I wait for another twenty at home and you still don’t show. I text you an impatient, “where the hell are you?”
“At home… I can’t get there…”
I’m really annoyed. I understand that you live quite far away and can’t walk nor get the bus but can’t you get a damn taxi. I gasp, internally. Why am I suddenly the one caring so much? Maybe you haven’t dumped her. Maybe you’re fucking with my head. Oh shit, how can I leave now? How can I continue on with my life while you’re still playing these god damn games with me Thomas? I throw my hands over my head. Everything is so fucked up!
I am furious. What the hell are you playing at?!
I could leave for your apartment… I could get a taxi… but that would mean that I am committed to this hearing. It would mean that I am actively going out of my way to hear what you have to say and I’ve told myself so many times before that I actually don’t give a shit. Why would I turn around now and go back on my word?
“So after all of that…” I message you. “You’re a fucking dick. You’re never going to change. Have a nice fucking life arsehole.”
You message back right away.
“Grace is gone Thomas, I’m on the floor, I can’t get up. My life is over. You leave in the morning. What have I done. I’m sorry… for everything… this is all my fault.”
I roar loudly. I can’t believe this.
“Get in a taxi.”
“I can’t.”
I don’t reply to that. I throw my phone down on the couch. I walk toward my bedroom and almost make it to lying down before I get right back up and grab my phone.
“Fine.” I say. “I’ll come to you.”
There’s a few moments of silence and I feel a deep sense of regret over what I’ve just said. Then you reply.
“I don’t know what to say.”
I don’t reply to that. I grab my coat. Walk downstairs and get in the first cab I can find.
I have it in my head that you’re not going to change my plans. You have no ability to fuck my life up anymore. I then ask myself why it is I am running towards you again. You say the one word and here I am. Tired, grumpy and boarding a plane tomorrow and I’m still paying for a taxi to your house, just because you’ve messaged me to tell me that you want to see me. Our bond is so toxic. You probably have absolutely no idea that you’re doing this to me, all the time. It probably just feels so good to have someone right underneath your fingernails.
These thoughts remind me that if this was true love then I wouldn’t be feeling this way about both you, and about myself.
Yet still, here I am, in a taxi in the middle of a storm at four o’clock in the morning racing towards your open arms.
29
I can’t believe that I have never actually been to your house before. After all this time of fucking around and it’s only right before I’m about to leave the country that I see the place you live. Under the circumstances I couldn’t really care if you lived out at the docks, I would still be on my way to see you, regardless.
I race out of the taxi. Hurry up to your front door.
I don’t even leave myself a breather to get over the butterflies that have become electric and started to zap away at the remainder of my hurting soul.
I knock on the door. You answer right away. We’re kissing, immediately. But it doesn’t feel like it used to feel. It doesn’t fill me with warmth and excitement, now it fills me with insecurity, lust and desperation. I push you away and look at you with saddened eyes. I don’t know what I came her expecting.
“I love you Gerry, please, please don’t go, I need you.”
“No Thomas, no not this time.”
You look at me like I have literally shot you in the heart. I can see your soul shatter into a million pieces in a way very similar to what you’ve done to mine.
“But, but why, look at this, look what I’ve done, for you, I love you Gerry, please, I’m begging you!”
You get down on your knees and grab me by the hand. I’m still standing in the doorway. The door is wide open. It’s clearly obvious to me my two options right now.
“You didn’t tell Grace that you didn’t want to be with her because of me, you haven’t realised that you like men because of me Thomas. You did it for you. You’ve done all of this for you. Which is the way that it’s supposed to happen. Never in your lifetime, ever, tell someone that you did this for anyone else, such as me.”
“Do you not love me anymore? I thought you loved me?”
“Do you really believe that this is about me not loving you?”
“Well that’s all I have Gerry! I can’t give you anything else!”
You get up off of your knees and look me in the eye. I’m shaking with all of the solid power running through my veins. I’m fearful, yet I am also full of courage.
“I cannot believe that after all of this time you still believe that as long as we love each other things will never be complicated? How can you truly stand here and tell me that because we care about each other we are destined to be together.”
