The Game of Silence
And I've lost who I am and I can't understand
Why my heart is so broken, rejecting your love
Without, love gone wrong, lifeless words carry on
But I know, all I know is the end's beginning…
When they talked, sometimes it just fell so wrong. Everything collapsed. So since recently, there was a new rule. They were supposed to play a very long game. It was a game she played occasionally anyway, anytime their conversations curled into so much strain that they snapped.
"What, you're not talking to me?" He'd asked in aggravation. "How am I supposed to know what you want if you don't talk?"
Then she'd walk away.
However the game was unfair when one of the players was unaware of the rules. One day, she finally laid it out.
"What do you mean shush?"
The gently placed fingers on his lips would completely knock the arguments from his throat. Like the wind from his lungs the day he realized that her smile was enough to make him stutter.
That was the start of the game. It was a simple enough procedure, he supposed. On those days, only the breeze would speak for them. In the park, as they walked with their fingers clasped tightly around each other's. The footsteps echoing on the pavement. While they would eat in the restaurant, the sounds of the other patrons' conversations filling their table. At home, on his couch while they were watching an old sci-fi movie with awful special effects and hokey acting. Her hand would reach out, some days, and lightly brush the bangs from his eyes. The tentative warmth on his skin would always make him feel like something was breaking.
Sometimes what broke was the silence. To lose in this game was to break the silence. Once they engaged in conversation again, all the things that had been put in suspended animation would shatter into a thousand pieces.
"But why aren't we-?" He'd try, before realizing he'd caved again. All he would receive is her quiet gaze.
More often than not, he lost. Maybe his personality tended towards the brash, the obnoxious and the rambunctious. Too overconfident, overeager. Perhaps just as equally too passionate. It was what made him the perfect bratty hero. Like those comic book characters that he enjoyed reading about. There was one thing he was sure about, that personality type was not cut out to coincide with the romantic hero. It probably didn't help that he enjoyed attention. Just something that was inherent in him. Perhaps it was his parents' extremely lax guardianship, bordering on dismissive, that made him that way. Perhaps he inhaled too much fictional heroes from the media that he enjoyed that imprinted on him the same desire to be noticed, acknowledged just the way they did. That gave him the habit of looking for attention in all the wrong ways, in all the wrong places. This all boiled over to a conclusion of being a very bad player at the game that they'd instigated.
He'd complain. And complain too well. His best friend called it his usual whiny voice. He'd demand more from her that even he was unable to give. His cousin always spoke about compromise, the act of giving that came with taking. There was a distinct possibility, as much as he would deny so, that he was too immature for the very concept of it. Or perhaps, deep inside, they knew that there was always an imbalance in their relationship to begin with.
The game that she had formulated was her reconciliation of that fact. As she was finally growing into the idea of it, settling into it comfortably as if it was the most perfect cocoon that held her feelings for him, he was breaking. Maybe he was ridiculously immature in ways that even he couldn't excuse, that even he couldn't cover up in the many declarations of his position as the savior of the whole entire universe, but there was a breaking point.
Deep where he refused to acknowledge, maybe the stupid teenage puppy feelings were growing into something far more difficult to handle. As old as his soul was from fighting too many battles to preserve the safety and well-being of the universe, a part of him was still overwhelmingly young. That part of him couldn't help but circumvent the rules of the game and always inevitably cause him to lose. Perhaps he shouldn't have played at all.
When he watched her, that acceptance, that smile. He knew.
Autumn leaves falling all around her form - the only thing colored like the season of spring - her eyes were closed and a small, meek smile graced her features. She was engaged completely in their usual game. That was when he finally absorbed the truth that she was getting used to the conditions of their circumstance. Like a prisoner calling jail home. They played the game because she was finally happy, content in the generosity she always shared.
She was always only going to be second. Never a priority beyond what he could eventually lend, every now and again. As the watch on his arm blared in alarm and his fingers unlocked from hers, she didn't hold on.
The only farewell was an unreadable smile. In silent agony. And it was okay.
…I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honor more…
There were days that he had to admit that he was just an insensitive jerk, just obstinate and clueless. Other days, he sincerely wanted to be everyone's hero. Even hers. Through the hurricane of imperfection that was their relationship, there were days even he was sick of his own inconsideration. There were times when he couldn't deal with the situation, even more so than she did, because she did matter enough that he wouldn't actually enjoy seeing her sit by quietly in her own misery.
Exhaustion from him could set in too. After all, he did realize the unfairness of it all. If nothing else, he genuinely believed in justice and repercussions to ill acts.
Then he reset the universe. Other mistakes were just genuine mistakes. This one, on the other hand, was the most intentional mistake he coaxed to commit. This was the one and only day he couldn't consider himself a hero, even in the well-meaning attempts to save the universe. Today, she was first priority.
At the edge of knowledge, he still played the game. Even when she passed him by, looking at him in outright confusion about what he's on about - wondering who he even was, he liked to believe they were still playing the game.
With a smile, just a crack and a twitch too miserable, he would think: he was winning.
There's a light, there's a sun taking all shattered ones
To the place we belong and his love will conquer all…
A/N: Lyrics at the start and end are from Shattered by Trading Yesterday. Inspired by "So Long and Thanks For All The Smoothies."