When your wounds are still gaping after time, stop looking beyond the surface

Are you avoiding me? She says.

A little bit, you say.

She says, Why?

You shrug your shoulders. I don’t know. Well, I kind of know.

She looks at you, waiting for you to continue. You wish something would happen so you don’t have to keep talking, but the only thing that happens is the heat from her eyes burning holes into you. Waiting. Waiting.

You take a deep breath and exhale a sigh. The ground hasn’t swallowed you. A fridge hasn’t fallen from the sky. And she’s still waiting.

You, you say. You make me feel, um…you pause, searching for the right word…insignificant.

You see the relief sweep across her face. The relief turns into a smile and smile becomes a laugh. She thinks you’re joking. Her laughing body blurs for a moment as your eyes fill. You close them and feel a single tear moisten a thin line down your cheek.

*

Things don’t excite you anymore. You’ve forgotten what your dreams are. Did you even have any in the first place? You can’t remember.

*

The two of you are drinking beer in a bar. She says, God we haven't done this for ages. It's nice. Yeah, you say. She smiles, and you develop a sudden all-encompassing interest in the way the bubbles in your beer are formed. It’s not so much you don’t want to talk, you just don’t know what to say. You want to grab her, hug her, tell her you miss her. You see her around most days, and still you miss her. But you don’t have those words, those actions, in you now. So you say, Let’s go to a movie. Because you know you won't need words. She says, Let’s see a comedy, and you're sure she feels strange too. You're glad. Validated. Makes you feel both less petty and also more. You know she’s suffering. Part of you wants that. More than you’ll admit.

Afterwards you tell her it felt good to laugh. That you haven’t done it for so long. She asks, Why? And you notice the flicker in her eye that tells you she knows the answer, so you keep quiet and the laughing knot in your stomach untangles itself and you feel hungry.

*

You have silent conversations with her when she’s not around but they always start halfway through the story and the only words you have any certainty about are, So anyway, then…and you don’t know how the story starts and less about where it ends and you wonder when you lost your words.

You tell yourself over and over that you don’t want to play anymore. But when she calls you up and says, Come over, you say, Yeah, Sure. Just a minute. And you change your clothes (you always change your clothes) and you go. When you’re there you sit together in the quiet. When the silence becomes so heavy you feel it could break your back, you share a joint or a beer then laugh or cry over nothing and everything and you’re convinced it’s only you who feels tense and that you’re misreading and misunderstanding and making things up. And you’re overwhelmed with embarrassment and apology and shame. But when your eyes have dried and you have nothing to cloud your fears you know that it’s not just your imagination.

*

When you’re alone, bored, all you want is for her to pop in. Unannounced. Uninvited. But if you see her drive up, you close the curtains and switch off the lights and watch through a crack until she’s given up knocking and drives away again.

*

She calls you and tells you she wants to hang out with you, Just you and me…we haven’t done that for a while, she says. You brighten. Maybe the awkwardness is over. Maybe it was never there.

You look good, she says, and you suppress the urge to giggle like a teenager with a crush. She takes you to this bar she knows. She goes there after work sometimes. For a little while you sit there and chat and drink and laugh, and for the first time in ages, you’re comfortable. When her friend comes in, you don’t feel the shift straight away. But it’s there. And suddenly you feel it like an icy wind whipping at your face. You try to speak. To act like nothing’s changed. But you’re conscious of yourself. Every movement is exaggerated. You can feel the way your body hangs. Your arms, legs, head. Your stomach. Your heart beating. Your shoulders shrugging, hunching. When you speak it sounds too loud. So you stay quiet and watch while the two of them talk and laugh about people you don’t know and situations you don’t understand. I’m going, you say. Confusion brushes her face before she smiles and says, ok, see you later. And they’re all big smiles and loud laughs before you’ve even left the table.

*

Insignificant.

*

Why’d you leave? She asks you the next day. You were having such a good time.

You want to say, If I fell asleep in the corner you wouldn’t have noticed, but instead you say, I had some things to do, Sorry.

*

You’re walking along the main street. She’s linked your arm in hers. You tell her that you’ve decided to go back to uni to learn about feminism and gender and ideas that might change the world. A Master’s degree. The things you love. She releases your arm, screws up her nose and says, That’s great. Then starts telling you about the latest drama at work, and you have no idea what she’s talking about, or who these people are, but you listen and smile.

*

And then you realise.