A special kind of ache

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. Please forgive me, just this once, please.” His tears are drawing lines through his mascara. Lines that stretch from his eyes to his cheeks. Lines that I can’t help but follow with my own eyes, lines that I find inexplicably beautiful because I was the one that drew them. I am the one he is apologizing to, I am the one that he can’t stand to disappoint. I am the one that makes his tears flow. 

On the outside I seem calm, collected, maybe even indifferent. But it’s not true. I am overflowing, and I am having a hard time concealing my feelings. It is conflicting, the need to be important to someone, so important that they can’t help but cry in despair when they think everything is lost, and at the same time being so badly hurt by them.

I don’t know what I am supposed to do. His apology is sincere, but I can’t help but feel at a loss. If he already knew what he did was wrong, why did he do it in the first place? And why did he do it like that? Any other way would have been okay, but why? 

I feel tormented by both him and by my own emotions. I want to forgive him, I really do, but I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. What am I supposed to do? Should I just let him off the hook? Let him off, and then continue on with whatever it was we were having? Because it didn’t seem like he was as serious as I was. I had put in everything I had, but he just…I’m frustrated, at loss, disappointed but most of all aching. 

I am aching. And it hurts. Really bad.

I thought that we shared something special, but in the black lines on his face I somehow find my answer.

I turn around.

I turn around, and I go. 

I leave him there, without a single word of consolation, without anything at all, because I have had enough of hurting. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want him anymore.

But that’s a lie. 

Because I do want him. I want him with everything I have. 

And as I walk away my own tears burn their way down my face until I can barely see where I am going. And although they are melting my skin, turning it red and swollen, I can’t help but think that maybe, maybe, just maybe, I had done the right thing. A small, shimmering spark of hope is twisting and turning in my heart, almost drowning but somehow still there. Because maybe, just maybe it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Maybe, just maybe, I am worth something more than this.

***

When I look back it all seems so clear. That he was no good, that I wouldn’t have survived as myself in that relationship for long. That he was a twisted person, no good, dangerous and malicious.

But then I remember how it was when it was really good, and I hesitate. Was he really that bad? But I know. I know that I did the right thing after all. It has taken me a long time, and a lot of help, but I’ve managed to get through it and beyond it. I have managed to get a resemblance of peace of mind, and I am actually quite enjoying my life nowadays. It feels good to have new friends, to go out with them and drink coffee or go clubbing. To feel safe. Appreciated. At ease. 

But sometimes.

Sometimes I see a guy with the same height, or the same build, or the same kind of mascara, and I plummet. Down, down, down through the rabbit hole I go, until I feel lost once again, wishing, longing, hoping for the feeling he always gave me in the beginning.

And I look around, and there are only strangers where my new friends stood just moments ago. And they are looking at me, asking questions about how I am, is everything okay, do you need a glass of water, and I just can’t recognize them. 

And then I snap out of the feeling. The room spins into place, and I know them. Have known them for quite a while actually. And I shake my head. And I answer their questions. And I smile again.

I smile, but the feeling remains. 

***

The workload is heavy this month. New clients, new responsibilities, new colleagues. There's a lot of rotation in this office. They say it’s because we need to spread the knowledge, make every department strong and vital, to build connections between the different teams, but I know that it’s a lot simpler than that. 

We are overworked, overwhelmed, and unappreciated. The boss seems to think that he is doing us a favour by having us here, and maybe he is. It’s hard getting a new job, especially since a lot of us have had some trouble before. My favourite colleague was in prison for a while a couple of years ago. She never mentions why, but she is really good at using the computer. Another colleague is a single parent, and they are having a hard time getting child support from the other parent. They work double shifts, constantly worried about getting dragged to another law firm for another shitty detail in the fine print. It’s hard to be taken seriously as a non-binary, they say sometimes, especially when the other parent constantly miscredit them in front of their children. 

We are, every single one of us, in some sort of difficult spot. And the boss knows it. 

I am exhausted. I want to breathe, like really big breaths. The kind of breathing I did when I was young, filling my lungs to the brink and even more, holding it in until I felt like I would burst if I didn’t let go, but I can’t.

The reality is that I have forgotten how it is to simply feel things in the moment. My ability to do so disappeared when I turned around and walked away from him. The one that I am not really allowed to think about. The one that my friends hate on my behalf, but that I can’t seem to really forget. Because he had this ability. This ability to make me feel strung up and totally free at the same time. The ability to make me lose focus of anything else, to make me able to forget everything besides him. And I don’t have that anymore. 

