Communication Break

Public places felt safe because you always had to hold something back.  It was the only way to talk, you had to keep your head.  

He was sitting across from her, but he had decided not to be present.  His jaw was strongly set and a defensive flair of anger was in his eyes.

“Look, I don't know what you think this is, but I'm sure it doesn't warrant that look on your face,” she started.  “We just haven't had a chance to talk, to really talk, in a long while.  I have a lot of things I've been wanting to say.”  She paused to give him room to speak, but he stayed silent, giving a little nod: permission for her to continue. “All right,” she took a deep breath.  “I know I've been kind of dropping the ball in this relationship.  I've been really screwing things up, and I know that.  I'm sorry.”

He picked up a pen and started to twirl it slowly between his fingers, eyes still on the table.  

“The thing is, you're always trying to take such good care of me, and I don't know how to take care of you.  I don't know how to take care of anyone.  I feel so selfish that way.  I feel broken.  I feel like one of those people who just takes all the time and never gives.”

He nodded slightly again and looked out the window.

She was quiet for a long time, nursing the numbness in her hands.  “I don't know if I love you anymore...I don't know what it means, and I don't know if I'm in it.  I don't think this is what it's supposed to feel like.  I just don't know what I'm doing.”  She looked at him, pleading for something, but he looked away with the same blank expression.  “What am I doing here?” she said, mostly to herself, and laughed bitterly.  “Apologizing?  Making excuses?  Hell, I'm sorry I called you here.”

His face looked tighter, the muscles forming little pools in his cheeks.  

“I just wanted to say something.  Get some of this out into the open—Goddamnit will you talk to me please?  Look...I care about you.  I wish I could tell you I love you and everything is fine, but I'm trying to be strong and honest and...Christ you won't even look at me!  We have something great between us, I'm not so broken as to ignore that.  I want this to get better...”  She gave him one more chance, but he avoided her stare.  “Okay.  That's it then.  I'm gonna go home and...I don't know...I'm gonna go.”

She stood up, slightly dazed, off balance, and walked out.  It was frigid night and she let her thoughts be drowned out by the wind.  

When she got into her car, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, her dead eyes.  Then she cried for half an hour before she could start her car.  

He stayed sitting for a while, then slowly got up and walked out to his car.  He swore once, then put his fist through the driver's side window.