Popcorn Ceiling

         Popcorn Ceiling

         You pack your bag in front of me, obscenities streaming from your mouth like a waterfall. Some of your clothes and most of mine are stuffed into the small duffel, and I stare blankly at the beige popcorn ceiling. The door slams behind you as you walk away, leaving nothing but a silver ring on the nightstand. The ceiling looks so familiar, and I can't quite explain why. Maybe it was some memory I had kept tucked away, maybe it was the memory I am making now, but I can't describe it. It's almost four in the morning now, so I stand up. You'll be back tomorrow, you always are. I walk over to the kitchen, and begin the daily sweep. Glass shards litter the floor from our last fight, you threw bottles of wine and empty pints at me until you were satisfied. I finally bought that new trash can, just for these cleanups. The glass from the dustpan crashed loudly at the bottom of the bin, shattering into millions of pieces more fractured than us.
         The sun is rising now, must be about 6. The stove sparks on, burning at a beautiful medium-high heat as I lower the cast iron skillet to the flame. I crack two eggs into the pan after a bit of olive oil. Sunny-side up, the way you like them. The coffee timer dings as the pot finishes brewing, and I pour myself a mug. The pot sits next to a picture of us, some ten years ago, before you got sick. It's of us in a field of flowers, you happily holding onto my shoulders and smiling. You stopped smiling about five years ago. That must be one of the only pictures I have of you before the diagnosis, you broke all the other ones in your last fit. I sip on the coffee, enjoying the quiet for a moment. Checking my watch, I realize you will be back soon, covered in mud and apologies, and I'll forgive you, as always, and you will leave again tonight. The egg timer goes off, so I walk back into the kitchen. I remove the eggs delicately from the pan, placing them on a slice of bread. I grab the rest of the coffee and put it in your mug, your favorite mug, and place them on the table. Your medicine is already there. The doctors said that they are supposed to steady your mood, to make you feel less sick after chemo, etcetera etcetera. It never really worked.
         It must have been three years ago, after the flowers and the smiles had all faded, when you stopped being my partner. Something about you broke on that day, your second diagnosis. I'm supposed to be optimistic, to be happy for you, you've lived two years longer than they all expected. Your parents would call you every night, crying and hoping to hear you sound somewhat happy. They stopped a year ago, and haven't called since. I guess it was just too much for them. Right at 6:30, a someone knocks on our door. The eggs are ready, the coffee is ready, the meds are ready, and your smiling face in the picture frame anxiously awaits your arrival at the door. I remember that day so well, the flower field. We were young and broke, fresh out of college. You went for computer science and I went for engineering; we had dreams of starting a company together and working our asses off to get some real money. It never launched, and you worked an IT job you hated for years and I worked as a city planner for years. We both hated our jobs, and both dreamt about our little company together, but it never happened. But on that day, none of that mattered. Not our college, not our plans, not our future, but us. It was us, sitting in that little flower field, eating some mediocre sandwiches you had managed to steal from your office's lounge. We laughed and sat there, until the sun set. You made fun of me for shivering the moment the sun dropped from the sky. You shivered soon after, so I laughed as well. This stranger knocks on our door again, waking me up from my daydream. I open it, to find a confused face that looks like you painted in the usual suspects. Tears stream down their face as this stranger rushes to embrace me. They cry and apologize, looking around our home frantically and confused. They sit down at our table, the one we made together with your parents, and eat on it as if it were their own. The breakfast I made just for you is devoured by this hungry stranger at our table. And that's when I remember.
         The house we made together, the small one outside of town, a few miles away from this apartment. We worked for a few years before we could barely afford the mortgage, but we didn't care. It was our foundation, our legacy, you said. It was big enough to have our kids live in with us, much to my dismay. You always laughed at me for that, saying that it wasn't like I had to do much anyway. We finished the house together a few months later. I remember laying on our new bed, waiting for you to come out of the bathroom, looking up at the ceiling. Popcorn. I don't know how you managed to convince me to install it; the plaster balls are ugly and expensive, but you said it looked like stars. I laughed at your rampant cliche, but agreed nevertheless. I loved you to the ends of the earth. I waited for you to leave that bathroom, and you did, eventually. You came back, coughing up blood, before passing out onto the newly-varnished floors. I carried you to my car and drove you to the hospital as you faded in and out of conscience. That night, they ran the tests and the MRI, and told us about your tumor, the one growing to be massive in your lung. We cried together that night, all the way into the morning. We sold the house to pay for your new guest's prompt removal, but it went nowhere. So now, I sit, watching a stranger eat my breakfast for you. You will never come back through our door, and you will never eat at our table again. All I have now is a husk of the person I knew and loved, who sits at our table, with millions of miles of space between us. All I have now is a popcorn ceiling that reminds me of the stars we saw in the flower field.