A Pair At Odds

The tears build and in a blink they fall. She imagines them like rain from the sky, just a bit saltier and known as tears from the eye. It's sad, heartbreaking even, but beautiful. Beautiful in that falling apart, tragic sort of way. Beautiful in the light at the end of the tunnel or oncoming train she's finally approaching sort of way.

She's held it in. Kept back the liquid emotion from spilling down her face. But all that's over now. She's letting go, and this, this wetness sliding clumsily down her cheek, this is her release.

He asks her if she's okay, raises his thumbs to swipe the damp circles under her eyes. Eyeliner smudges and his thumb stains as she shakes her head. She's not okay, may never have been, might not ever be.

What's to come? She doesn't know. He doesn't either; she can read it in the blurry image of his too dry eyes. She cries, and he just waits. It's nothing new.

They're stuck. They've reached that place in limbo, where they've surpassed the beginning but haven't quite reached the end. Or at least one of them hasn't. One of them is holding the other back.

This isn't about you, he tells her, it's about him. It's his issues, his deal he needs to work out. She understands, right?

No. She doesn't. But she says she does anyway. He's lying, and believing his lie is better than the alternative: admitting she failed. She failed at making him happy, at keeping him, at not being alone. By this time tomorrow she'll be back on her own, single and searching for something her heart won't reaccept for a long while.

She thought he loved her. But maybe love doesn't always conquer all.

He says the trucks loaded, that road he's traveling is waiting, and she knows it'll be miles before she reaches the realization that it's all really over. He'll be out of sight for now, but on her mind forever.

Sorry is whispered just before his lips touch her forehead, and then he's backing away. His touch is the first thing to leave her. Next, will be his sound. Only so many words can be spoken during this, after all.

When the truck pulls away, she knows it's him, riding off into the sunset, the ironic ending to a not-so-fairytale relationship. She's left in the dust, in front of the house that is their remnants. The house preserves their past, she cries in her present, and he drives to his future.

He'd pulled all his stuff together just as she'd fallen apart. And now, now she lets one be the loneliest number.