Forgive Me

Your words written in the fog on the glass of my shower haunt me.

Dream of me, it reads, in all caps. You’re careful not to get that part of the glass wet, or to squeegee it when you finish. The hot water hurts, but not enough to make you forget.

You realize now it’s at eye level and you picture her short stature reaching up to write it with her fingers. You wonder if she did this intentionally, and your tears are rinsed away as quickly as they come.

You think about this person, as a kid. Like a baby, almost, in a way. The most vulnerable side of themselves they showed you. The one cuddling on the couch, opening up to you. At their angriest, over something so trivial, and how you considered leaving then.

You think of the phrases they used, which pass through your head at the most inopportune times, carrying a weight which collapse the guilt of a thousand ruined dreams upon your chest.

You think of the worst argument you two had, try to, and realize it’s meaningless. Because that’s not why you’re leaving. It’s like you’ve known something was off, and you try to suppress it, push it down, hope it’ll go away. It’s the thing you want most in the world, to be spending time with them, unworried, content. And you do, sometimes. But then other times they bring up marriage, or moving in, or the topic of children, and you have to lie that you don’t have this feeling. That the future they see is the future you see. You wish one day to share this dream of theirs.

You hear someone hiccup in the grocery store and remember how she’d hiccup for hours if you made her laugh too hard. Like a child who couldn’t control themselves.

Snoopy stares at you on your cup of coffee. The mug you bought her that you kept at your place for when she’d come over and want tea. Now it’s your favorite mug because you figured out the perfect amount of half n half to pour in, so you use it every morning. Snoopy’s face has begun to fade, leaving only the outlines of his head. The dog’s body remains, dressed in a spacesuit, with the line, “I need my space” above him. His smile lingers, and his arms are open as if for a hug, but it’s not the same Snoopy it once was. You consider packing the mug in the bag with the rest of her belongings, but remember she hasn’t spoken to you in three weeks, since you told her.

You couldn’t blame her for how she reacted either. You are not a good person. You don’t deserve anything. Before you might’ve been on the cusp of deserving some good, some joy, it was still feasible, but somewhere along the way you realized what had to be done.

The memory of walking with her at her apartment complex at 9PM under a cool fall sky, some five months ago hits you again. Your relationship had been on the rocks then. She asked if you wanted to break up, and you told her no, perhaps a bit too hesitant. Then you asked the question you needed an answer to.

“If we break up, do you think you’ll act this way with someone else?”

“No”, she replied quickly. You don’t need to ask her why.

“That’s the part I can’t live with”, you tell her. “I feel like around me you let out your inner child, and I know you didn’t have a great childhood. I want to be someone you’re comfortable around, and can be whoever you want to be. But if we break up, and you never show this side of yourself to anyone ever again, I’ll feel like”-You start crying uncontrollably, unable to finish your sentence, and she comforts you. Something you don’t deserve, not then and certainly not now. You never cried like this in front of anybody. No one ever knew you as she did.

“I’ll feel like I killed your inner child.” You don’t say, ‘for good’, but you know it will be. How many times can someone get back up after being beaten down? After being locked outside in the rain as punishment for taking a nap? After getting hit in the head with a textbook for getting a problem wrong? And you know these are the ones she’s comfortable sharing, so you imagine much, much worse occurring to the woman you love, when she’s just a child. The picture of her when she was five, chubby cheeks, bowl-cut, held up by her mom, a little bundle of unbridled joy.

You’re not just failing them, you’re failing yourself. The person you want to be, tried to be, but couldn’t.

You bring the snoopy mug to your mouth, a sip of coffee to brighten your mood. As you do, a memory of your brother arrives.

“I want to get a tattoo of snoopy to honor our mom.”

“Did she like Snoopy?” You ask, incredulous at your ignorance about her whenever someone brings her up, like someone telling a story about a stranger you never met, but hold in awe.

Every morning you drink coffee and the dog reminds you of your mother, and then her, and the guilt, and regret, which you have no place to put or empty out. The one sole residual source of jubilation now gone.

If anyone on this Earth deserves happiness and joy, it’s her. She deserves to smile with an alpaca as you take a picture. To grin in a photo booth at the mall as you capture the memory of your first date, like you’re teenagers in some eighty’s movie. And for some reason along the way, you fooled yourself into believing you could be happy. Even worse, that you could make her happy.

You don’t feel like your body or your mind are yours. If they were why do you feel so fucking awful? Remorse that isn’t remorse, because you had the power to prevent this. To save her this heartache.

You try to think of what to say to her and type it out on your phone.

I love you.

I’m sorry.

Please forgive me.