The phone is ringing off the hook, my colleagues are stressing out on every side of me, I have a shitload of things to do, and I dive in, trying to focus on what I am doing, but I actually don’t. I just do the bare minimum of what I have to do until it is time to go home.

***

I lie alone in my bed. The sheets are wrinkled, shoved to one side of the bed. The sweat has dried on my skin. I sent my company for the night away a while ago. I didn’t want her to spend the night. I didn’t want to feel her heat against my body during the night. Didn’t want to wake up with a stranger beside me.

I look at the app again, bored but still wanting for something more than what I just got. Maybe him? Her? I swipe right, left, left, right. Not really reading or looking, just my thumb doing its thing while my brain is malfunctioning. Because really, what’s the point? A good lay is a good lay. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.

A match.

A time.

A location.

I sigh, take a quick shower and dress up, casually this time. No need to wine and dine, just a quick meetup with someone new. Someone different.

Maybe this one will make it worthwhile more than once?

I doubt it, but I still go.

***

Work.

Hook-ups.

Sleep.

Work.

Every week is the same. And the Saturday nights are spent with my friends, clubbing. New people. New men. New women. New anything.

And I yearn for change.

***

I try my best to smile towards my latest client. It doesn’t seem to work. She is a real bitch. In any other place, I would’ve liked it, enjoyed it, but at work I just feel nauseous. 

I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the complaining, the whining, the boss, the colleagues, anything. I don’t want to be here anymore. The walls are closing in, and I feel suffocated. I remember, once again, how I used to breathe when I was younger, and 

I

Just

Have

Had

Enough.

I flip the customer off, stand up, and leave.

As I walk past the stares in my office, the panic threatens to overwhelm me. What the fuck am I doing? Am I just leaving my job? A steady (but bad) pay? Have I gone crazy? For real?

I make it to the elevator, get in, and get the hell out of Dodge. 

This is not good.

***

Three months in, and my refrigerator looks like something from a survival show. A few, dried up tomatoes forgotten in a plastic bag, a rotten carrot and the last of what remains of some sort of lasagna made of pasta and an unidentified piece of cheese. It looks as bad as it tastes. Was it moldy? I don’t know. I am no good cook. Never have been.

I cave in to my stomach, and with the last of my spare money this month, I order takeout. 

What am I supposed to do next? The current gig won’t let me keep this apartment for much longer.

Ah, WTF. I decide to enjoy my last supper, and call one of my remaining friends for the number to the sketchy bar downtown. They are always looking for fresh meat.

***

I mix, blend, shake, taste and serve. Sounds like I’m in the army, but I’m not. Just making the perfect drink for another blurry-around-the-edges-customer. There’s a lot of them, waiting in line for my next mix-up. I don’t know why, but they all want me to serve them, just lining up like good sheep in front of a border collie. 

Maybe it’s my mixing.

Maybe it’s my sass. 

I don’t know why, but all my personal traits that were abhorred in my previous workplaces seem to be enjoyed here. The customers are really weird. Why in the fuckleknot would they enjoy my bad mouth, my constant flipping them off and my rude glances? Sometimes I just ignore them, and that seems to make them even more eager.

There are a lot of beards and a lot of leather here tonight. The gay club downstairs will be open for business as usual in an hour or so, and it seems as if the clientele is here for a warm-up. 

I don’t mind. They are often the nicest customers here, and I get high of the extra fancy vibe they are providing. I am not the only one who is sassy here tonight, and I thoroughly enjoy their company.

I talk and laugh with a group of regulars at one of the tables when someone brushes against me, knocking me just a little off balance, taking a firm hold around my arm and keeping me from falling.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… Please forgive me, just this once.” The voice is smooth like velvet, with a deep baritone and a subtle scent of whiskey in it. 

I freeze, mind spinning, can’t believe what I am thinking, and slowly turn around. It takes all of my willpower to control myself, but I am internally screaming.

The mascara is perfect. 

And the height as well. 

And the familiar gaze washes over me with a hint of surprise.

The rabbit hole opens up once again, and I throw myself in it, knowing but still choosing the only path I have ever wanted, knowing that there will be heartache. There will be pain.

And still.