Blutendes Herz
(Bleeding Heart)

Your eyes are glued to a couple walking a few yards ahead of you. It wasn't your intention to follow them but you were pulled into their sphere against your will. The man's arm rests on the woman's shoulder and she has put hers around his waist. They are walking slowly, strolling at a leisurely pace through the streets, chatting with each other. The woman throws her head back every now and then, obviously laughing at something the man has told her. They are a nice couple, appearing to be in love. To an innocent bystander, they definitely look like a married couple, but you are no innocent bystander, and you know they aren't married because the woman with the red hair dancing on her shoulders with every laugh that erupts from her throat is your wife.

She isn't cheating on you, no. You never really were married, although to you it has only always felt as if you were. Even before you became involved, you saw your perfect other in her and couldn't think of ever being without her again in your life. And when you finally mustered the guts to show her how much you loved her, you knew you were the luckiest son of a bitch when she smiled at you and told you she loved you too. But you screwed it up.

You aren't living together anymore. One could say you're separated, although you still don't accept the feeling of being single. You haven't been able to feel anything at all for quite a while, that's what made her leave. Your indifference and unfeelingness were too much for her to take at a certain point. She tried so long to convince you to let yourself be treated for your illness but your avolition made you embrace the darkness evermore fiercely until she didn't know what else to do. Eventually, she'd given up on you, on your relationship. On a cold, gray Sunday morning she packed her bags and left.

That was almost a year ago.

One wouldn't say that you are alright now, but you're definitely better. You started seeing a therapist who prescribed medication to take off one first thick layer of what had been suffocating your soul. You started working out again. Your lungs were burning during your first 5-mile run but the pain told you you were alive, so you continued. You started eating healthier, cutting order-in pizza out of your diet, throwing away the booze. You started going to bed before midnight, actually sleeping in your bed and not on the couch in the living room. The bed you made love to her in when things were still alright between you. The very same bed you left her alone in when everything was going wrong. Now, you're doing all the things she wanted you to do, begged you to do for your own sake. You can't explain why you didn't listen to her while she was still around, why she had to leave for you to awake from your state of inertia. She was right with everything she proposed because you feel so much better now.

You actually feel so good that you've begun contemplating about rekindling your relationship with her. And the more you thought about it, the more you believed you would get her back if only you tried. When she left, she said, 'I need a break,' not 'I don't want to ever see you again.' If she saw how hard you work for your recovery, how you've been following every single one of her doctor's orders, she'd realize that despite everything, the both of you are meant for 'happily ever after', you thought.

And then this.

Your Scully arm in arm with another man.

You're such an idiot, Mulder! What have you been thinking?

That no other man on this planet would feel attracted to her? That her loveliness would go unnoticed by the remaining part of the male population? That she would never lay her eyes on someone else because she didn't want to be with anyone but you? That she would renounce love forevermore?

"This is the restaurant you wanted to take me to?" you hear her familiar voice, and its melodic sound resounds in your ears.

You miss that voice. You miss it mumbling 'good morning' into your ear on a Sunday morning or shouting 'put milk on the grocery list' at you before she leaves the house for her shift at the hospital, but most of all you miss it crying out your name when you make love to her.

If you're being honest, you have to admit that you didn't make love to her at the end anymore. You fucked her, giving her what you thought she wanted, without feeling even a fraction of the overwhelming lust you used to feel for her. You noticed her stifled sobs when you got up and left the bed to spend the rest of the night on the couch, but you ignored them. In retrospect you ask yourself how you were possibly able to treat the woman who was everything to you so badly, how you could have been so mean to her, so cruel.

"That's the one," the man answers her cheerfully.

"That's insane, Mark," she replies, "that posh place is way too expensive."

You know the man's name now: Mark.

"It's our three-month anniversary, my love. Let me spoil you."

'My love'.

You swallow.

You never called her that. She was Scully to you, Dana in very rare cases. Others were irked by you calling each other by your last names, but for the two of you, it had always been a term of endearment. Nobody has ever called you Mulder like Scully did. Her pronunciation of your name, the way the two syllables rolled off her tongue made your acoustic nerves tingle in a way no 'honeybun', 'darling' or 'sweetheart' would have ever done.

"You're crazy, Mark," you hear her say.

"Yes, crazy for you, my beautiful Dana."

You can't keep your eyes off him sighing those romantic words into her ear. The man, Mark, cranes his neck to place a kiss on her cheek but she pulls back, her demeanor suddenly less at ease. You squint your eyes and strain your ears from your hiding place behind a car.

"Sorry," Mark pulls his hand away and throws it up in the air. "No syrupy flatteries, I know. What has gotten into me to call my girlfriend 'beautiful'?"

