AN: The song is "The Last Word," by Mary Chapin Carpenter.
you can have
it, I don't want it
and when you've got it, I'll be gone
it won't matter what you're saying
when the damage has all been done
It was like she thought she was the only one who had ever been left before. When this side of her first took over, I was ready to admit that sometimes it was frustrating and I felt almost ready to pack it in because she just wouldn't stop fighting me. I came to live for the moments when she tired of the struggle and let down her guard. But those moments became more and more brief and I became more and more disillusioned. I began to wonder if I should just give her what she seemed to want so badly.
can't seem to
keep the faith
as if that's all I need to do
I'd rather walk away
than take what belongs to you
I just couldn't shake the idea that it wasn't really what she wanted that she was pushing for, just what she thought she should want. I guess it was presumptuous to think I knew her so well that I could tell when she was putting up a front and when she was being herself. I could never tell the difference. Maybe there wasn't ever a difference at all. How the hell could I even be sure that the person I thought I knew so well existed at all?
you can have
it, I don't want it
and when you've got it, I'll be gone
it won't matter what you're saying
when the damage has all been done
Maybe I made her up in my mind. Maybe I let my imagination fill in details that the real version of her somehow left out. It became difficult to remember how I ever got started down this road. When she first brought up the idea of ending it and pretending like it never happened, I was surprised, though thinking back on it now, I don't know why I should have been. What else could she do? I guess I should try to remember that in the beginning I didn't know about her obsession with being unhappy. Maybe I did know. Maybe I just thought I could be the one to help her see things differently. Instead I see now that it's her who has changed me.
some words
will cut you down
like you were only in the way
why should I stand ths ground?
it won't hurt as much to say
I held on at first. That first night I tried to pretend like she hadn't said anything, and it seemed to work, almost like she wanted to pretend too. Maybe she regretted it. If she did, she must have simply abandoned guilt and regret at some point. Pretending was good enough for the two and a half weeks that followed, while she recuperated. When I thought of it after the end I thought that somehow she must have fed off of me to restore her own energy. I guess that when the wound was fresh, it was easier to think of her that way, as a destructive, life-depleting force. If I tried to think of her as the person I had thought I knew and even loved, so many questions were raised in my head that I couldn't sleep at night until I found a way to quiet myself down.
you can have
it, I don't want it
and when you've got it, I'll be gone
it won't matter what you're saying
when the damage has all been done
What happened? Did she ever care? Why did she stop? If she didn't, how could I not know? How could I not see that she was just pretending? Was she humoring me to avoid a fight? I refused to believe that she never cared. The idea became easier to swallow later but I still tried to avoid it. After the color returned to her face and she was sleeping four or five hours a night, everyone was relieved and assumed that things could return to normal, including me. And they were all right, except for me.
sometimes
we're blinded by
the very thing we need to see
I finally realized
that you need it more than you need me
She stopped having the dreams; she became well enough to play again. The first night she came back to the club, I sat in the passenger seat of her car outside long after the others had gone away.
"Look," she said, "I was serious that night. I'm sorry."
It took me a minute to register what she was saying. "Don't you think we could work through all that?" It was lame, but I couldn't think of another response. I mean, what was I supposed to say? Okay, never mind, we'll just take it all back! She drove her upper teeth into her bottom lip and shook her head with her eyes closed. It almost seemed as if she was pleading with the gods to grant me maturity.
I guess her plea went unanswered, because she opened her eyes and said: "It just won't work. Think about it, Carey. I mean really think about it. Where does it end if not here? Do we get married? Do I make your mother my maid of honor? Do we drive off into the sunset and leave everyone we know behind? I'm sorry, I just can't handle that. And if it doesn't end happily, then who's to say we won't just be having this same conversation a week from now, two weeks, five months, six years? We can never stay together," she emphasized. I stayed silent.
you can have
it, I don't want it
and when you've got it, I'll be gone
it won't matter what you're saying
when the damage has all been done
She kept going and I started to get the feeling that she just kept talking because I couldn't. "And eventually you won't want to. Eventually you'll look at me and say to yourself, what the hell was I thinking? Or you'll say, well, I got that out of my system, and by then you'll have succeeded in dragging me into this so far that I'll be left here, devastated and alone. Again. I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I can't."
I still didn't have the slightest idea what to say. Should I defend myself? She was right. I couldn't visualize the end of this.
"It's better this way. I promise. Hey, we had some fun, right?" She smiled at me, her face betraying regret she was fighting hard to keep out of her voice, but I didn't register a reaction at all. This couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening. This was my own nightmare. This wasn't real. Unfortunately, I just couldn't make myself believe that. So I said, "Okay."
She looked so disappointed that I realized she was actually expecting me to fight. And I wanted to. I wanted to tell her that I didn't care about what my family would say, that I didn't care about what her family would say, that I didn't care about where we'd live or what we called ourselves. I wanted to tell her that none of it mattered, because I loved her. But I just said, "Okay." And I got out of the car.
She had won the war.
the damage has all been done
