Empty

The bed was empty when he entered the room. The left side—she always slept on the left side. He always preferred the left side, but the first night she stayed at his apartment she fell asleep there, and for some reason he never said anything. He stood in the doorway and looked at the bed a moment longer. There was no sign of where she used to lay, no dent in the pillows, no curve in the mattress. He knew if he pressed his face into the sheets he wouldn’t smell her—the sheets had been washed on Thursday and she hadn’t been here for weeks anyway.

It was beautiful the last day he saw her—hot and humid, with the sun beating down intensely. He remembered her face in the sunlight, glistening with sweat and tears. The muscles in her neck were tense and she was yelling at him, her voice breaking occasionally, her eyes wild. He remembered listening to her, but not what she said. He remembered thinking she was beautiful.

Had never actually watched her cry before that day. He had seen it, of course, like the night she got drunk and watched When Harry Met Sally, letting the tears flow at the declarations of love, but he had never really watched her. He cocked his head slightly as she stood in that sunlight, mesmerized by the red rings forming around her eyes, the contortions of her mouth. He wondered what her lips would feel like if he kissed her that moment, if they would suddenly become soft, the way they were in the morning when she woke before him and crawled on top of him in bed, or if they would be hard, they way they were when she was trying to talk to him and he was distracted, when she would roughly push his shoulders back against the couch and insert herself between him and his notebook, straddling his lap.

She used to tell him she loved him. She looked him in the eye when she did it, and it always made him uncomfortable. I love you. Said forcefully. Said to convince him. He used to let his eyes drop before mumbling love you too in a hurried, low voice. For a long time she didn’t call him on it, but instead she would give a short nod and turn her eyes away, doing nothing to hide the sting. She used to hold him and stroke her nails lightly down his back, and she would whisper her love in his ear. He knew she did this so she wouldn’t have to look at his face. She did this so he could pretend he was asleep, and she could make herself believe the lie. He knew he was hurting her, knew that she was in agony. He knew he was slowly killer her.

Sometimes he wished he cared.