The last few messages sit stuck in time above and you use all the willpower left to not scroll up and read.

You fear her messaging or calling you, because the past few weeks you’ve been able to act as if this didn’t happen. Sure, you don’t see each other, but you haven’t had to see her sorrow. See the damage you caused, and once you two talk it’s all going to come pouring out, and you’re not sure if it’ll ever stop.

Then you think of yourself as a child, picturing the older version of you with her, someone like her. How that’s everything you ever wanted, but now it’s not enough. You failed her, yourself, your past self, your future self.

You wonder if people wipe the love out of their hearts when a relationship ends. You can’t recall any adults in your life talking about a past love. Did they bury it? Did they make it with the first person they truly loved? Did they forget what they once had?

There was your grandma, mentioning a man who asked her out when she was twenty, perhaps changing the entire trajectory of your bloodline if she chose differently.

You backspace the words, unable to hit send. You want her to heal, and not be reminded you exist under the same sky as her.

And as you do, a message comes in from her.

I’m coming over.

Your heart drops. The pain takes on a transient nature. Not talking to her has helped you not confront the hurt. Now, you must face her, the one who for two years you devoted to making happy, and now you’ve brought her this.

You long for the days she’d text you that after work, and the two of you would grab food, watch a movie, and cuddle. Simpler times. ‘Why’ rings through your skull with a nauseating repetitiveness.

Okay. You send back.

You pace around your room, looking in the mirror over and over again, not sure if you want to look your best, or a bit disheveled, signs of wear and tear from the trauma, and before you know it, she texts, I’m here.

You consider buzzing her up, not meeting her at the car like you have every time before, the dreaded walk up the stairs of your apartment. She used to block you, walk slowly while you carried groceries, or the two of you would race to the door, whoever started first inevitably winning.

You slide some shoes on and step out, wringing your hand through your hair. Down the stairs, you see her right outside the door, waiting to be let in.

You think of the two times she broke up with you, and wonder why this time her demeanor seems different. As if this is the epilogue, and the story between you two has already ended.

You open the door and say Hi, hoping she goes in to hug you. She says hello without making eye contact, her gaze drawn to the ground. You enter your apartment, and she walks to your room, seeing the bag of her belongings on the floor. She grabs both, and begins to turn around.

“That’s not all.” You tell her, going to your closet to grab a dress of hers, and the pair of dress pants she left here a year and a half ago.

You want to tell her, turns out I did have them. She asked you at least five times where they were, and you told her you searched, but she still swore on her mother’s grave you had them. What purpose would the joke serve, you wonder for the first time in your life.

She grabs everything in her hands, and you ask if she would like some help taking them to her car. She waits to respond, and then tells you no. A sharp remembrance strikes you out of nowhere that you chose the wrong words to say in this instant. She steps out of your room, and you follow her to the door. She says bye, without turning around, and she waits for you to get the door since she can’t. You get the door for her one last time, and walk her down, at her regret. You wonder why every other time you walked her out you did it begrudgingly, and you long to go back to those times of menial tasks she asked you to do every day.

You remember her storming out of your apartment one time, and you followed her, begging her to come back up, but she got in her car and left.

You remember her storming out a separate time, and you didn’t follow her, no fight left. Just confusion and bewilderment, unsure what you said or did this time, unwilling to swallow your pride and apologize for some unknown slight.

She walks out the same way now, anger replaced with cold indifference.

You struggle to keep up with her pace. She throws everything into the backseat of her SUV and gets into the driver’s seat without looking at you. You stand outside as she closes the door, and hope with every ounce of your being left that she will lower the window. That you won’t end on this note. That this won’t be the last time you’ll see her.

She lowers it, and the stupid thought of going in for a kiss goodbye floats through your head. She looks at you now, for the first time, and you see why she’s acting this way, because if she doesn’t you’ll both fall to pieces. You want to hold her and kiss her forehead and massage her back and tell her it’ll all be okay and let everything out. Ask her to come back up, and maybe everything would work out.

“Can we talk?” You ask stupidly.

She looks down, and puts the car in reverse. You back up from the window, and her eyes meet yours, encased in a film of water as her vehicle begins to move. You watch as the car continues, until it turns the corner at the end of your complex.

You go upstairs and sort your photos by the ones of you two together. You wish you were the type to forget. Delete all the photos. File away the memories to some deep lost crevice in your skull. Throw away the gifts she got you. But that feels like denial to you, suppressing the emotions just for them to come back stronger on the next one.

You step into your bathroom and stare at the words on the shower door.

Dream of me

And I promise that I will, even though I couldn’t dream with you in this life.