Make that make sense.

Photo by Lisa Fotios.

We used to joke about getting married. Remember, you told me that you wanted to be the one who proposed? We speculated about what our kids might look like, before we realised we didn't want them. We took a lot of pride and joy in being DINKs. You told me you loved me with your eyes closed, when you were laid up on my enormous sofa bed after throwing up all evening with food poisoning. You insured me on your car. I took your niece out for ice cream. You’d click my joints out of habit, and we squeezed each other’s spots. It was productive intimacy. We walked through Central Park together in the hot springtime sun, and stopped to watch a man feeding squirrels and birds. One morning on the floor of a cramped spare room, you made me come five times in quick succession. Our mortgage was approved. We’d queried about knocking through a wall to make an extra window in the living room. I’d accepted that you didn’t want to paint anything lilac. 

   Now you text me - the little (1) appears in my Archived chats and my eyes roll as my stomach flips and sinks - always admin business, like asking for my bank details so you can send me half of that deposit once the absent landlord sorts it out with the impossibly cheery letting agents. 

   I once asked you how it felt to be the love of my life. You shrugged. Of course I realise now, you never were.

   I don’t even want a share of the deposit. You insist, maybe because you need some guilt alleviated. Because I gave up a whole life of my own to move in with you. I sold that enormous sofa bed, and gave my TV and Roku box away. I did it all with heart, and hope. I was excited for what came next. No regrets.

   I was the one who registered your cat at a local vets’; it took three tries before I found one that would take her. 

   You’d always oblige when I presented my cheek to you for kissing. Towards the end, I found myself inexplicably clinging onto your shoulder more, as we sat side by side.

   Our last meal together was with my auntie from Australia - the one you’d avoided meeting for the best part of two years, only to finally be introduced the night before you left. Make that make sense. You knew you were going to do it. So why bother? She texted me a few days later, saying how much she'd loved getting to know you. You could have spared me that embarrassment. 

   I had a profile on all your streaming platforms. I wonder when you got around to deleting it. 

   I said I didn’t mind when you explained that you rarely got the urge to say ‘I love you’, and told myself that it was enough to hear you say it back when I did, with a ‘too’ attached. That's how you said it when you walked out the door.

It wasn’t, really. It wasn't enough for me.

   I won’t thank you for anything and I won’t trust anyone fully for a while, but I won’t torture myself or withhold any feelings. I’ll still believe it (love) can happen. I feel it more than ever now, for everyone around me.

   I’ll write it out, like I do all my traumas. I’ll pin you down with words. That’s all there is now, in my mind. My memories are sealed off, wrapped in plastic bubbles. Safe, untouched, innocent and inaccessible.

   I’m glad we didn’t go to the Eras Tour together that night. Although now I know what you were really up to while I was there, singing my heart out in sequins - I almost wish we had.