"I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to offend you. I'm looking forward to dinner. I haven't been to such a fancy place for a long time."

Your stomach churns when he calls her his girlfriend and even more when you witness how she cups the man's cheeks with both hands and places a gentle kiss on his mouth. You observe how it develops into a passionate kiss. French, for sure. You have to put your hand over your mouth to keep yourself from groaning loudly. You haven't forgotten how soft her lips are, how good her kisses taste, and you envy the man who is enjoying these sensations right now in front of your eyes.

You resist the impact to jump up from behind the car and shout at him to get the hell his hands off of her. You realize you're in no position to claim her as yours. Not anymore. You had your chance, but you messed it up. Your relationship was special, her trust in you infinite, as yours in her. You had a child together. A beautiful son. You will always be connected through him, as his birth parents, although he's someone else's son now.

The man pulls back after the kiss and catches some air. "Wow," he exclaims, "if this is what I get for taking you out to dinner, I'll do it on a daily basis from now on. I'll take you out to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And probably also to a coffee break in the afternoon."

You hear her give a laugh. A full, cheerful laugh. One she usually doesn't give that often. At least not when she was with you.

"Well, breakfast in bed might do the same trick," she says, and the innuendo in her voice makes you nauseous.

They are sleeping together. Of course. They are healthy adults, dating for three months, as you have learned a few moments ago. Only because you didn't get your act together for seven years doesn't mean every other man contents himself with yearning for her and with just fantasizing about making love to her. This guy seems to have been able to turn his fantasies into realities much faster than you did.

You catch yourself contemplating about their level of intimacy. Does he already know about how sensitive the hollows of her knees are? That she likes to be caressed behind her ear but not where her tattoo is? That she prefers to be the big spoon despite being the smaller person by far? 'Are you able to make her come several times a night like I did, Mark?' you want to ask him.

You will never now, he isn't answering your question. Instead, he tucks a loose strand of her hair behind her ear and strokes her cheek. "I'm a lucky man. I'm so glad you came to my agency when you needed that apartment. Who knows if we would have met otherwise."

You feel bile rise up your throat. You literally pushed her into this man's arms, you realize. He's the fucking real estate agent she turned to when she was looking for a place of her own after she had left a house to you she actually owned. She alone had signed the papers back then because you feared it would expose you too much if you did too. If it wasn't so damn sad, you would laugh at the irony of it all.

"It was kismet, my love. As if some extraterrestrial force led you to me."

You hear her suck in her breath at the word 'extraterrestrial', and so do you.

"What? You don't believe in the existence of the extraterrestrial?"

You almost laugh at his question. If he only knew what kind of a hornet's nest he's stirring up with it.

"Well, I was taught to believe once," she answers and the little smile you see on her face lets your heart beat faster.

"Taught? By who?"

There are hornets all over the place now. The anticipation of her answer is almost killing you.

"Uh, Mark, I never told you this. My prior relationship...it was...very special. We were together for more than 20 years, and the reason I was looking for an apartment when we met was that I had left him because I couldn't deal with his severe depression anymore. He's the one who taught me to believe. In many things. He taught me a lot."

"You speak much more highly of your ex than I speak of mine. Caroline and I separated after years of marital problems. I left her when I found out she had been cheating on me for months."

"We weren't married and I didn't really leave him, I...uhm, I only moved out of the house. I...I wouldn't call him an ex."

"Oh?"

The man straightens his back. You almost pity him. How is he to understand? Although you also marvel yourself at the meaning of her words, what they mean for you in particular.

"It's not what you think. Mark. I haven't seen or talked to him in almost a year. Since the day I left, actually. I call him once in a while, to make sure he takes care of himself, but he never answers the phone."

"You worry about him."

"He's sick. Depression is a serious illness, and he has a tendency to embrace the darkness. I'm a medical doctor, have been his for years and years. I couldn't just leave him on his own. I would never forgive myself if my leaving were the reason for him to sink even deeper into his depression."

"You still have feelings for him?"

The question rings in your ears and you're dying for her answer.

"Why, yes, of course, I still have feelings for him. You don't erase a person from your life after 20 years just like that. We have always been best friends, through various stages of our relationship, and we will continue being friends. At least, I consider myself to be his friend, I don't know what he sees in me since I was the one who went away."

'You're my constant, Scully,' you want to shout, 'my touchstone.'

"Do you want to go back to be with him? Some day? Am I just a stopgap until the two of you've straightened things out?"

"No, Mark, not at all! I'm not that kind of person, taking advantage of someone else, and definitely not of someone's feelings for me."

