Frankly Told: What He Looks Like
He stood in his bedroom, looking on outside the open window as the wind wafted in the scent of someone’s dinner. Nighttime had fallen and the streets below only hosted night shift humans going about their work.
He inhaled deeply to the sound of ruffling or static from his laptop, which he couldn’t discern. The pause he held, pregnant with everything he should have said but he couldn’t bring himself to continue speaking. Inside him, there was a hollow echo of the thoughts he had and in his throat the slight pain of tears. His mouth tasted awful, a mix of sweet, sour and bitter from remnants of take-out and emotions.
“You know,” he started after clearing his throat. “When I thought to do this, I was in a totally different headspace.”
He swivelled on his heel, pulling his slides with him as he strode over to the desk. On his face, was a slight smile. One he was in no control over but still plastered on like an immovable mask.
“When I thought to do this, I was in a different headspace and honest to God, a little bit frightened by the way this would turn out,” he continued.
He leaned down onto the back of his chair with his elbows and looked straight into the webcam that sat side by side with the little light that indicated it was on. On the screen, she sat, still as a picture and contrasting his surrounding with the bright sunshine illuminating the space. Only the plants in the background, in their motion, gave away that it was a video.
“For this past…” he looked to the clock on his desk, “Three hours? Wow!”
“For the past three hours, you have managed to have me bounce between spitefully showing off and painful humility with how I want to word what I say,” he explained. “I hate it.”
He kissed his teeth and threw back his head, recalibrating all the thoughts that he had arranged and rearranged for the past three hours. Looking intensely at the popcorn ceiling painted in pastel blue, he composed himself with a breath that seemed to put the anxious hotbed that was his belly at ease.
“If I am to continue, I just want to say I am extremely glad that we got this time and we got to talk as well as we did about things and life and all that good stuff. See, I’ve been meaning to tell you something for a long time now and I honestly wish I could tell you that I know exactly what I am saying but I don’t know the next words that’ll come from my mouth.” He looked to the screen for approval but only got a momentary eyebrow raise.
“The guy who you have spent this time with, may not be exactly what you think he is. I mean it has been years since we last spoke and I will admit it is like I am talking to a stranger now and I couldn’t for the life of me guess where you would be at this point. My hope was only that you would be happy and I guess… you are, so I am glad that hope has been fulfilled.”
He could feel everything that swirled within himself calm and he could almost begin to see a straight path for every word he needed to say.
“The man you are speaking to is not me. Well, it is me, just not the “me” you know or knew. I can’t say that it is me 2.0 because I don’t know who this person is. I think by this point you would have figured but life… life has changed me and I can only look back at the person I was all those years ago and as I see myself but I don’t look like that anymore.” he sighed.
“I am not looking for closure. I don’t even think that I want or need that anymore. I would just like to not feel like this is me pretending to be something familiar to you because you need that right now. Maybe you do, maybe like all those other times, you need comfort but you can’t find comfort here anymore.”
A shiver ran down his spine but he braved it. These words seemed to cut deep on their way out and it was a vulnerability his body had long forgotten.
“The man you left at that park, I think that man is no more, you know? Life took away the joy. Life took away the happy-go-lucky. Days took away the youth behind his eyes. All the shouting to the wind took away his voice for things that don’t seem to matter to him. He probably doesn’t like the same foods anymore, I mean avoiding restaurants does that to you.” he smiled at his own joke.
“Over time, that man lost touch with the things that touched you about him. He became missed calls at 3am not because he wasn’t awake, he just didn’t care. He began replying in three to five business days because even though his phone is dry as hell,” he cleared his scratchy throat. “He’d rather the silence than pretend to care about how you are or how your day was.”
“That man is a shell of the former. Heartbreak aged his heart and he is risking showing his hand by being here right now to tell you… No.” He swallowed bitterly. “It was nice to meet you again, you look beautiful by the way but no. I don’t wish to water this garden anymore.”
“I mean look at me and tell me if you see the man anymore. The man to drop his everything for you. The man to sit by the phone and pick on the first ring. The man to talk about the weather with. He lives here no more.” He spread his arms and stood straight. “This… This is what he looks like now.”
“How was that?”
On the screen, there was a thumbs up and a smile.
