Reminiscing good times is deceptive.
It nestles you in a profile you're no longer in. It incites nostalgia, and nostalgia is only nice when, over all, the present is a better or at least an equal alternative. Moreover, memories are always idealized. It's in our human nature to make ourselves believe that life wasn't always shit. Because when life has been good at one point, the possibility for it to turn good again isn't out of sight, you know? Whereas, if you're too far gone, too far away from good times, you do lose sight of it.
*****
"I can't get past it," I whisper, "It's a trust thing. A relationship is based on trust."
"Yeah..." You trail off, then repeats, "Yeah."
I remember this one time a friend asked me why in God's name I insisted on reading books that 'made you want to slit your wrists', like Sylvia Plath. I'd looked up from The Bell Jar and told him that there is a certain beauty to melancholy, an unspecified soothing in someone else's misery, for the simple fact that you know you're not the only sad person in the world. Because worse than being sad, is being sad while the rest of the world is out celebrating. Or even when you're not feeling blue in the slightest, you can't help but notice how sadness improves one's art, how words seem to have a nicer flow to them, how sorrow makes the world seem deeper and more profound. He had shaken his head and walked away, muttering something with 'girls' and 'crazy' in the same sentence.
The beauty I found in other's pain, I now find in mine. Here, enclosed in your arms, with your smell engulfing my senses, I find entire, complete beauty in the way we are holding on, shielding each other from the harsh reality we're about to face. Even though I know I'll never wake up next to you again, and even though you realize you'll be sorry for what you did to me and what consequences this had for a very long time, I don't think we've ever embraced one another more tightly.
This is desperation. This is clinging onto something that we lost a long time ago in the first place.
This is the goodbye we never really had.
And when that thought comes to mind, something snaps and somehow my rationality leaves me and before I know it I really do start weeping. You simply press me closer, causing your grey shirt to moisten due to my sobbing. I'm sure you're aware of this, but you don't seem to mind. Remarkable how some things just fully fade when other, larger obstacles get in the way, like when a relative dies, you couldn't care less about the expensive necklace you lost the other day, or when you can't graduate, it doesn't matter if you failed that one Calculus test. Or, for example, when you're losing your chance to get back together with your first love for real, you don't give a bloody damn about tear stains on your shirt.
"Hey," you say quietly. "You sure?"
Looking up, I wipe my eye, "Yes."
And then you cup my face with both your hands, look at me with an expression that's distinctly unlike you, and kiss my forehead.
"If you ever..." you trail off again. For a moment it seems as if you're about to cry with me, but it passes as soon as it came.
I don't want you to cry either.
I want you to be you.
I want you to be, but I can't forgive you for being it.
"If you ever," he picks up the thread again, builds in another intermezzo, "change your mind... I'm not stupid enough to tell you I'll be waiting forever, but I'm sure that..." You sigh, shake your head, "If we'd meet up, you'd insult me and I'd insult you, and maybe we would get drunk and at some point, we might get back what we once had, because – "
"Because it's what we do," I smile sadly, cutting him off.
"I never blamed you for not trusting me and I never will," you go on, "because after... what happened... I don't trust myself anymore. I did for a while before, you know..."
"Yeah, I know."
And for the last time, you sort of sway me softly and then your arms slowly pull away from my body and it's like the air freezes. It occurs to me that this is not the right way to let go – it should've been passionate sex or a huge fight where we'd end up stabbing the other – but then I comprehend the fact that why loved you so much in the first place was because of what was underneath the obvious.
You take a step back, entwining my fingers with yours only to let me go afterwards. "I'm sorry."
"Me too," I hiccup.
I watch you turn your back, feeling like you're leaving me while I'm the one who's making the decision. There's something akin to doubt and regret taking over my guts, but I don't find the will to act on it - I just stand there, paralyzed, and then you're officially out my sight and out of the blood-pumping device in the middle slash left side of my chest.
This is the ending of a movie that you don't really want to see happening.
But it's the only one we'll ever have.
