“I promise,” He said, reaching out to hold her hand and giving her that soft smile, “I’m not going to vanish.”
She sat in the quiet, looking at the box with its neat, careful packing and reminded herself once again that it was foolish to trust words; they were too easily said and too easily forgotten, it seemed.
The litany of reminders ran like water through her mind. Of especial soreness was the one wherein she had set forth the pattern, painted it in careful outlines and demonstrating precisely how it unfolded, just so he would know that this was such a normal occurrence for her that she really didn’t expect it to be different.
She even pointed out how there was always the part where he would say how it was different, this time, and how he would be the one who would not repeat it. It was always the surest sign that everything was precisely on track, that. But she couldn’t say that because it only accelerated things and, after all, maybe she would be wrong.
Of course, she never was.
She decided long ago that there was no way to be wrong when the pattern ran so true, so utterly consistent and unchanging. The moment of recognition was always the same; that sick, stomach-cramping feeling, the lurch before the inevitable slide down the broken glass mountain to land, tumbled, torn, and tired at the base.
Enough time had passed that she could no longer hear anything but the absence. She thought maybe she was mistaken, but no matter how she called, the only response was the echo of her voice bouncing down the lonely mountain. Not even the attempt to find friendship could raise reply.
She packed the box slowly, taking care to insure everything was placed to avoid damage. The simple letter that said nothing more than ‘here are the things you loaned’, she placed on top and then, closed and taped it up in preparation for mailing tomorrow.
The weight of the stone in her chest tugged so hard she could barely breathe. She set the box out of sight and turned to the process of distancing; the silence was almost a comfort as she severed lines and closed doors. Done at last, she turned to bed; shutting off lights and setting the phone’s alarm before flipping to the text screen to send seven words, “Nevermind. I’ll mail it to your work.”
Sent, she cleared the addressbook and set the phone in the cradle, thumbing on Pandora and curling into her pillow as the station spun up.
He had asked her, “Can we make it out of this together?”
She thought to herself, “That would require we’d ever been so.”