38/

David left me, and I left the city. I told myself — and everyone else — that it wasn’t about him; I told them all that the country was a metaphor for a deep breath, a step back, a need to slow down. I didn’t believe it either, but that is what I told them.

He came with me to the country. I talked to him — built up an entire fake relationship with the him that lived in my head. He haunted the rooms of my house, and I caught myself over and over thinking that I should take a picture for him or that he’d love the way I arranged the living room. I caught myself more than once with our chat open, thumb hovering over the text box, wishing I could send him something. When I found myself looking repeatedly at his favorite book on the shelf, I hid it under the couch, promising myself that one day it would be less painful.

I hid how hard losing him was from my friends, fearing their possible admonishment for my inability to move on. The more days that dragged by, the more preoccupied I was with the idea of their judgment. When we did talk, I avoided the subject. They would ask me how I was doing in strained, pitying tones; the lie of being fine was so comfortably practiced that I could almost convince myself it was true.

Clara finally came out to visit me, and when she reached under the couch and found his book there she sighed and said, “Oh, Pen,” in a voice that made the contents of my stomach curdle. But when I started crying she sat next to me and put an arm around my shoulders, and when I turned into her she held my crying form until I was able to choke out the truth: I never wanted this. I wanted him. All I had ever wanted was him.

“That’s okay,” Clara said in her soft voice, devoid of judgement. She rubbed my back until my gasps turned into breaths again. I told her I had run so many miles trying to escape the loss. I asked her when it was supposed to get easier. She shrugged and reminded me it had only been six months.

“It takes time,” she said. “He’d be here if he could be.”