gone. That she was just barely holding on, but he didn’t want her to feel like she had to stay just for him. I told him how close I was to my sister, and that I was the only one left in our family to care for her. That I gave her everything that I could, even little parts of myself, and that still wasn’t enough. He told me he wasn’t able to get a job because of his severe ptsd, but he was trying to work though it for his mom so that he could let her die with the knowledge that she raised a good son. I told him I was sorry. He told me he was sorry. Then we were quiet again, the only sound left being our soft sniffles that wrapped around us like little ribbons.

I’m sure if anyone walked in to see two grown men crying in silence, they would have been thoroughly weirded out, but to me, it seemed normal. It was therapeutic, even.

“I have to take it. I’m sorry, I have to,” he said sheepishly once the tears had dried up.

I only nodded and stood. “It’s easier if you pull it this way,” I demonstrated and unhooked the Tv.

He was baffled, I could see it in the way he walked over to me and in the way his eyes shifted nervously. “Why are you helping me?” He asked.

“Why not?” 

I’m sure that if the past few months had been normal, I probably could have come up with a few reasons, but not now. Not after everything I had seen, and especially not after I gained the knowledge that the people you hold dearest to your heart can be taken away in seconds, so losing one Tv didn’t seem all that bad.

“I’m sorry, again, so sorry,” he apologized with his head hanging low, “I’ll repay you one day. I swear.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied with the first sincere smile on my face in months, “take care.”

We shared silent nods and he was gone. In the next few months I tried to find where he lived, if he lived anywhere, that is, but couldn’t find him. I would have liked to send him some money, maybe even a new coat, but he was like a ghost. 

I began to get better, to move on, after about a year, and things only went uphill from there. I found the parts of myself that I had given away so long ago. I found them wrapped up in little ribbons at my work and in the new friends I gained along the way. It was still a sad day to remember, the day my sister died, but on that day I am also reminded of my burglar and how he helped me, even if he didn’t mean to. I like to think that I helped him, too.

A few years passed and the man that broke into my house was becoming somewhat of a distant memory, and I began to think that maybe he really was a ghost, until one day when I got a knock on the door. I thought it was only the mailman, so I was pleasantly, but thoroughly surprised at what I found instead.

The man on my porch cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi, um, wow I can’t believe this worked. I wasn’t sure if you still lived here,” he laughed, “but I- I’m glad you do. Anyways, this is gonna sound ridiculous, but... do you remember me?”

Recognition washed over me, and all I could do was gape at him wordlessly. It’s him, but how? How does he even remember me, that’s what I should be asking, but I didn’t. I just stood there with a lump in my throat.

He extended an envelope to me. “Here. For the Tv,” he winked and added, “and then some. Maybe to get a new lock. It was incredibly easy to break.”

He smiled at me and continued more evenly, “I told you I would pay you back. I have been thinking about this day, the day I would be able to make up for my mistake all those years ago, since, well since I walked out this front door.”

I hadn’t realized how handsome he really was under all the grime and dirt I found him in on the day I met him.

“You? How do- it’s been so long. I tried to find you, just to see if you were okay, but we never told each other our names,” I gasped for air, not out of shock, but of joy, “of course I remember you! How could I forget? And, personally, I don’t like to think of that day as a mistake.”

He laughed and I laughed. It was as if an incredible burden we had been carrying around had been lifted. I examined him. His coat was new and expensive. His hair was freshly washed and styled purposefully. His shoes were shiny and clean.

His mannerisms, though, were still the same. He still spoke carefully and kept his arms close to himself. Even his laugh was cautious and even.

He broke the silence sheepishly, “I have to take you to dinner. I’m sorry, I have to.”

It was the same as all those years ago when I was broken and there was nothing left of me, except this time, instead of sharing sobs and little ribbons, we shared laughs and big hugs. 

He made me realize that the world is a lot bigger than you think. That everyone is going through their own things, even your neighbors that walk freely on, that have no knowledge of the piece of the world that just got ripped out. He made me realize that we are not alone. That, even though everyone is going through something different, we still all share the experience of suffering and pain and grief, and in that we are one. He made me realize that your mistakes do not make you. They are the products of that pain. It is the thing that makes us all human.

One year later, we had our wedding where we honored my sister and his mother who were not able to be there physically, but who we knew were there in spirit. Who, even though their deaths caused suffering and pain and grief and endless mistakes, it was those very feelings, that very mistake, that produced one good thing: we were able to find the person that would fill us up once more, that would take up the pieces of our worlds that got ripped out. We were able to find the people who we knew would have little ribbons to wrap around us when we needed them most.