3.13

You know why I shuddered, just then, but you've asked me anyway. Why torture me like this? I saw it again, the haunted place, just through the trees and away across the creek. Sometimes I think you drive this way just so you can ask me about losing him. Of course it hurts--loss always does. And I know it's been years, but that's just how it is. I might not think about him for weeks, and then you drive past it again and ask, and of course it's painful. And then you think it's my every day. And then I explain so carefully, setting up the explanation for every little thing I feel until I think it must be impossible for you to hear any more words from me about how marked the difference, how profound the effect, the dizzying variation from moment without to moment of grief, and just as I've finished my long monologue, you turn my work into a soliloquy with a simple question:
"So, are you not over him yet?"
I'm burnt up, now, shaking and rattling inside my sedate exterior. How could you ask that question? Unless you've never lost anything, which I know you have. I can't help giving you the side-eye, wondering if, actually, you didn't feel your loss (somehow inured or even inoculated) to a dull sub-state of grief that bites once and lies down at your feet beside the fire ever after, a faithful companion. Well, I know that's unfair and I can't ever be inside your head, but it brings me no comfort when you thrust such pointed barbs beneath my skin, opening me with smooth precision and peering at the throbbing grief within.
And now I know you've done it on purpose because, on our way back home, you've driven five miles out of your way to shift us past the copse of trees again, the soft light of an unknowing evening filtered down through the small new spring leaves to strike the spot where I lost him most, loved him best, and knew him least. I keep my eyes screwed hard against the dash until the last possible moment, throwing my head lightly over my shoulder (I can't see anything that quickly anyhow, but you notice) and you sneer. I can hear your lips peel back over shining teeth as you say the second most hurtful thing you've said to me in the two years we've known each other.
"You don't love me like you loved him."
Of course not. He was, after all, a monster. I can't look at you for about thirty seconds, maybe a minute or two. I'm not sure. When I finally do steal a glance again, you've got the cold mechanical look you had when I introduced you as my friend at the work Christmas party four months ago. I feel very small. How am I supposed to react when you feel like this? If you can't understand me when I explain it, more words won't help, though I'm willing to pour words into you for hours if it meant anything. If you can't trust me after the midnight ride in the ambulance, more time won't help, though I would hold your hand through all of it. If you can't forgive me for weakness, even after all this time, then you can't forgive me, really me, under all this bald-faced strength, this imposing visage, this calculated style. Because the underings of my unarmored nature are frightfully weak, and I was looking to you to hold them up. I don't want you to protect my outside. I didn't need your strength at the party, in the ambulance, at the beach, or in the play. I needed it now.
I turn away. The car is uncomfortably warm. As we wind up the mountain, the night opens up and a few forlorn flakes, the last of the season, cease to fall.