SOME TRUTHS GET TIRED THE LONGER WE WAIT
some truths can save us,
some take our lives,
some truths are fire,
and some truths are ice.
me and him... since we were kids
She holds out hands, eyes blind, hoping and wishing and hoping and wishing.
He does what he always does.
Her heart lies on the ground, just like every time before, broken into pieces, a spider-web of cracks and fissures that she will pick up and tape together and she will hope that next time, things will be better.
(guess what? it never is)
...
She's lost count of the number of times he's broken her heart.
That sobers her up sometimes, when all she can think about is him. She's given him her heart so many times and what does he do with it?
smash. smash. smash.
(heartbreak's not that bad when it's all your used to)
...
Her mother walks out on them when she's twelve.
She stands at the doorway, crying and crying and crying and her father's there, telling her not to be 'so bloody useless', (he never was good with people) but all she can hear is the thumping of her own heart in her chest, and the slow murmur of her own voice saying 'don't go, don't go' over and over.
But of course, her mother can't hear her.
The car revs, and she watches is rattle down the drive. Before it reaches the end, her father slams the door, muttering something about that 'fucking bitch' and she knows who he's talking about and she thinks to herself that he's right, because who else would leave their twelve year old daughter with a man who doesn't give a damn?
(her mother, that's who)
...
Later, she discovers her mother left her for a man with money who lives in a big house on a hill in the city. She's - what, sixteen? - walking down the street past all the houses she dreams of living in but could never afford as she trawls the street looking for the kind of men you wouldn't want to bump into down a dark alley.
A man comes out of a house, she follows him with her eyes.
'Evening love,' she says, making her way over to him, pulling her coat (which used to be her bitch of a mother's) closer around her. She's just about to speak again, when the door to the big house swings open and a woman walks out.
She stares, open mouthed, for a moment.
Then the woman speaks. 'Darling?' she says.
(darling)
She's gone before she can think, her high heeled shoes wobbling on the tarmac. Bang, bang down on the concrete. Run, darling, run.
She doesn't look back at her mother, just runs and runs until her feet are bleeding and her head feels all funny and then she dives into a bar and drinks and drinks to drive the memories away.
She doesn't make any money that evening. She doesn't care.
...
Her dad kicks her out when she's fourteen.
'You can't,' she says.
'I'm fourteen,' she says.
'You knew what you were doing,' he says.
'You're a whore, just like your mother,' he says.
'I'm your daughter,' she begs.
'You're no daughter of mine,' he says, his voice cold as a December day.
Her dad kicks her out when she's fourteen, and four months pregnant.
...
A daughter, a daughter she hopes to God will have a better life than she has.
A daughter, with her daddy's eyes.
A daughter, she sees for one moment, and then she's gone and that's the way she wants it.
A daughter, she can't keep.
A daughter, (she tells herself) she doesn't want.
...
She waits for him.
(after her dad kicks her out)
For days and days.
She waits for him.
(four months pregnant with his baby)
Sitting, every day, at their spot.
She waits for him.
(and she knows he's not coming)
And day after day, little pieces of her fall away.
She waits for him.
(wishing and wishing until the stars fall down and the sun comes up)
He never comes.
...
She didn't realise until later that she loved him.
She was just a kid, who looked up to him like he was the sun.
Maybe it makes sense though.
She does drive away everyone she loves, after all.
...
She's eighteen, trapped in a life she never wanted, haunted by a baby's eyes, and with scars on her heart that won't heal.
She's probably broken a few hearts already on her way.
(not that she cares. she doesn't care about anything anymore)
And there he is.
A pair of dark eyes, and a smile so familiar it kills her inside and breaks her heart all over again.
For a moment, she thinks he won't recognize her and she'll just walk past and it'll just be one of those things, but then he turns.
'Hello, you,' he says.
And she thinks, maybe, she knows exactly what is going to happen from that moment. She never was very good at resisting him.
..
She lies next to him, hears his heartbeat, feels it under her hand.
And in that moment, she hates him. For making her feel like this, for hurting her, for making her lie to him, for a million and one other things that have happened to her.
(she loves him too, but shush)
She's gone by the time he wakes up - run, run, running away.
(just repaying the favour, after all).
...
Her twentieth birthday passes in a haze of alcohol and anger.
She still doesn't have any money. Or a home. Or anyone who gives a damn.
But who cares, she's got booze. Who fucking cares?
(no one, that's who).
...
She's twenty three, sleeping with a man with money on weekends to pay the bills, drinking away the rest of her time and she's not quite sure what the point of life is anymore.
She goes to a bar. It's a Tuesday.
And suddenly all she can think is maybe she didn't run far enough.
There he is. There's a coldness in his eyes that didn't used to be there (or maybe it did but she never noticed) that she swears might be reflected in her own gaze.
She thinks about turning around, walking straight out of there, ignoring him.
But she doesn't. She goes up to the bar, buys a drink, marches up to his table, sits down, wonders what he'll say.
'You look like crap,' he says.
'You can't talk.'
He scowls at her, but doesn't tell her to go away.
...
Three days this time, instead of the one night.
(does it count as cheating if one man is paying you for your time?)
Late at night, when he's sleeping, she listens to his heartbeat again. She doesn't know why.
She can remember holding her baby for that one single moment, holding her hand over her chest and feeling her heartbeat.
Maybe that's why.
...
They go their separate ways after the three days are up.
She goes back to her man for the weekends.
He goes back to wherever it was he went away to the last two times.
She does her hair, does her makeup, gets ready in the mirror, makes her way to the hotel where her man is waiting.
She wonders why she feels hollow inside. She doesn't love him - what would be the point? Even during their three days she felt like she wanted to kill him a handful of times. He had the ability like no other to drive her so crazy. He knew just how to push her buttons and she knew how to push his in return. They'd never work, long term, of course they wouldn't.
It's just the sex, she tells herself, that drives her back to him, time after time.
No more, no less.
(she always was a consummate liar)
...
Twenty five and she bumps into him on the street again. (there have been other times in the last two years, but they are few and far between, or so she likes to tell herself)
She ends up with her hand on his face, looking at him, for a sign, for the boy she knew. Before she knows it, he's holding her hand and leading her away, and it's happing all over again.
They're in bed together when he gets the call about Butch.
They agree to go together, and she's not sure why. They get in the car, and before they get up at their end destination, they wind up home.
She yells at him, aching inside because she hasn't been here for eleven years and it all seems so strange to her now, but he doesn't care.
She stays in the car, pulling her knees up to her chin and wondering if her father still lives in their tiny cottage on the other side of the village, and if her mother still lives in the big house on the hill in the city.
She wonders if she loves him.
She thinks maybe she does.
By the time he comes back, she's got that cold look in her eyes again. He can't make her happy. He has no money. He's broken her heart too many times. It's never going to be him.
(oh but how she wishes it could be)
...
Years go by, things are still the same.
She knows now, thinks she's always known.
'I can't help how I feel,' she says.
Chas looks sceptical.
'Me and him...' she says. 'Since we were kids.'
And she's right, but she thinks, maybe, she's going to get her heart broken all over again.
...
Inspired by Tuesday's Episode. Title and quote come from South by Sleeping At Last