Absence of the Heart- J.J.'s POV
After so much time spent wishing and hoping against all odds, I finally have exactly what I've always wanted. And it's empty, because he is, in every sense of the word.
When Dee first came to me, three days after we switched partners, I was happy. Ecstatic, even. Sure, he was a little scarred, maybe a little more broken. He cried a few times when he thought I wasn't around, or wouldn't notice. But, hey, you don't refuse a gift this big just because the ribbon's a little scuffed.
Our relationship progressed extremely fast, not that I minded at the time. Before I knew it, we were sleeping together, and I was practically living at his apartment. The situation didn't compare to my fantasies, of course: Dee wasn't as passionate as I'd imagined, or as talkative, or as outgoing, but it was still more than I had ever imagined I'd get from him. So, I told myself to be satisfied, and take what I had been given, and thank whoever I believed had put it into my hands.
This worked until things began to degenerate to a point beyond that accountable for by the wearing off of the relationship's novelty. The sex was the first thing to change: it became rougher, more animalistic, more detached on his part. Then, he stopped joking around: he always looked deathly serious, and spent his time drinking and chain-smoking in the living room while I emptied out the ashtray periodically, silently. I didn't call him on any of it, even when his kisses became dutiful, desire-less brushings of our lips. To voice my feelings on any of these subjects would have forced me to realize that, after a month or two, we were acting as though we'd been married twenty years, and I wasn't ready for that at all.
That hasn't changed: even now, I'm only facing it because I have no other choice.
At the time, however, I told myself that things would get better on their own, that this was a normal part of his recovery process that would resolve itself with a little time, gentle caring, and space. Of course, nothing gets better on its own, only worse, and that's what happened to Dee. He became actively abusive: though he never hit me, he'd shout and curse over the most unimportant things, like which brand of cigarettes I'd bought him, the disorder of our work files, or the noise if I accidentally dropped a book or a remote control. Still, I treated this as 'normal': I smiled, and apologized, and tried to continue transforming my life into 'our' life. Now, four months of verbal and psychological abuse later, I think I know the reason he acts as though he hates me.
He chose me looking for Ryo's replacement, and he hates me for being unable to live up to that ideal, which even Ryo himself couldn't meet.
When he asked me out that day, barely half a week after the incident with Ryo, I should have said 'no'. I should have reminded both of us that rebounds of this calibre aren't the best foundations for lasting, productive relationships. But I didn't. I let my feelings of satisfaction, of finally getting what I deserved, overcome my logic. I completely forgot that anything too good to be true almost certainly is.
I will continue paying for that until one of us dies.
Because, you see, it's far too late to even consider ending our relationship. Even if he could handle another rejection, even if destroying him like that wouldn't make me feel guilty, we've grown dependent on each other, though not to the same extent and not in the same way. No matter how dark our relationship, I don't want to go back to a life of nightclub sex, of T.V. dinners for one, of worrying whether I'll die alone or whether I'm good enough to merit anything more. If I have to be lonely, I'd rather do it with him: at least then I have a chance of convincing myself that I have something worth living for. At least then, I'll feel somewhat necessary.
However much I hate Ryo, I do have to admire him for choosing loneliness over the binding relationship that he too could surely have found. I guess it must be easier when you have a kid to keep you company, and stop you from thinking too much.
Dee will never love me. I know that now, even if I didn't then. He will never kiss me with anything but vague disgust; he will never let us have sex face to face, lest it shatter his fantasy of the warm body underneath his being Ryo's. And yet, he remains as trapped in this relationship as I am, because he's also scared of that loneliness, that silence, where words come too easily and are impossible to ignore.
And tomorrow, we'll all wake up older, in every sense of the word.