"Yes, I have feelings for you, Dana. As a matter-of-fact, I'm falling in love with you. I noticed that you aren't into this as much as I am - I'm not some insensitive bull terrier - and it left me wondering. Now I know where your caution comes from."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You obviously had a wonderful, long-lasting relationship with this man, it's only natural. It says a lot about how compassionate and caring you are. Do you think we can have something like it? One day?"

"I don't know. You're a wonderful man, and I am attracted to you, but we've been dating for three months only. It's hard for me to predict how far this will go. The last time I loved, it was so intense and all-consuming, it almost seems that everything coming after that can't but fall short. "

"Thank you for your honesty. I guess there are no guarantees when it comes to love. It's not exactly easy for me to listen to you raving of your relationship with another man, I have to tell you, but I have one more question for you: Are you happy, Dana? With me?"

You hold your breath, although you know the answer. The way she converses with this guy, the way she looks at him, the kiss she gave him, her laugh...all of this tells you how she feels about him. You had enough time to study her and you've become an expert in the mystery that is Dana Scully. Too bad that your skills abandoned you in the end because if they hadn't, you might have been able to ward off the tailspin your relationship eventually ended up in. You would be sitting on the couch with her head on your lap right now, watching a movie, instead of holing up behind a car observing her as if you were a sick stalker. Maybe you are. This private, intimate conversation isn't actually yours to listen to, you know, but you have to find out what the odds are for you. You simply have to. So you hold your breath in order not to miss a single word she's saying.

"Yes. I am. I'm very happy. I feel so alive when I'm with you, Mark. Like I haven't in a long time."

"So then let's celebrate our three-month anniversary with wonderful food and champagne. If I ever lose you to him again, I don't want to blame myself for not having enjoyed it as long as it lasted."

You look at them, especially at her, how the corners of her mouth rise slowly into a warm smile, one you remember being at the receiving end of in different situations: when you woke up from unconsiousness in a hospital bed, for example, or when you told her one of your wild theories. When you served her hot chamomile tea when she had the flu.

They spare you another kiss but link arms and finally enter the restaurant. You thank the weather gods for this mild late summer night because if it had been cold or rainy they would have never had this conversation outside and you wouldn't have caught any of it. Through the huge windows, you observe how the maître d' welcomes them and shows them their table.

You stay to study them a bit more. You almost feel like being on a stakeout, observing two target persons. He reaches out for her hands and she willingly puts them in his. You're amazed by the level of public display of affection you witness. She wasn't like this with you, probably because for so many years you both felt the need to hide your relationship just for the sake of denying your opponents a weak point to use against you. The waiter serves expensive champagne in crystal flutes. They clink and take a sip. She puts the glass back on the table, and as soon as her fingers let go of the stem, he takes her hand to kiss its back. She tilts her head and shows him this warm smile again. You notice how comfortable she is, how much at ease. She enjoys this date, enjoys the presence and touch of this man. You're paralyzed by what you see. Like an onlooker at a terrible car accident, you're shocked and your stomach turns but at the same time, you're unable to tear your eyes away.

She's happy, she said. Happy with him. Your chest constricts as you realize what this means for you.

You have to stay away from her, it's as simple as that. Your chuckle is bitter. Simple?

No, definitely not simple. It's going to be damn hard, but you want her to be happy, even if it means she's happy with another man. Your initial plan was to tell her today that you want her back, that you would fight for her, but now is not the right time. She's in another relationship, a carefree relationship with what seems to be a decent, kind man. She deserves this, deserves him.

Your heart is bleeding, but it's not bleeding to death because there is a 'but', a silver lining far away at the horizon.

She also said that she still has feelings for you, that she's still your friend. She hasn't committed herself fully to this relationship, she told him her love for you was too intense to cut you out of her life completely. And even he considers it possible she return to you. You have to give him credit for the way he handled what she'd told him. You remember being more territorial and possessive of her at a time you hadn't even been a couple.

So you will continue seeing your therapist to fight this fucking depression furthermore. You will go on taking care of yourself. You will fix the drain pipe, paint the wooden window frames and change the broken faucet in the kitchen to keep the house, her house, in good repair. You will keep a stock of her favorite tea in the pantry and a spare toothbrush in the little cabinet under the bathroom sink, just in case she pays you a visit and decides to stay for the night.

Good plan, bro, but what if it doesn't work out? What if she's not coming back to you? Then what?

You have to take this dreadful scenario into consideration, as painful as it sounds. There are no guarantees when it comes to love, Mark said, and you know he was right. If he's able to live with that kind of uncertainty about her, so should you. Only that you are so much more dependent on her that he probably is. He's in love with her and will most certainly be devastated should she ever walk out on him, but you...you have no idea how to continue if she's lost to you for good.

Well, one thing's certain. If you do lose her ever, then your heart will bleed to death. For sure.