“Gerry, I know it’s going to be hard, believe me I am feeling this in the hardest way, I can’t live without you.”
“You can Thomas. And you will.”
“Don’t say that. Why can’t you just stay with me? Why do you have to give up?”
“Giving up? Is that what you think I’m doing? You have put me through an emotional hell Thomas. An emotional fucking hell. It’s not giving up. It is too fucking hard to stay here. I can’t even begin to explain to you how much it is going to kill me to say goodbye to you… How hard it’s going to be to start to teach myself that I, more than likely, will never see you ever again. I will never get an honest closure on what happened between us. I am in love with you. And in all honesty, I truly believe that a part of me is always going to love you. When I think about how much I love you it makes me start to cry when I think about how I have, me, myself, independently, made the decision to run away from the one man in my lifetime who has made me feel the way you do. So if you think I am ‘giving up’ on us because it’s hard then you are wrong. I’m giving up on us because it’s impossible. I can’t take anymore of this. I love you Thomas. So much. But it can’t happen anymore. It’s a beautiful mistake, it’s a fucked up disaster and it’s not healthy. This, twisted toxic thing between us, it needs to end!”
You cry. You cry really really hard. I want to console you. I want to wrap my arms around you and cry with you. I want to apologise. I want to kiss you. I want to do so many things right now but I’m done listening to the things I want. I have now let my head become the captain of this ship. I turn my back on you and I feel like I am dead. I honestly feel like I have reached that level of emotional trauma that I am beyond the point of recovery.
I should sign myself up for the mental ward right away.
You grab me by the hand as I turn away. Your face is a beautiful mess. You get down on one knee and then you hit me with the last thing I am expecting.
“Marry me, please, I love you, I’ll do anything to prove to you how much I mean that.”
I wince inside. You couldn’t possibly make this any harder for me. I shake my head.
“No Thomas… I can’t.”
I pull you to your feet again by your hand.
“Thomas, you’re not ready for all of this. You can’t see it now because you’re just on page one. You have a whole life ahead of you. Trust me. I am just the beginning. I love you, but you need to let me go. We can’t do this. We are two separate people living two separate lives.” I am bawling my eyes out by this point too… “I can’t expect nor can I force you to be someone you’re not. We are not on the same page and that’s perfectly okay Thomas. I know that you don’t have the same beliefs that I do in this world, but I honestly think that some things are meant to be, you and I were meant to meet and to rock each others world’s. For whatever reason that’s unclear as of yet… It’s going to kill me getting over you, I can already see that. I don�
��t want to get over you, why would I choose the hard road? But if we are meant to meet again, if we are supposed to be together, then we will be. But not like this. Not rushed, and forced, and definitely not desperate…”
You wipe your face.
“I never cry.” You say almost laughing. You just look at me. I’ve miraculously stopped crying again. Maybe I remembered the reason that I am putting us both through this. I somehow sense somewhere in your aura that you are picking up on how right I am. You hold me tight, for the last time and then you let go.
“I can’t believe this is happening Gerry. I can’t believe how fast everything has changed.”
“Things like this come to the head that they need to, and then they explode. Massive change can’t happen piece by piece, it can only happen in huge waves. I have no idea if I’m the exception. I have no idea if you will ever have feelings for another man again. But whatever it is. Whoever you are, deep down. I hope that you make friends with them. I hope you come eye to eye with who you are and everything suddenly makes sense, whether I’m a bump on the road, or I am the catalyst of a new life.”
“I love you,” you say, “and in spite of everything else, I only want what’s best for you… and if you think that this is it. Well I’m not going to stop you.”
“Thank you,” I say. I want to tell you that we should stay in touch. But that’s the worst possible thing for breaking a toxic connection.
“I hope London makes you happy.”
“Thanks. It will, in time.”
I lean in and kiss you on your cheek. And then dial up the number for a taxi. I mumble to the operator and within seconds the same taxi from before is in front of your house waiting for me.
“I love you.” You whisper to me, and close the door.
“I love you too Thomas. I always will.”
In loving memory of a beautiful mistake.
02.06.2015
To Make Love With Your Eyes Closed Page 17