it'snotthateasy

It's not that easy

She called, asked me to come out for a while. Why couldn’t I? Work was a ball and chain. The day was bright, my mood high. The siren’s song won.

We talked, and we talked. For two hours, we did nothing else except talk, and sip from the quickly tepid coffee mugs placed in front of us. There was nothing else to do, nothing else that needed to be done, nothing else to cause distraction. Talking, it was inevitable. We talked, and she said those words that I knew. I knew them, yet I didn’t want to hear them. I didn’t want to hear them because that would mean confronting them, and confronting them wasn’t what I wanted, not this day, not this place, not this way.

Words are cheap. They are so easily thrown around without understanding actuality. But when you do understand actuality, suddenly the words gain weight. They’re no longer so cheap, they carry meaning a million times deeper than that which any dictionary could define. And I also said words. Those words I couldn’t say, but suddenly did. We talked on, against everything that told us both to stop.

She looked at me with those deep pools of eyes, their darkness hypnotising, drawing me in, asking me to love them, to love her. They were begging, beguiling eyes, the eyes that make you feel guilt all the way down into the pit of your being, where you can’t escape it and you feel like it would be so much to just give in and give her what she wanted. Love was tradeable, wasn’t it? You could put aside your petty concerns, and just love her and let her love you. But no, I didn’t. I would be strong. I’d be responsible, I’d be mature - I wouldn’t give in.

I’d like to imagine that, if this was the 1920s or 30s, I’d put my hat on, button up my overcoat, pull up my collar, turn, give a grim smile, whisper “Sorry m’dear…” and walk out of the cafe into the darkness of the night, the rain coming down gently, mirroring the sad tear rolling down her cheek. But it wasn’t, and it was day, so I couldn’t pull it off. I walked away, away from the sad tear, from her hopeless face, from her sad eyes, into the bright day. Would I see her again? I don’t know. Did I want to? I don’t know. Life was like that sometimes.