The Game

“Whenever I pictured us saying goodbye to each other, I always assumed one of us would be killing the other, most likely me killing you. So this whole situation has really thrown me for a loop.” Her fingers gingerly rub at the top of her forehead, while avoiding eye contact. Her voice was mocking, sarcastic, and confident, as it always was when they would talk to each other, but her body language gave away how different this situation was.

           “Killing me is still an option, you’ve always known this.” I try to keep my tone light and airy, full of the banter we would have back and forth and back and forth, but my voice faulters and dies off at the end of my sentence. She knows she could kill me; she knows she could do anything to me, and I would happily let her.

The smile she directs at me does not met her eyes and her eyes do not even meet mine. Never in a million years would I have thought that our goodbye would have been painful to both of us. Always to me, but never her. I never wanted to hurt her.

He voice is strained as that fake smile is still plastered onto her face, “I’m sure you would love that. I swear it was something you have been begging for since the very beginning.”

My eyes go foggy and a real smile sneaks onto my face as she finishes her sentence. I had been begging since the beginning. Begging for absolutely anything from her. I did what I could to get her attention. Even if the attention that I got was her seeing right through my act to get her attention. It was a game of cat and mouse from the beginning. The joke of it is that I thought I was the cat, but in reality, I was the mouse.

She played the game because she knew she had me wrapped around her fingers. Her sharp voice was contrasted with her fluid movements and the way she carried herself with grace. If she what she wanted to do with me was kill me, then so be it. She never got sick of the joke, of stringing me along, acting like she could not care less if I was trailing her or not.

I always wanted to ask her why. Why she kept the game going, even after I had begged and begged for more than just the jokes about her wanting me gone, she could kill me if she wanted. And now that this, whatever it is, is ending, I can’t find it in myself to ask her. I’m not sure if I would like the answer I would get.

Instead of asking, I just stand there, taking her in. I am drinking up this look of her, the sunset behind her as she leans against the open door of her dusty cream car. Her hair falling in her eyes as she finally looks over to meet mine. I get shocked with the electricity coursing through my body like it always does whenever she holds my gaze for longer than a millisecond.

I love her. I have loved her longer than she has been playing this game. But this game has somehow made me love her both less and more. More because I can tell that she loves the back and forth, the game is what she loves. Less because I know she loves the game more than she could ever love me. But we both know I would do whatever I could to hold her attention, to have just a taste of whatever she would give me.

I wish that I could say that there were moments that I hated her. Moments when I was strong enough to get my head out of the clouds and realize that I would be way better off if I acted as indifferent as she did. Maybe then she would have wanted me as badly as I want her. But I still cannot decide if I would redo it all if I had the chance.

I realize we have both been lost in thought, purposely avoiding each other’s eyes, but still taking the other person’s form in. I wonder if she is having the same thoughts as me, the “what if”s and remember when”s. I know I can’t ask her what she’s thinking, so I do the next best thing. “Will you miss me?” It comes out as barely a whisper, but her eyes lock on mine.

I can see the gears turning in her head and surprisingly, a blush working its way up her neck and to her cheeks. “Of course I’ll miss you. What kind of a question is that?” Her voice is filled with so much softness, so much love, something I have never heard from her before, not in the entirety of the time that I have known her. It makes my heart freeze and melt all at once.

“I…” I am trying to keep my voice steady as I find the right words to express how much that short sentence means to me. Of course I’ll miss you. Of course of course of course of course. Does she not realize how not obvious it was that she would miss me. “I think you leaving will be what kills me. So I guess you were right in the end.”

Her eyes glass over, but only for a second. She reaches out and touches my hand with barely a whisper of her fingers. “I guess in the end we killed each other.” Her voice still holds the softness from before, but I can tell she is trying to put an edge back in it. She smiles at me before spinning around to finally get in her car. I feel my heart sink to my stomach and my stomach sink to my feet.

As she drives away I see her blow me a kiss in her side mirror. I shake my head. She knows I would chase after her the second she asked me to. She knows that all it would take is once glance from her, and I would be trailing right behind her like a puppy. Of course I would. And that kiss, oh that kiss, that is her sign. This is goodbye, but not for good. Never for good. She could never quit this game just like I could never quit her.