The Cause for Happiness

“I miss the way nothing I do is ever good enough for you.” They had not seen each other for a few months. 

“No, no, it’s not the way you think. It made me want to be better, day after day. Not necessarily the way you wanted me to be; and maybe that’s why it didn’t work out between us. But you understand: if I became the person you wanted me to be, that would not have been me.” He had gone back home to his country because he had needed a break from everything. He had needed a break from her, even though he could never have told her that, or himself. He had quit his job and he had gone.

“But I did want to get better for you, I promise. But a better me. So it was also for me. You made me understand that I wasn’t the person I wanted to be and that was really why I was not able to make you happy. I was a cheap version of myself. You deserved all of me.” They had been together on and off for about six months. Counting back, it did not seem such like a long time, but it had felt ages for them, because emotions make everything epic and ancient. Then she broke up with him because he kept making her feel miserable and never wanted to spend time with her. And he agreed, he agreed breaking up was the right thing to do. Because he liked to be a tragic character and a hero, so he wanted to make it sound like it was for her own good. As if he was the one in control of the situation and not simply an idiot. He didn’t know what her good was; he didn’t know what his own good was. So they were not together after that.

“So I thought, why didn’t I put all of me? I thought and I thought. I think it was because I was never sure about you, I was never sure it would work between us. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I told you at the beginning, remember? I wasn’t looking for a relationship and let’s be honest, we should not have gotten together. You had just split up with your boyfriend, and I was still hurt from my previous experience even though a long time had passed. I wasn’t ready for you and I think that was always at the back of my mind: I never really gave you a chance.” When they had met they had started as friends. They had started as friends because she was going through a rough patch with her boyfriend and she needed someone to talk to. Her boyfriend was generally not a nice person. Alcohol was involved. But enough about him. With his experience at being friend-zoned he felt safe and impartial to be that shoulder to cry on, until he realised she was feelings things for him and he was feeling things for her. When they broke up she went straight back to her ex, the abusive one, yes.

“I was not honest with you by not giving you a chance. When you left me, I realised I missed you. I missed your presence. I realised I had hurt you so much because, I think, deep down you had realised I hadn’t given you a chance. You deserved a chance simply as a human being. You cannot be with a human being, share things with her, unless you give her a chance as a human being. I didn’t, because I didn’t want to get attached, because I knew I had you (or I thought I knew), I knew you were attached, so I didn’t need to be attached. But then you left him and you went back to him. And I was so desperate to have you back because I knew I was attached now, I was in love like a teenager or like an old man, which is the same. I was crazy about you, but you were with someone else.” He had declared his love for her now that she had gone back to her ex as he had never done before when they were together. He declared and declared, wrote her letters, professed his love: he used the word ‘love’ a lot. He was sick himself of saying it, but it was the truth, for once. He could think only of her.

“I did try to get you back. I even tried to make you feel guilty. I really loved you. I love you. You said you loved me. I wanted to cry when you said it with your small, beautiful voice. Remember? I had to ask you again, because your voice was so tiny and my head was so made deaf by hope, that I had to ask you again. And you said it again. You loved me, you said. But you did not split up with him, because you wanted to do things properly, which meant your way. We slept together even though you were with him. And it was beautiful. But it wasn’t done properly. It was not done at all.” She could not leave her ex now. There was something going on between them, a sort of contract, she wouldn’t tell him. She kept telling him they were together only because of that unwritten contract, but they weren’t really together. She’d rather be with him. But she couldn’t. And she was too busy to see him now, with two jobs. She didn’t even see her boyfriend. Promise.

“I had to go, do you understand? I needed to go home, away. I could not live this being with you, but not really being with you. Things should be or they shouldn’t. The worst is that I did understand you. I feel like I have always understood you, except when I didn’t. I have never hated you for leaving me. And I don’t hate you now for being with someone else (But why him, why so obviously him?). So I had to go away, you see?” He had begged her for months to get back together, to forget the contract because the contract didn’t make her happy. He accused her of not wanting to be happy because, in the arrogance of the lover, he thought happiness meant being with him. This went on for months, and then he left, because he had to. And he had just come back now and his feelings had come back with him.

“I had to go, you see? But I am back and in the months I have been away, I feel nothing has changed, you are still with him, and I still love you. Do you still love me?” She could only nod, because there were tears in her eyes even though she was not crying. He could see she had taken in every word, but those words were weighing on her, making her small and fragile as a thing he was going to break. And he hated his arrogance again, because he didn’t know her at all if he thought she was fragile and he had the power to break her. He should have stayed away, he could see that now, because she would go on and have a beautiful life without him, because that was the wonderful person she was: she didn’t need another person to be happy.

“I am sorry. I should not have asked you to meet. I see it now. These months away I have been blinder than ever. I should have let you go and have your happiness wherever you think you can find it. I am selfish, I want you, be with you for my own happiness, it was never yours. You see? I have just become a little better again right now: I understand now that it was always everything about me and about my happiness and I don’t even know what makes your happiness, what is your happiness made of? Do I even have a place in your happiness?”

“Yes,” she said, finally interrupting him. “Why are you like this? Why do you keep saying these stupid things?” She had told him those words so many times, but had he ever understood them? Deaf and blind that he was, he held her. He wondered how they’d solve the issue with the contract. Why was happiness so difficult? But he also knew that in their own way they were together again in that moment and that there was no other being together than that moment. In that moment there was nothing else but them.