Being alone was the best. No one to force you into getting dressed up on a Friday night. No terrible family get-together to drag yourself to on Thanksgiving. No one to fight with over the remote control. Really he doesn't understand why people like Mindy are so obsessed with coupling up with one another. Sure it can get lonely from time to time. Maybe he wouldn't mind talking things through with someone once in a while and he did sometimes miss the weight of someone lying next to him in the bed at night.
But relationships were complicated. He'd much rather put up with the familiar empty spaces that filled his apartment than the vacuums that had popped up all over his life when Christina had left. The first week she'd gone he imagined he could see her ghostly form all over. Purposely he'd steer clear of the spaces she'd once inhabited, knowing if he came too near he'd feel himself being sucked up into the void she'd left.
But lately, despite his best efforts, it seems he's been making relationships. His empty spaces have been filling up, usually in the form of hair that is too thick and lustrous, smiles and eyes that are too bright and a voice that teeters on squeaky. But it isn't just Mindy's hand on his shoulder or her frequent high-fives that are creeping in; it's all of them. Morgan's too tight and aggressive bear hugs, Jeremy's slaps on the back and Betsy's delicate pats to his hand. Little by little, chip-by-chip, his personal barriers are being whittled away, like a thick old branch of wood losing its bark to expose the tender heartwood beneath.
Most disconcerting of all is that he finds he doesn't mind the intrusion so much, even looks forward to it and feels a sense of disappointment when the hugs and pats and high-fives don't come. For the first time in a long time, since Christina really if he's being honest, he feels that strange hopeful painful tug of want and need for companionship bubbling inside of him. It's uncomfortable and he knows he shouldn't welcome it, but he nourishes it all the same, spending more time than is strictly necessary milling around Betsy's desk in the hope that Mindy or one of the others will come by. And maybe when she does, in some outfit just a bit too stylish to be wholly professional and with a story or crisis far too personal to share with colleagues, he'll stand a little too close or nudge her shoulder with his own even as his words and face speak disapproval.
The holes in his armor have been growing for months now so it shouldn't surprise him that when Christina shows up it takes a mere matter of sentences and one well placed touch to sneak past his defenses. It is only by sheer force of habit that he manages to avoid her at first, really just an outward display, as her ghost returned to his apartment that very same night smiling eerily at him from across the dinner table and across the bed. The voids are back but despite himself and his well-rehearsed anger he finds he wants to fill them this time, not with air and exaggerated personal boundaries but with blond hair and blue eyes and soft skin.
Somehow, as she hands him Christina's letter, he is sure this is all Mindy's fault. Worst of all, all he can feel is gratitude to her as he takes the paper and reads the words that Christina's been so desperately trying to say to him. It pisses him off a bit to realize he's not angry any longer somehow already knowing that severing himself from his self-righteous bitterness will be nearly as difficult and life changing as divorcing Christina herself was.
He feels this all in a rush, his walls crashing down, the empty spaces dissipating with the breeze leaving an uncomfortable tickle on his damp skin. He looks up at Mindy, his friend.
"Are you alright," she asks.
"Yeah," He responds. "I'm always alright." He wonders to himself if maybe it's true.