Empathy and Self-Interest

When they talked, nothing else in the world mattered, he became immersed in everything she was and is to this day but she would never be kind enough to give him the answers he needed. There was no one he could talk to the same way he talked to her, there just was not anyone he wanted to talk to. Each day he would sit by the single phone in his home, a landline with cord placed on the side table next to their couch at just the right angle so he could grab it if anyone did call. For him, there were plenty of activities or chores to get done while waiting for the phone, except vacuuming. All he wanted was for her to call, let him know that she is alright wherever she is, that would be enough. He constantly called her bosses and friends and any family he could find in the phone books, but nothing. Yet even though that was what he was waiting for each day, he understood if there would not be a call coming, that she was probably too busy saving the world in her own way to be bothered to check in on him. He thought he was reasonable enough, maybe the constant check-ins on her were maybe excessive but she should understand. She should know this is just how he is, and if it was just like it was before then he could stop worrying. It is a simple task he is asking of her but she still does not pick up the phone.

They met in group therapy, both having come back from traumatic incidents that changed their outlook on everything else around them. He was a firefighter that lost his own home to a fire, and she is in the army currently saving the world. Both on their respective breaks from work they met and talked and fell in love then fell out of love. Maybe it was ridiculous for him to be worried about someone from his past, but there will always be the part of him that just can not let go of her. It is completely selfish and maybe that is why their relationship never survived, all she did was give and he kept taking from her. Grabbing at anything he could to keep parts of her just to himself and she was always more than willing to continue to break off bits to give to him. There was no balance between the two of them, always on one extreme or the other. It destroyed both of them but they were too intertwined to really ever leave each other, so they stayed roommates and became ghosts in their own home. Passing one another but never truly connecting like they used to, they both were just a presence to the other. She would leave her jacket on the couch then he would cause her to trip over his shoes when he was not home. They never actually changed anything in the house, the paint was the same and so was all the furniture but somehow it all looked a little duller and a little more grey.

With envelopes in his hand, he steps into his house, their house, to read whatever he, they, got in the mail today. Noticing an oddly shaped envelope he picks it out of the pile to see his name written in cursive on the front. Maybe it was a notice about her, but he could never jump to any conclusions as he has been disappointed before in this same situation. He was sitting on the loveseat, ironically enough considering she was what he was thinking about, as he let his imagination run wild about what it could be. Slowly opening it with the most precision he could muster with his hands shaking, he took out a wedding invitation for his brother. Drained of any happiness he was almost given he realized he needed to go somewhere, he needed to find a place with no phones and no reminder of her. Grabbing his coat he walked out, with no destination in mind but it seemed right to him.

Along his walk he meets a couple that just got back from their honeymoon and look at each other helplessly. Staring at both of them his mind projected the images of love and heartache as he heard their story of love. However it felt as if he was feeling the wrong emotions, this happily in love couple made him feel just as happy and in love. Before at any other sight of love he would feel disgust or sadness, but how is this happening, and why is it happening. Why can he remember every single happy memory of her and feel just as warm as he did in that moment. What happened to his everlasting sadness he felt when they broke up, the whole reason he isolated himself from everyone was to forget about this feeling he has right now. He wanted to kill the butterflies he felt and pop the bubble he was living in because it was all a lie. In this moment he is taking it all in, soaking in every time they snuck out for a midnight snack run and every time she fell asleep in his car while driving back home. These will forever be engrained in his very being but right now he is living through them again, but instead it is not their faces or even them he's thinking about. The couple who seem to be madly in love with each other make it seem easy for him to slip into that state of bliss. Everything in the world just stops moving and nothing matters, until he sees her. Not the same girl from before but someone different, and in this total state of bliss he is in he goes up and starts talking to her. Talking to her about love and the magic it holds over people, she tells him how she does not believe in love. They both selfishly grab information from one another to make them feel better about their own stance, he become more and more enticed by every move she makes. As she waves goodbye there is not a thought of sadness or loneliness in his mind even as she is walking away.

His head is up a little higher and he starts to walk his better posture as he makes his way around the neighbourhood another time. Nothing is really going on his mind at the moment except for that conversation he just had. Everything she was saying made sense to him and he needed that, maybe he did not really need a call back from her but instead someone to reaffirm his feelings. Although they were debating on different sides of the love debate they were having, for him he was finally getting to talk about everything he was going through and have some random person come in a confirm everything he thought and felt was valid and real. He would still check the voicemail when he got home but he felt less compelled to go home. There was a world he was missing because of her and he did not want her to keep this hold on him. While sitting down on a bench he thought about why he was going crazy for her and it was not the way she did her hair or how she wrote love letters to him, it was the empathy she had towards him and he took it for granted. They would never work because they could never compromise, he did not know how to understand her and feel what she feels just like she could never ask him to do that. It was short lived and lost in history but it was good. All lost in his thoughts he did not notice he was sitting at a bus stop, and as a bus pulled up he was about to get up to walk away so he would not get in anyone's way. Then he noticed it was a shuttle from the airport, and he stayed and watched people walk out to be greeted with hugs from their loved ones. He sat in anticipation as he saw the last person exit the bus, she always liked sitting at the back of busses whenever they went anywhere. Trying not to miss anything he saw her get off the bus, wearing the same uniform he met her in, fumbling with her phone trying to call someone. Watching her swear while looking at her phone and try to get on the bus since this did not seem to be her stop, he called out to her and noticed that she was trying to call him. They both smiled at each other as he grabbed her bags and walked towards their home.