A little too little ✔️

Chapter 5

I remember the conversation vividly until it turned into a mixture of screams then quieted down to nothing but broken fragments. "What about?" I was still hopeful, still naive. Then he dropped a bomb on me that I wish I hadn't survived. "I'm filing for a divorce." If that wasn't the first time he looked at me in days, I would've laughed at the statement, I would've chuckled. He looked guilty for a second because I'm sure my face exhibited a mixture of horror that he had never seen before. Of course we had our bad fights, but this. It was the end; I felt it, even then.

I stood up and started pacing around. "Will you calm down?" He said in the same leveled voice he always used. Except then, it wasn't soothing, it was the first crack in my already beaten down soul. His calmness aggravated me. I understood the lack of his romance. I got it, because life wasn't easy for him, nor was it for me. But this, this was pure destruction. He destroyed me. I screamed, "what do you mean calm down, are you out of your mind? How could you? How could you do something like that without telling me first?" My voice wavered and pitched towards the end.

He looked helpless, like he wanted to comfort me but thought it wasn't his place to do so. I wasn't his anymore. It rang in my ears, I wouldn't be his anymore nor would he be mine. Confusion took over me as a whole and I stopped pacing. I had so many questions but a simple "why" is what managed to escape my lips. I said it so quietly that I was surprised when I heard him answer: "I don't feel like we're working out anymore, it's taking a toll on both of us as I'm sure you can see." Still calm, still leveled. I sat down, putting my head between my arms. "Say something, anything?" He asked. "What is there left to say when you don't want to fight for the love we have?" I asked back. I was like him: calm, leveled.

He looked dejected, but took the question like he knew he deserved it. He swallowed a lump that looked like it was clogging his throat and whispered, "It isn't like that, this- this is my way of fighting." I let out a dry laugh, "leaving me is your way of loving me?" Then it clicked, he was scared and he didn't know how to handle it. I got up and went to him, putting both his hands in mine. I looked deeply into his eyes and said, "I know, I know you're having trouble with your emotions, but it's good that you're feeling something again. I love you, look at me, I love you." I took a breath before continuing, "I know you're not like him, alright. You're nothing like your father, I know you." He looked guilty once more, like I got him. He smiled a sad smile saying, "I wish I could know that as much as you do."

He slipped his hands out of mine, ripped my heart out of its cage and walked out of the apartment, out of my life. I lack closure, I lack lots of it. I know what you're thinking: why on earth would you sign the divorce papers? You want an explanation and you should get it. You don't know him like I do, though. You don't know that when he sets his mind on something, he will work and work till it happens. He looked miserable and so devastated, and if letting him go meant letting him be happy again, I would undergo my hurt a thousand more times.

It also stood too close to me: his insecurity, it made me look back at myself too, because I know I'm not enough. I know that there are a million girls out there that could make him a million times more happier than I could. I've always known that, and the fact that he wanted a divorce reminded me of how much better he could be without me. He was my strength, and now that he's gone I'm like a device without a charger, slowly waiting for my death.

Now you see this and you think: okay, he left you and you allowed it, so what's wrong now? What's wrong is that it hurts. I know I let him go, but that doesn't mean it was easy. I know I accepted it, but that doesn't mean that I'm not broken over it. I just feel inadequate to him. I've always felt his superiority, his capability of keeping everything together. Even when he was having those horrid nightmares, and even when he was waking up screaming every night, he still held his ground. He got up, shook his head, and went back to sleep. He wasn't ever able to talk to me about them though. I knew I leaned on him way too much to the point where he thought that if he leant on me we'd both fall down. I wasn't a good wife, but I loved him.

It all goes back to the same point. You see I wasn't good enough, and he thought he wasn't good enough; so, he decided we should be inadequate on our own. I don't like that, but again I'm the one that depended on him more. Even though I know he's hurting, he's going to end up with someone that is way better for him than I am, and that hurts me. It pains me to my very core that the person I want to be with the most is too good for me. That I'm incompetent, that I'll never be able to be worth something, but it's the truth. It's why his secretary intimidated me, it's why I'm letting go.

Sometimes, when we were still married, it kept me up at night. I thought about him with someone else. I thought about how wider his smile could be. I thought about how livelier his eyes could look like. I thought about how lighter his laugh could be. Don't get me wrong, he loved me, and I knew that, but I always thought that his love for me was weighing him down. I always knew that I was a burden. I knew that way behind his love-stricken eyes, there's tiredness of having to deal with my attacks sometimes. I knew that behind his kind, dimpled smile, there was fear that I would lose my mind. It's actually complicated, and I know you can't understand me now unless you understand who I was before.