Inability

I am not going to write this entry.

I am not going to talk about how I'm sitting, here, teetering on tears, waiting for her to call and knowing she's just as likely to call at any time saying she's sorry for what she said as she is to never call again. It's enough to make a man turn to religion.

And it would be one thing if I knew, from the start, that this is what it was going to be. That it would be a clean break, if tinted by vendetta, but I'm not going to write about how hurt it made me, and how crazy I was driven when she was with him when I called, and how pathetic and young I felt when I kept calling, knowing I couldn't stop, knowing it was the wrong thing to do.

And I'm not going to write about how I didn't know they were together together until she finally told me they had an honest shot, when it was too late anyhow thanks to me. And thank god that only means they're dating, and that any potentially exponential meaning for that "together" is conveniently unknown to me. I'm not going to write about how she's sleeping with him.

I'm not going to write about it.

I won't write about how she loved me, how she told me so. How she called me to tell me she thought about me the entire time we were apart, before the fall. Before my mistakes. I will not write about how she wanted me in her life, of how nothing was going to change. Of how the pictures wouldn't come down, and the songs would still mean the same things, and her heart wouldn't twist under his weight. I won't write about that.

Fuck, I can barely even think about it.

And I can't write about how I realize her being gone doesn't make me sad. It makes me empty. There was something there, in my gut, and now that it's gone it has left a hole in me. I can't bring myself to write about how I called her, knowing she was with him, knowing it was the end, knowing it would drive her far away enough that there would be no going back, especially not with how stubborn she always was, especially with me. I can't write about how every time I called her, everything she said, knowing she was talking to me in his bed, and that I was annoying, and wrong, and the past. And I can't write that I ate her words and I swallowed that delicious misery until it filled me to the brim, and I overflowed, just to fill me. Just to make me whole.

I can't write about how I want to know it all. I just can't write about how I want to know when they were first together, like that together. Was it before or after she told me she still loved me? I can't write about wanting to go back to just not being together, rather than this. Not about her hating me, suddenly, without motivation. I can't write that she doesn't have to hate me to be with him. I can't write that she thinks she does. But this is not about him, in any way. This is about me, and my faith.

I can't possibly write about how I wanted to win her back, but refused to play the game. I never learned that game. I don't like the rules.

I shouldn't write that I loved myself until myself wasn't enough for her. I shouldn't write that every time I check, I'm looking for her. That I saw an old picture, and my knees shook. I shouldn't write that half the day she's a slut, a bitch, a fucking whore, and the other half she's the thing I need most in the world. I shouldn't write that I don't need to be with her, that I don't need to be her friend, that I don't even need to talk to her. Just so long as I know she understands.

And I really shouldn't write about how much longer I'll be able to stand it until I call her again. About how I worry she thinks I'm not calling because of him. About how the whole conceit of calling has become such a defining portion of love that it renders the feeling so digital it gets lost during transmission. I shouldn't write that I know how she feels. I shouldn't write that I've thought the same things she though when she ended it. I shouldn't write I was thinking about it myself.

I shouldn't write that I love her.

I really shouldn't.

But I can. And I did. And I know she's reading this right now, because she can't turn away anymore than I can, even if she wants to think she can. Because as much as she wants to give this new thing of hers a shot, and as much as she thinks she can't with me still in her mind, she loves me.

Love, Jude, real love is something so important the world should fall down before it's let go, and we have it. Even with him, you can't tell me we don't. I know you think things have to be this way for you to do this, but they don't. I'm not scared anymore. We need to talk.

Call me. Stop whatever you're doing, because I swear it can't be more important than this. Nothing is in the world. Call me, quick.

I'll wait.

---

As my thumb pulled my pocket lining taught against my hand, I imagined the tension as fingers caressing mine.
And they might have been yours.

EDIT: Pushing that post button was the biggest bullet I ever had to bite.