I hated you that night.
You made me feel worthless, cast out and lost.
"Why would you do that?", I have asked myself the question many times over.
I saw you as I came around the corner, then I saw him. I kept walking as to not draw attention by abruptly backpedaling. Drifting off towards the nearest tree, I hid.
After a breath or two I felt it safe to try peer your way. You did not even seem nervous or anything. As though handing that man his jacket and him pulling you in for a kiss was normal behaviour.
So, I left. It had been a rough few weeks. I knew that. After seeing you with him I knew you had decided. I just knew there was no return.
I headed back the way I came. Momentarily glancing back to see your hand on his chest, were you pushing him away or just being flirty? A thought crossed my mind at that moment. I looked down and kept walking.
I headed back into the city, with nowhere to go. We had recently moved in together. I had been attributing a lot of our discord to the tenseness in our newly found connection. Looking back to then, I was just avoiding dealing with anything.
After about an hour of anxious walking. The snow had been falling stealthily harder. The wind came down the road and chilled my bones. That was when I noticed how bad the weather had gotten. My heart had been racing so fast to keep from going cold. It was to no avail.
The streets had become unknown and shrouded in a blanket of white. I could hardly see the next street light, not to mention try to discern my location. Pulling my coat tighter, I headed on. I felt assured I would find somewhere safe to wait until the weather cleared.
I used that assurance as a distraction. I used my stubborn determination of heading further away from you as an excuse. I kept walking, hope dwindling. The street lights were getting farther between.
I scraped against the walls of decrepit buildings to have half a shield against the onslaught of wind and snow.
I hated you right then. I hated the situation. I was scared and I refused to admit it to myself.
After what had seemed like a couple of hours, I found an open doorway and stepped inside. I was immediately hit with a smell so bad that I stepped back out into the blizzard. Pausing in the doorway considering my position, a harsh voice decided for me. "Hey! WTF man."
It did not take much more for me to ascertain that I best not stay there. I stepped back into the blizzard just in time to avoid a beer bottle that instead smashed against the closing door.
I ran or more accurately moved as fast as I could to the corner and rounded it. Spotting two dumpsters I cautiously approached them and spotted a very inviting space between the two.
Sandwiching myself between the dumpsters and a wall at my back seemed like the best place to be right then. Slumping against the wall my body had immediately caught on. I almost did not have the strength to comfortably position myself, fortunately, I found the strength.
There is something about being the filling to a dumpster bun while freezing and trying to keep from falling asleep. There is a certain mindset that takes hold. I had checked my phone, the result was so obvious I hardly need to mention it.
By that time I had determined that I was in a particularly bad section of the city, I had no communication and no more willpower to keep trudging forward. So I sat there huddled, I stayed awake and above all I ruminated. About us.
You have always hated this part my love but it is "integral" I would say and grin. "It is integral to us." I would say it every time you reprimand me for reciting my little mantra I came up with after that night. Whenever things would get "bad", and I feared the world. I would recite the same thing I once wrote in a letter to myself.
For everyone here today, that part goes like this:
'"I hated you that night.
'You made me feel worthless, cast out and lost. '
'"Why would you do that?"'
I have asked myself that many times over, I am yet to answer completely but it does serve as reminder for what I do not wish to be. Whatever that may be.
The absence of violence and harm in a place where you expect it most can leave you wanting just that. The anxiety and fear no matter how mundane a situation may look to an outsider will eat you alive.
That is what it must have felt like to you during those hard weeks leading up to that night. I am sorry, and I was sorry, all these years though. All these years would not have been if I was only sorry though and did nothing.
I thought about many things through those hours. It felt like the whole night, it felt like an eternity. In reality, it was only 8 hours.
You know I would have walked away, but it took a force of nature for me to realise what we had. That was a force, not even nature could bring to its knees.
Something more, something beyond nature itself kept us together all these years. Now. Now, my love, I say goodbye. On my knees I say my final goodnight. See you soon through wind and snow.
Smiling as he turns back to their family and friends.
"You know. She never did cheat on me. That dumb guy was a pervy chancer and shoddy handyman. I always fixed everything myself from that day forward though."
Image sources: Frame on Wall | Man in Snow | Broken Glass | Couple | Old Man | https://unsplash.com/photos/nFsOlSE9Mn8
