I sat on the backseat of a car filled with small laughter from your friends. I felt uncomfortable with being a few inches from you when the truth was, I had left a long time ago and nowhere to be seen. I blamed the fault of tagging along to your little party to the several years I was automatically wired to think that I was part of your plans. I should have easily dismissed going out and stayed at home to reread Kundera or J.Neil Garcia.
But—
Habits are hard to break. It’s even more difficult to admit that a relationship is built on routines, preemptive assurance, solid friendship. We nailed the latter more than any couple I knew but it always fell short to keep what we had alive.
If love is friendship on fire, our flame burnt out. The gray ashes wisped into nothingness, left no trace, left both of us oblivious (in denial) for such a long time.
I stared at your face and it was no longer familiar. Gone is the desire to memorize each laugh line, each fold of wrinkle in your eyes and that sparkle which follows, so lovingly whilst being grateful to every minute of our light conversations bringing inexplicable delight of togetherness.
I don’t know where it went. It ran away. Long before.
Long before kisses were reduced to pecks on the cheek, hands refused to be held, embraces became a pat on the shoulder, and I would rather sleep on the other side of the bed with a huge barricade of pillows between us during a beach trip. I said it was difficult for me to sleep with another person’s arms flung on my body, which is half-true and half-excuse to avoid any sort of intimacy.
It’s lonely to think
Feelings disappeared years ago, and it was only recently did we acknowledged what kind of fools we made ourselves and we both had to go.