His therapist says it is okay to grieve, but it does
no good to deny. He does not understand what that means. He is not denying, how
could he? Every morning when he gets up he knows what is happening, there is no
point in pretending he would not notice. So no, he is not.
But he does not think he can be blamed for not wanting
to let go.
She looks exactly as in her profile, exactly as in one
of their numerous Skype calls, shoulder-long dark hair, female curves, long
legs folded beneath the table. She has her back turned towards him but he still
recognizes her immediately. In the same moment he knows just how hard it will
be.
He has never met her before in person, they know each
other only from texts and calls that lasted through nights, but he still feels
like he has known her for years. He knows she detests fish but loves mussels
cooked in garlic and tomato sauce. She likes painting and gardening although
she claims to be bad at both. She works as a high school teacher but dreams of
opening a bakery. She is sparkling and funny, and a good listener, too, asking
the right questions and placing the right silences.
She knows he works in IT, likes old cars and collects
Scotch. She knows he loves traveling, diving and climbing. And that is not even
a lie because he still does. Preferences like that do not change from one year
to the other. That he does not actually do any of those activities anymore is a
tiny but probably important detail he has neglected to mention.
The online world has one great advantage: everyone can
be whatever they want to be, build a version of themselves they like, without
being judged, without having to lie, not specifically at least if you do not
count lying by leaving out certain truths.
But it does not go further than that. It does not
matter what you make yourself online, you are still you in the real world. As
he observes her from behind, watches her lifting the ceramic cup in front of
her to her lips, he wonders what it is that he does not know about her. Does
she need to have secrets?
Online dating was not something he did before. But as
soon as he tried he was hooked. It is simply too easy. And it keeps him from
being lonely. Lately he finds it hard to be with family and friends. People who
know. Because in their eyes he can see himself, how he has been, and in their
actions he can see himself, too, how he could have been. Being with them, he
can never forget, it is always there, staring into his face. At first people
who knew avoided talking about specific topics; sports, jobs, travels. After
some time it all shifted back to normal, back to how it was before. Marriage,
the new car, children... Only now they are talking mostly while he listens. He
cannot say what is worse.
This is exactly why he enjoys passing time with people
who do not know the whole truth. So what? He is well aware that he is not
really what he pretends to be, online. Not anymore. And in fact, he will never
be again, is moving away from this point at full-speed. Not having to think
about it for a second or a few minutes of conversation… still feels amazing.
There is no harm in that, right?
During the last months he has started to feel like all
he does is observing life as it happens around him, to people around him. He
experiences a disconnection to simple things like a regular work day, a full
night of sleep, an afternoon out with friends. His life now seems to consist of
endless hours in waiting rooms that feel more familiar than his own apartment,
the timelessness of seemingly never ending agony before a drug starts working,
the brief glimpses into normalcy when the complex balance of toxic substances
that he swallows or injects on a more regular basis than taking up food are in
equilibrium with the mechanisms of self-destruction of his body, before he gets
thrown back into chaos and to the beginning of the vicious cycle of scans,
tests and trial drugs.
So although he experiences social life separated by a
screen as well, it is the closest thing to life he has. And with her it has
been more than amazing, better than he ever dreamed it could be. The thought of
being able to talk to her in the morning has brought him through many a
sleepless night, spent screaming in pain or crouched over the toilet, puking his
guts out. The image of her in front of his eyes has him grit his teeth and
survive the grueling hours of physical therapy that can improve nothing, only
make the decline less unbearable. Knowing she would be there for him has been
the sole motivation to pick himself up from the floor, clean himself from puke,
blood and tears and the hollow realization that this would be his life from now
on, and start over. Again, and again, and again.
He looks at himself in the glass front of the cafe,
her silhouette in the garden outside. She is still oblivious of him standing
here and watching her. He grimaces at his own reflection in the glass, the skin
spanning tight over sharp cheekbones. His features have once been delicate and
pronounced, he supposes. Now he simply looks half starved. If he tilts his head
just so, the light falls in a way that the dark shadows under his eyes turn
into the black craters of a skull. He shivers and shifts his eyes away.
This is going to be so much harder than he thought.
He is not denying anything. How could he when it is
obvious not only to him but to everyone meeting him that something is wrong. He
looks down on his hand that is curled around the cane's handle. He does not
dare to go anywhere without it, not anymore, too often has he ended up stranded
somewhere and needed to call someone to pick him up.
So yes, all pretending ends at this point, with
meeting in person. She is going to get to know the whole truth.
She is going to get to know him.
He has never met with someone from online. His online
flirts have rarely ever lived through multiple chats, often enough the
attraction he has felt has wavered and vanished at least after the first
telephone calls or Skype conversation. With her it has been different, though.
They have clicked from the first exchange of words and there has been something
between them that has made them go on and on for weeks, months, discussions
evolving into more heated action, until they knew it was not enough anymore.
They simply had to meet. She has been the one suggesting it and he has given in
to her after some hesitation. Only he knows he has sealed the end of this.
Eventually he has to wake up in the life that he lives, as the person he
actually is.
He has to let her go.
