Came To Know

I never should have come back here, I know. I should have hung up on you, told you to fuck off and get someone else to do this favor for you. I wanted to laugh at you and tell you that you're crazy. Every inch of me screamed those words to you, my heart begged my lips to shout them, but all that managed to come out was "Of course. I'd be happy to house-sit for you, Chris."

So here I am, walking from room to room, letting the memories of what used to be torture me. I have no idea how long I've even been here, in our...in your house. I don't know much of anything anymore, it seems, except that I can't seem to let go of what once was. I used to know. I thought I had let it all go until it all surrounded me again, suffocating me now. Before I came here, I was safe from what was and what never will be again.

And you're on a romantic weekend for two with the man who replaced me in your life. The one who took everything you ever said to me and turned those words into empty promises. The man that you took everything we shared and the life we built and threw it all away for. The same one who vowed I would pay for ever leaving him.

I tried to tell you what he was doing, but you said I was jealous of him. That I needed to face the fact that you didn't love me anymore. I tried to explain what had happened between him and I, but not because I was jealous of Jeff. It was because I knew he didn't love you, that he was just using you to get back at me, but you wouldn't listen to me.

I think maybe I knew then that our relationship ran deeper for me than it did you, but if that's so, why do you still have pictures of us? Oh, they aren't anywhere that Jeff could easily find them, but he doesn't know you like I do, does he? He doesn't know that the bottom drawer of your writing desk has a secret compartment in it for things you don't want anyone to see.

So many memories of us in this compartment, and I can tell you didn't just shove them in here and forget about them. There's no dust on the pictures of us, even though the house is in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by gravel and woods. Brand new writings aren't stacked on top of them, but instead underneath them with the glasses you wear while writing a new song or poem resting in their case to the side of the drawer. I can't help but take them out and caress the cold steel in my hands. I bet he doesn't know you even have to wear these, does he?

Memories come rushing back to me because of these glasses, and though it wasn't that long ago, it feels like an eternity to me. It was last year, on your birthday. I remember you complaining that you felt like an old man because you needed glasses to read and write with, and to show you how ridiculous I thought that was, I bought you a cane and a hearing aide. That night you proved to me just how young you were...

Sadly I replace them in their case and close the drawer, much like you closed your heart to me not so long ago, and leave your study in hopes of some peace away from what was us.

Even the kitchen holds memories I thought were long forgotten, it seems. As I fix myself something to drink, my mind remembers the way your lips gently caressed the glass when you'd sip whatever it was you were drinking at the time. As I stir the meal I've decided to force myself to eat tonight, I can almost feel the cold of your lips from the drink mixed with the warmth of your breath gently press against the back of my neck just as you did so many times while I prepared our meals.

The tablecloth, I notice as I sit down to eat, is the one that your Mother gave you two Christmas' ago when we went to visit your family. I was so nervous to meet them, and you openly comforted me, calmed me down, not caring what they thought of our relationship. They seemed to understand what I meant to you, though, and my fears faded as they welcomed me into their home as the one you had chosen to live out your life with.

That's what you told them, that I was the one you "planned to spend all of eternity with," but it didn't happen that way, did it, Chris? No, forever ended the day you told me you were sorry, but you had fallen in love with Jeff. It was an accident, you said, you never meant for it to happen. It did happen, though, and nothing I said could change your mind and make you see how wrong it was with him, and how right it was with me.

With a sigh I give up on my dinner, not even bothering to clean up the dishes because doing that would stir up still more memories my heart and mind have tried to forget. So what do I do? I head upstairs where I know there'll be no escaping the flood of what was.

I've noticed that you've chosen not to share the same room with him that you shared with me. Strangely enough, this touches me, and I can feel a knot form within my chest. I have to ignore that knot, though. It tells me that you do still love me, that you know you were wrong about loving him. I can't listen to it, because I know it's not true or you wouldn't be with him. I scream inside for it to shut up, don't open that door and step into the room of lies and shattered dreams, but my hand's already turning the knob and my heart has already succumbed to the sweet melody of hope that radiates from that damned knot in my chest.

