Coming Up For Air

"Yet my longing for her was like a bad cold that had hung on for years despite my conviction that I was sure to get over it at any moment."
-The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

I look at the ceiling because at this point it's all I can do. I look at the white block of cement and imagine the life I'd always wished for with her.

It's a funny thing, your imagination. It has the power to guide you through the worst moments of your life in some cases and in the others?

It creates those bad moments.

I watch our life play out on the ceiling like a movie with the whole happily ever after thing. That's the one thing I always found unreal.

So, the guy and the girl end up together. Then what? Do they have a happy life, kids and then death only after they're both satisfied?

I wish a movie would show what actually happens after the happy ending because that's the part we're on currently.

I wish some or the other movie could have warned us of this possibility. The possibility of us ending up here.

I try to touch our movie with my fingers but I feel as though the happiness has slipped through.

Slipped through my grasp and I can no longer hold on to it.

She thinks I don't cry. She thinks that the only time I've ever cried was at my father's death.

But lately I've been crying all the time. Almost like a pregnant woman.

Even when she was pregnant with the kids, she wasn't as emotional as I've been lately.

I feel the bed shuffling and I see that she has turned to face me. Her face is being illuminated by the moonlight.

Her beautiful hair is all over her forehead and I want to touch her, I want to tuck the unruly strands behind her ear but I know it would just be a desperate attempt at trying to hold on to her.

I am one of those people who believes that you have to put an effort into whatever it is that you're doing. It doesn't matter if the thing is good or bad, all that matters is the effort.

But I'm losing her and it's effortless.

"Parker?"

I take a deep breath and reply as calmly as I can,

"Yeah?"

I'm rewarded by silence from her end and for a moment I think she's fallen asleep but then I hear her muffled voice.

"Do you not love me anymore?"

The answer should be instantaneous. Of course, I love you Lissa.

But it's not, because I don't know if I do.

It's Alyssa for god's sake. We are Alyssa and Parker. We are meant to be together but that's just it.

We're meant to be but are we supposed to be? To me they are two extremely different things.

You're meant to be with someone the world wants you to be with.

You're supposed to be with the one you will inevitably be with, no matter what the odds are.

I look at her once again and see that her eyes are forced shut and tears are spilling out of them.

I do love her. But not in the way one is supposed to love their spouse of twenty five years.