Her image burns into me from across the room. She hasn't seen me, at least not yet. Her face is too placid for her to have noticed my presence in the restaurant. For all my longing for her, I couldn't purposefully mar that serene and beautiful face.
It seems forever since our last meeting. What would I do to be with her again? But what would I do to keep her away, to keep her happy? Because surely being with her would destroy what ground she has regained since I left.
I have tried my best to block her from my mind, but even three months later, the pain is just as close and sharp. And seeing her now, not a glimpse of remorse or regret on her freckled face, makes me want to scream. Does nothing we had mean anything to her? Did I mean nothing to her? She never called or said again that she loved me. Never reached out to keep me near. But isn't that what I wanted after all?
Does she know the effect she's had on me? I haven't touched the alcohol she hated so much, the drug that comforted me before she came into my life. I don't cry anymore when the Mark burns and my self-esteem collapses. The hours spent contemplating death and the futility of existence are somehow easier to bear as long as I can recall the warmth of her arms around me and the steady beating of her heart in my ear like it was when she used to hold me.
I want to stand up, cross the room, and yank the newspaper she's reading over her coffee from her hands. I want to force myself back into her life, and this time for good. No, I don't want to make her cry again.
How could she have loved me like she once said she did? Me, the cruel little bastard that worked so hard to humiliate and ruin her. A little boy, unrehearsed in the ways of life and love, until I saw her tears, tears that I leeched out of her myself. But by then it didn't matter how long I had been a man. Her face I had cradled in my hands, begging her to stop crying. Begging her smile to return, brighter than it had ever been. But her words silenced me, and I realized I couldn't give her what she deserved. She was worth so much more than I could ever be. Every mistake I had ever made in life had driven me further away from deserving her companionship.
"How could you do this to me?" she had whispered. And those soft tones bit harder than they could have if she had screamed them in my ear. I couldn't keep her happy the way I wanted to, couldn't keep her happy as long as I remained beside her. I wanted her to hate me because she should, because she once had, and because I had once hated her, too.
She didn't cry when I packed my trunk and loaded it into a taxi. She didn't ask where I would go or how I would survive without her. That's how I wanted it, after all. I couldn't have answered the questions if she had asked anyway.
She puts down her newspaper and looks up absentmindedly. When our eyes meet, her expression changes. For an eternity it seems, our gazes are locked, and I see the heartache there that she had kept carefully hidden away only moments before. I break the connection hesitantly and, in a flurry, gather my things, leave a few notes on the table beside my own coffee cup, and almost sprint from the restaurant.
Glancing at her one last time through the front window, I watch her labour to regain her faculties. I want her to hate me because I couldn't take care of her. I want her to hate me because I'm no good for her. But at the same time, I want some indication that she had indeed loved me. Maybe because I loved her, or maybe because no one had ever loved me before.