Frankly Told: Hold It For Me
“I just don’t think you are ready for a relationship,” she said.
He looked up at her from his position on the timber parquet floor. The sun cut through a slit in the curtain and cast its light in a beam that stretched from his chest to the top of his head. To him, she was reduced to just a silhouette that sat criss-cross applesauce on the couch. Still, the silhouette said hurtful things in the most beautiful way.
“What do you mean by that?” he dug his grave deeper. “Is that why you are choosing to do this now?”
“It’s one of the reasons,” she continued. “I just think you have some issues you need to sort out yourself before you get into a relationship.”
He absorbed the words like a poison that rendered him motionless. His gaze returned to the ceiling and his heart sunk deeper than it had ever done. If no organs were in the way, it may have dug itself a hole and hidden in it. The silence was heavy on his chest but no words could leave his mouth.
“Say something,” she pleaded with him.
“What do you want me to say? What is there to say?” he shot back. “I don’t think there is anything to be said.”
“What do you feel?” she guided.
“What do you think?” he said. His heart had lost all strength to speak.
Tears began to well up in his eyes. He shut them tightly and prayed they would not slip out. Inside him was a search party for the right words to say in this situation but for nought.
“There you go again. I really wish for once you’d tell me how you really felt,” she prodded. “I’m tired of this macho act when it is so clear things affect you but you act like they don’t and it leaves me talking to a brick wall.”
“I thought I was someone who you could talk to,” she expressed in a tone that no longer pull on his soul.
Silence maintained its stance in the room. Holding hostage this conversation that to him felt meaningless and that was evidently over. He sighed deeply and rose up to his feet. His limbs felt limp and useless but he began to head towards the door. A little piece of him, wishing loudly that she would have the heart to stop him before he made it to the door.
“Where are you going?” she asked but nothing.
“Could you stop being so melodramatic and talk to me?” she shot.
He got to the door and slowly reached out to grab the handle. In his mind, walking out would mean the end of it all for him at least. Still, the part of him that was attached to her, held hope that slowed him down. He twisted the handle and then opened the door.
Before he could pull it fully open, he felt her arms slither around his torso and hold him still. He stopped and he felt his walls falter for just a second. Maybe, he thought, this is not a good thing. They stood there for a moment. Their breathing was deep and slow.
“I really tried,” her voice cracked. “I just don’t know how to get to you. I just want to know how you feel. I just want to feel like I mean something to you. I just want to not feel so tired of always trying to make you happy. I am so tired of feeling like I am all alone in this. What could I do?”
Words tried to climb out of his mouth but slid back down, leaving him with parted lips that could only shut again. Even he didn’t know where to begin.
“You were someone I could talk to,” he said. “You gave me something other people didn’t. No expectations. I could just be around you. I thought I didn’t have to pretend to be happy around you. I thought I was in a space where we could each be ourselves without wanting change out of the other person.”
“Maybe you are right,” he accepted. “I’m not ready for a relationship. Especially if relationships mean this pretence to be accepting when in truth under all that, it’s all the same.”
There was a beat of silence and he could feel her shuddering breath as she held him. His head hung low and no words it seems could lift his chin up.
“I thought we were supposed to hold space for each other,” he spoke calmly.
“We were,” she affirmed.
“Then why does it feel like I don’t have space in this anymore?”
The question hit her like a truck. Her breathing changed rhythm severally as if she was trying to think things through and there was panic in that. Through the crack in the door, a cold breeze invited itself in and swirled around the room. He could feel her draw in closer to his warmth because of it.
“You are allowed to feel what you feel,” he said. “I’d be tired too if I kept trying to change something that didn’t seem to work for me. This… is probably the best way out of this before resentment begins to pile up inside you and we hurt each other.”
“Please, let me go,” he asked of her. “Please.”
She sighed deeply and nodded to his request, visibly fighting the decision but regrettably accepting.
“There is a space you once held for me on days when you were upset with me and didn’t want to speak to me,” he quipped as he felt her grip loosen up. “Do me a favour, will you?”
“Hold it for me.”
