Numb

At times it was hard to really see where it all turned to shit. Thinking back on it she couldn't understand why she didn't see the signs. They stopped seeing each other, then suddenly they were hardly talking anymore, and before she knew it they weren't really talking at all. There were always excuses, good ones, which helped hide the truth, though she couldn't understand why it needed to be hidden, maybe things wouldn't have ended as terribly if they had been honest from the start.

Nix could still hear the words, her words, which shattered everything into unrecognizable pieces. I'm falling for you. In any other situation, with any other person, those words might have been the start of something more. A blooming romance and a promise of what could be...but not with them. Those words destroyed everything. And suddenly she was the fool for thinking there could be more, that there had been a chance, when the truth had always been in front of her.

You are not enough.

And so, that was the end. There were no more messages, no more midnight walks while they talked about the vastness of the universe, no more pain to mix deliciously with the pleasure, nothing. The days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. Thoughts of him would leave her lost and wanting, desperate to find any kind of remedy for the emptiness she felt.

The months moved on, time not really bothered by her plight, and soon the numbness began to set in. Thoughts of him would come fewer and farther in between and soon she forgot what it was like to crave the physical and emotional pain of wanting him in every way she could not have him.

Him.

That was what she call him now. His name had the ability to summon demons she could no longer tame. It was easier, during those few moments when his very existence would tear down the walls she had built, to simply acknowledge his existence and move on. The numbness made it easier. In a world where she could not feel, he had no power.

A year had passed, and the world had once again been put back together again. She no longer held her breath when his likeness would flash across her mind. She no longer longed for the pleasure of his touch nor the pain it caused. She could exist without him and she had forgotten what that felt like. The numbness never really disappeared. She had taken a few lovers, none she had any interest in keeping, but she was trying.

Almost a year and a half later, a single phone call was all it took ruin it all. The missed call belonged to an unknown number, which she wouldn't have answer anyway, and left a message on her voice mail. Within seconds the world she had worked over a year and half to slowly piece back together, shattered all over again.

She would never forget his voice, the same low timbre that use to haunt her every waking moment, speaking through her phone like they had only parted the day before.

"Nix, it's Anthony. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for how things ended between us and I want to make it right. Let's meet up and talk, yeah?"

Soon the world began to blur behind her tears and she threw the phone across the room, sobbing as she fell to her knees on the cold tiled floor. One message. It had taken one voicemail from him to destroy her once again. And like always he either didn't know or he didn't care.

The numbness that had become a part of her evaporated into nothing, leaving her as raw and frayed as an exposed nerve.  The heaviness in her chest settled as the tears continued to flow, and she found herself laughing. Because in that moment the pain, the sheer absurdity of it all, hit her so hard laughing was all she could do. She wanted to scream her frustration while jumping for joy, to hate him with every fiber of her being while still chasing the very thought of him, she wanted to breathe his very name into the universe and bask in the waves of shame knowing she could never truly let him go.

Anthony.