A Cage Left Open

I Love Him Not

He lie asleep on the bed, the blankets and pillows bunched up around his body. I glance over at the clock on my nightstand. 6:07. He'll sleep for another three hours or so- he always does on Saturdays. I'm hoping to be gone by then. Unlike him, I am awake by six nearly every morning, despite not falling asleep until late into the night. I typically watch him sleep for a few minutes each morning, rubbing circles into his back and stifling giggles when the evenness of his breathing is interrupted by a gentle snore. Today, instead, I roll out of bed and change quickly before heading to the kitchen. I start the coffee pot, its gentle hum drowned out by the snoring emitting from the bedroom. Through the cracked door, I could see him: his hair tousled across his forehead from his constant tossing and turning, which woke me most nights. He looked peaceful now, almost angelic, his features softened by the light streaming through our window.

Last night, we had fallen asleep angry with one another. Rather, I fell asleep angry with him. It was something insignificant, something I won't remember a week from now, but we fought. He fell asleep with I'm sorry etched across his lips, and I simply haven't slept at all. We agreed from the day I'd moved into his apartment that we would never go to bed angry with each other, but I had broken that promise more times than I could count. It was always the little things that spawned arguments; he'd leave the toilet seat up and I would, in my morning stupor, groggily sit on the toilet only to be jolted awake by the splash of my butt against freezing water. That one I laughed off the first few times, until it became less of an accident and more of a game to him. Other times, we would argue about how he would always delete my recordings of Grey's Anatomy to make space for The Walking Dead on the DVR. He has a habit of drinking milk straight from the carton, which always made me squirm. His persistent disregard for my wishes used to be charming in a way that I couldn't exactly explain, yet always found endearing; his childish mannerisms were always a sure way to make me chuckle. But now, each day feels less like love and more like my personal prison.

I keep trying to think of the first time I looked at him and my heart didn't skip a beat, but I don't think I could pinpoint the exact moment I realized I no longer was in love with him. I suppose it was a gradual thing, falling out of love; each bout of bickering wore away at our relationship. It was like an artist chipping away at a marble block in hopes of creating something beautiful, the hammer thwack thwack thwacking against what I once thought was invincible until finally, it crumbled into dust before our eyes and our something beautiful was suddenly something destroyed. The parts of him that I used to find so beautiful simply spark irritability now.

It is easy to pinpoint the exact moment I realized I was in love with him. So easy, in fact, that it may be the moment that haunts me for the rest of my life. I was never a fan of fairy tales and love at first sight had always been a myth to me. Love is an acquired taste, I think; or maybe, it's one that you never get used to at all. We met in a sociology class our junior year of college, but it wasn't until a year full of persistent dorky pick-up lines and it's just one night's had passed that I finally agreed to get coffee with him. I walk around the apartment, sipping from the steaming mug; I never was a coffee drinker before I met him, but ever since our first date, it felt like an obligation to drink it at breakfast with him each morning. It only feels right to drink it now, though he has no idea that this will be the last time my lips touch one of his mugs.

I wander through the apartment, running my fingers over the glossy picture frames filled with our smiling faces; I stop at the photo of the us at my sister's wedding last summer. It is my favorite of them all; we stood together on the beach, my coral chiffon gown and blonde curls blowing with the wind. He had his arm snaked around my waist, pulling me closer just as the photographer snapped the photo. Our smiles were genuine. We were happy then. I was happy then. I set down the mug and take the frame in my hands, turning it over and sliding the photo out. I grab a pen from the coffee table; I had been unsure if I should leave a note or not, afraid I wouldn't be able to find the right words. It seems cruel to leave him nothing, though.

I glance at the clock on the wall. 7:19. I take a final look around the apartment. It has been home for years. He has been home for years. But not anymore. I grab the suitcase that has sat packed, waiting for weeks until I found the right time, though I'm sure there is no right time for this kind of thing, from the closet, and fight the urge to glance back through the cracked bedroom door one last time.

I step out of the apartment.

Go back.

Walk down the hall.

Stop.

Step into the elevator.

In just a few short hours, I will be hundreds of miles away from the apartment where he will wake up, alone, and find the picture on the coffee table. He'll pick it up, turn it over, and read:

We were happy.

And finally, we'll both be free.