the spark we lost

22

We never talked about what it was like afterward. I never told you how broken I was. How I looked at the spaces your books left on the bookshelves and couldn't bring myself to fill them. How I couldn't eat waffles without crying. Or wear the wooden bracelet you bought me at the street fair on Columbus Avenue — the one we stumbled upon and then stayed at all afternoon, eating mozzarepas and crepes and pretending that we needed a new carpet for our imaginary ski house.

One night, two weeks after you left, I took a bottle of your favorite whiskey down from the shelf above the kitchen sink. You'd left it behind too. I poured myself glass after glass, first over ice, and then when the tray was empty,straight. It burned my lips when I drank it, but it tasted like kissing you. And it filled up the pain. For the first time since you left, I slept through the night. I felt like hell the next morning and called in sick to work. But I did it again next week. And the week after. Making myself go to work, learning how to live with the pain.

There were stores I couldn't pass and restaurants I couldn't eat in. I spent a month sleeping on the floor, because all I felt was your absence when I tried sleeping in our bed— and the couch was worse. It reminded me of the night after the Emmy's. I donated half my clothing to Goodwill and threw away the posters we had on the walls.

Six weeks after you left, I sat in the almost empty apartment and called Kate. "I can't stay here," I said.

"You shouldn't," she answered. "Come stay with me."

So I packed up the rest of the apartment and I did, for two weeks. Kate helped me sublet the studio and then I moved to Brooklyn. I couldn't take it anymore. I needed a new borough, a fresh start. And even there I had to avoid Bubby's, where we went to Kevin and Sara's wedding, and the Red Hook Lobster Pound, where we went to celebrate July Fourth. You were everywhere. We'd only been together for fourteen months, but it was fourteen months that changed my world.

I emailed you- do you remember? I didn't tell you how I was feeling, how I was falling apart. I'm getting a share in the Hamptons with Alexis! Totally last minute, but it should be fun. I wrote down false cheer. Just saw Ben Folds play on SummerStage— you'd have loved the show. How's everything going? And then I waited and waited and waited for a response that never came. I kept thinking about how you said we'd keep in touch. How you said we'd keep in touch. How you said you'd always love me. Every time I checked my email, I'd feel a combination of rage and sadness, disappointment deeper than anything I'd ever experienced before. I started letters to you. Diatribes, really. But I threw them all out before I sent them. I was afraid that if I yelled at you across continents, you'd write me off completely, and I'd never hear from you again. I didn't think I'd be able to handle that.

Looking back now, I know you were hurting, too, trying to move on, find your own path. My note from New York must've felt like it had been named in from another planet. Summer Stage? The Hamptons? I can't even imagine what you thought when you read that. But then? Then I couldn't understand how you could ignore me. How one minute you could spin me and kiss me and tell me I made you feel invincible, and then all of a sudden you could disappear.

Two months after you left I got an email from you. The first one since you landed in Iraq. Glad you're doing well! Things here been crazy. Sorry I didn't write sooner. It was a hard adjustment, but I love the work. The feature's done and they're keeping me here for a while. Hope you're enjoying New York!

I read that email over a hundred times, maybe. It could have been two hundred. I analyzed every word. Every punctuation mark. I looked for the hidden meanings, any insight I could glean into how you were feeling or what you were thinking. Trying to figure out whether you missed me, whether you'd found someone new.

But here's the thing: There was no subtext, no hidden messages, no secret codes. It was just a quick response sent in a hurry. I'd been waiting two months for nothing. I created a Gmail folder called Disaster and put your emails in there, including that one. I didn't write back. I knew I wouldn't be able to hear it if you ignored me again.