The Space Between Us

Spaces

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
~Mark Twain

We sit in silence. I'm on the bed while she is by the window, looking out into the night lit up by city lights. There is an obvious space between us. I'm resting my elbows on my knees with my hands clenched into fists, in front of my face. She has one arm across her chest and a fist against her mouth, chewing the skin on her finger, a thing she does when she's upset or nervous. I stare at the wall opposite me as I say, quietly,

'Maybe we should stop this.' she looks away from the outside world to me and drops her arms to her sides. Dani looks over at me, scared of what I just said.

'What?' she moves towards me and crouches down in front of me, so she can look me in the eye, 'What are you talking about? We can get through this, we always do.' I shake my head as I feel a lump in my throat start to form, making it hard for me to swallow. My brown eyes become glassy as I get up and walk away from her.

'We have to stop kidding ourselves. It's been like this for a while and you know it,' I rub my eyes while releasing a shaky breath as I try and hold in my tears. 'There is a giant space between us and it's getting deeper, a-and we both know we can't avoid this end.'

I hear her sit down on the edge of the bed as it lets out a slight creak. I run a hand through my hair as I stare at the wall sadly. I clench my eyes shut as I try and hold in my sobs but one rips out of my throat slyly just as a warm, salty tear slides down my cheek like a rain drop sliding down a window. I think back to the days that make me feel this way. The nights that made these thoughts enter my head, coming out of the shadows and invading my brain like a criminal who breaks into your home. Like the other night when we were at a party and she was talking with this girl who made her laugh like I used to. Made her smile like I did when we first felt the feelings we had for each other. Dani looked at the girl like she used to look at me with admiration, with contentment. That night at the party, she barely even spared me a glance or a smile. All I did at that party was stare at her from afar, wishing she would just look my way and give me a smile filled with love and passion like she used to. But she never did. Last night, when we got in bed, she didn't look at me; she just turned on her side, turned off the lamp beside her and said

'Night'. I remember when she would rest her head on my chest, wrap her arms around my waist and ask me a random question and we would spend all night talking about it. But now, she is the first to fall asleep and I am left with the lingering thoughts and the emptiness eating away at my heart slowly as if it's savouring the taste.

'No, no, don't, don't say that. That's not true, we can get through this. This is just a bump in the road; this is just a bump in the road that we'll get through. Please, don't think that, babe.' Dani stammers. I feel more tears stream down my face as the pain in my chest grows spreading like a cancer. I put a hand on my chest, over my heart as the pain strikes again. The pain is like nothing I have ever felt before. The pain feels like getting hit in the chest one hundred times over with no time to catch your breath, so you're just left gasping for breath.

'It's true and it's inevitable. We are hurting ourselves by staying in this relationship. You have been drifting away for a while now and-' I don't get to finish the sentence before a heart breaking sob escapes me. I hear her get off the bed and run up to me, turning me around and pulling me into her chest. I wrap my arms around her and clutch her shirt so tight my knuckles turn white. She clutches onto me like I'm about to evaporate into nothing. I hold on to her like I'll never get to hold her again, which is true.

'We need to do this. We can't hold on to something that we've lost in the dark.'

We stand there, crying on to each other. All you can hear is our ragged breaths and our stifled sobs that we try and restrain. I pull away from her and walk to the window, in the same spot she was in before. Her watery eyes follow my movements and stare after me as if I'm already gone but the truth is she was the first to leave.