I became addicted to that song a long time ago, and as a tear slides down my cheek, I know I'm still addicted to it. To your touch, your smell. The butterflies that flit through my stomach when you say my name in that whispered tone you get when you're at a loss for words.

Stepping in here, into our room, is like stepping back in time. The smell, though musty, is that of roses and sandalwood, spicy cologne and shampoo. I close my eyes in just inhale the scent that is you and I, and if I try hard enough I can pretend that I'm back in that time. Back when I was everything to you, and you'd sing to me as you plucked the strings on your first guitar. Silly songs, they were, but each and every one of them told me you loved me, that nothing in this world mattered but you and I, and I would lose my heart to you with every word.

Shaking free of those memories, my eyes open and instantly fall upon that guitar. Do you sing to him too, I wonder? Running my fingers along the old acoustic you played so lovingly, I can't help but remember how happy singing made you. Do you get to be happy with him, Chris? Does he hear the smoothness of your voice when the night is quiet, singing silly, made up words that mean more than they say?

The curtains are half drawn across the room, and I can see the stars sparkling across the small pond in the back yard. I remember laying underneath those stars on an old quilt together, falling asleep in your arms. We made love on that quilt more times than I can recall, but each and every time the stars shone bright and the breeze whispered through our hair without a care, and that quilt wrapped us in warmth and love. It's folded neatly at the foot of what was once our bed now, and I can't help but bring it to my face in hopes of retaining the warmth it once provided us. Without you, though, the thick material does little for me, so I carefully replace it, running my fingers across the patches that once brought me such joy.

I notice an old shirt of yours hanging on the bedpost, and a smile creeps across my lips suddenly as I recall what you called this particular shirt. "It's my thinkin' shirt," you told me one day. When I asked you why you called it that, you laughed and said "'Cause it helps me think, duh" in that playful, sarcastic tone of yours. Of their own accord my hands wrap that shirt around my body, and when the smell of you drifts up to my nostrils, I realise why all sense of now was lost in the sense of then.

The ringing of the telephone jolts me from my thoughts, and instinctively my heart knows it's you on the other end of that ring. I don't have to crawl across the bed to answer it, I know, but I can't resist the urge to lay where we once laid. To know that this is still a sacred place for you, for there is an indention on the far side that indicates you were here not long before you went on this vacation of yours. Perhaps you were laying in this very spot, wearing this very shirt when you called and asked me if I minded watching over things for you while you were gone...

"Irvine residence." There's no sound for a few seconds, and I think that maybe I was wrong about it being you.

"Hi, Matt...I was...I was just calling to check on ..." Your voice trails off briefly, as if searching for the proper words, and the butterflies in my stomach fly once again with that whisper. "How are things?"

"Fine, Chris" are the words that come out of my mouth, but you know I mean that things would be better if you were here with me.

"Good, good."

"The stars are shining on the pond." I say the words before I can stop myself, and I hear your breath hitch in your throat, as if to catch the memories of the times I was just thinking of, and I smile because I know you wish you had this shirt on to help you think of what to say.

"It's, uh, a good time of the year to watch them."

"Yeah."

There's an awkward silence between us for what seems like hours, neither of us knowing quite what to say, but saying it all without words. I think you know I am in here, on our bed, and I know now that this *is* where you were when you called me the other night. I get so lost in the erratic pace of your breathing that when you do speak, I almost jump straight off the bed.

"Well, I'll call you, uh, again before w-" you catch yourself, and sigh heavily before continuing. "...before I get ready to come home."

I want to tell you that I want you here now, that I love you and want you to come home to *me*, but all I manage to do is tell you that I'll talk to you later.

"Goodnight, Matt."

"Goodnight, Chris."

I hang up the phone only after the annoying beeping that tells me that you've cut me off rings through my ears, and I can't keep from crying as I crawl underneath the bedding and settle in for the night. Not because I miss you. Not because you aren't here with me now. Those are reasons I could be crying, but they are not.

No, as I drift off to sleep, the tears that roll down my cheeks are because I heard that song, in your voice I heard it. The song of hope and love that I grew addicted to so long ago rang loud and clear to my heart with just the few words you said. They meant more than they did. That you do still love me. That you never got over our love any more than I did.

And you, like me, always liked that addiction best.