Cried the Night Together
By gingeresque
- 1046 reads
And I crawled into bed, grateful for the peace, for his absence that lets me sleep early, had a shower, rubbed my face with happy face cream, 12 midnight, eight hours of sleep that i've been craving for days, but then she calls.
She asks me what i've done, I tell her about my day, she's not listening, i joke about how much fun it is now that he's out of the country for a week, she's not laughing, we talk in circles of aimless, pointless issues, and i wonder and wait for her to open up and tell me what's wrong.
What's wrong?
What's right?
She says she's lonely, she was so used to talking to him before she slept, and now with him gone, there's no one there to help her sleep, which is why she watches TV till the early morning, chats online with random strangers, looks at their endless photos together, in the same folder she saved all those online pics of wedding rings and dresses.
"Imagine you spend four years building something, and then one day, it's just all taken away, and you have nothing but dust," she says, her voice breaking, starting to cry, and she has never cried to my face, always hiding, always swallowing, and I can't hold it back when I hear her trembling.
We sit there, each one curled up on her bed, feet tucked under covers, in two different cities, 250 Km away, we both reach for the tissues and try to talk, as words and tears mix and melt down our faces.
There is this unjustifiable anger towards those who seem fine, who have moved on, who can laugh in public, but you see them and remember him, and wonder how they can love someone yet be able to move on so soon after his death?
There is inexplicable shame over moments of weakness, of complete vulnerability, when we let ourselves open to whoever is there, frustrated, choking, have to take it out, and then later regret it all, regret reaching out and touching random skin, letting random voices soothe your open scars, but they can't seem to understand... who could?
And here she is, telling me things I could never put into words, this frustration, this need to get it over with, the shame, the things we do to keep his memory, as if it's wrong, as if it's sad, but it's not.
She walked into Debenhams, sprayed his cologne on her shirt, and walked around smelling it with a smile on her face. Later on she cried into her pillow, wondering if she's sick, going insane, i tell her she's just trying to keep him alive, and that's ok. I wish i had a recording, a video, something i could leave on play, she reminds me there is a video we took three years ago, and that gives me hope. It's something to show my children, something to show my son and say:
"See, this is the man I named you after."
And now there is just this exhaustion, this blurry vision and an overwhelming desire to curl in fluffy socks under melting covers, rest my head and my aching eyes, and learn to sleep again.
And I remember the nights I spent at her bedside, watching the scar on her forehead slowly heal, waiting for her to talk to me, waiting for her to cry, but she never did, so i never could, and yet here she is, on the phone, breaking down, telling me everything I needed to hear, why her, why him, not fair, too soon, so lonely, not ready, move on, forget, never will love again,
And I realised that I was not alone, that she was not fine, that it was only four months, and he deserves so much more than that,
and I have never loved another friend as much as I do her, this warmth, this unbelievable strength, it teaches you. It makes you older.
I can't describe it, I can't make myself clear, I need to sleep.
But it was good, crying the night together.
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