He watches her shake her hair back and knows that this
is just a taste of how bad it is really going to be. He hopes she is at least
of the kind that makes a quick end of it instead of offering endless, awkward
excuses.
He takes a deep breath and exits onto the terrace. The
only reason why he came in the first place was that she deserves a closure. And
the only reason why he does not turn around and leaves now, saving them both
from the inevitable, is the fact that he needs proof that she is actually real
and that for a limited time he has had a relationships with someone who is not
in a medical profession and primarily interested in images of his brain. And
maybe, just maybe, he hopes that they can talk, at least for a small while, and
that he can feel the warmth of her smile and maybe even the softness of her
hands, just very, very briefly before everything falls to pieces.
As he makes his way along the tables towards her, he
tries his best to hide the limp, like usual. His vision stays relatively clear,
no jitter from left to right or blurring at the edges, in fact it is better
than it has been in weeks, although he is moving. He starts to allow himself to
hope that this day might be a good one, just when he needs it. And that thought
sparks another, darker one. He cannot see why it has to be him to ruin this.
Why not carry on with what has worked so well in the online world? Why not
continue as his old self, as long as he can, and until he has figured out who
his new self is going to be?
He can already hear what his therapist would have to
say to this and he knows he is crossing several lines here… but this could be
his day! Who knows how many chances like this will be offered to him in the
future, maybe this is the last one. Isn’t he always told not to give in to the disease?
Well, here he is, doing exactly what he is supposed to, for once.
He does not do plans anymore, something deeply
worrisome for his therapist as well, apparently. "You know it's not
fatal," the man frequently uses to say carefully, "You need to keep
looking forward." He simply does not like looking forward because he is
fucking afraid of what will be there. And he just does not get the point of
making a plan and then having to correct it after weeks or months, and then
again and again, until nothing is left of the original goal anymore.
As he advances her back, a few heads turning at the
thump of the cane, he makes a plan for today, though. This is going to be an
amazing one, maybe the last amazing day that is granted to him. And he is going
to give everything to make it real.
When he is only a few steps away she turns around and
her eyes lighten up as she sees him, a huge smile growing. It freezes the
moment her gaze drops to the cane and his stomach twists.
A good day, he tells himself. Just this one day, he begs,
as he carefully closes the distance between them, telling his legs to keep up
the good pretense. Suddenly he knows that everything depends now on him.
She is going to stay only this night, her flight back
is tomorrow at noon so that she can be at work on Monday. They are going to
have a great time together, just like they have had online. They will sit and
eat and then say goodbye again and she will not have to know the truth. She can
go back to her friends and tell them about her online boyfriend, and the
tragedy that is a long-distance relationship. They do not need to meet for
another six months, and who knows what happens until then.
Six months are a lifetime, as he knows too well.
Yes, he feels terribly guilty for deceiving her. He
always knew it was wrong. But he realizes that he has already gone too far
to go back now. When he tells her the truth now she will know that he hid it on
purpose, maybe even suspect that he did it to lurk her to come here. And even
if she forgives him, she will be gone as soon as she learns what he has been
trying to conceal.
But there is no need for that. There is no need for
anyone to get hurt.
He does not look at her when he sits down, shooting a
hand out behind himself to soften the fall, turning away from her a little to
not let her see that he struggles with simple tasks like this.
"Hi," he says, finally lifting his head.
She is smiling again, apprehensively though, and
hiding her confusion by wrapping her hands around the mug.
"Hi," she says and her features glow.
"It's so good to see you."
"It is. You know, three dimensions suit you.
You... look as beautiful as on my computer. Better even, if that’s
possible."
She giggles and blushes a little. Adorable.
"Well, thanks, I guess. You are not bad yourself." Her eyes dart
away. "What's the deal with the... um..."
He lifts the canes' handle above the table.
"Uh yes. That. A sports injury?"
Glad she is offering him such an easy way out he nods.
"Yeah... something like that..."
He stores the cane back under the table next to his
right knee and holds his breath, waiting for the inevitable. Thunder striking
him from the sky, his therapist calling to tell him he gives up on him, or her
simply looking through the lie and starting to laugh.
Laughter is his best shot, probably. It is certainly
better than her shrieking in horror.
"Oh," she says instead. "I'm sorry.
Must be terrible not to be completely mobile, especially for a sports person
like you."
He nods again and coughs, trying not to think about
the stabbing truth in her words. "Huh... yeah. Have you ordered
already?"
When he looks up at her smiling face, her cheeks still
tinted red and her eyes sparkling, he knows he could never bring himself to make
that look of happiness change into shock, and he knows he could never stand to
see those eyes fill with sadness, like he has seen so many times. This is when
he knows he has made the right decision. And so he leans back, and tries to
relax his shoulders, the cane out of sight beyond the table and he vows not to
get up again if not absolutely necessary.
Turns out, meeting her in person is not so different
from meeting her online. Only better, because now he can see the fine strands
of her hair falling into her face when she laughs, get a whiff of her perfume
when she leans over the table and feel her breath on his cheek as she whispers
into his ear. Time flies by and by early evening they are still sitting in the
cafe, the air cooling down around them, and he catches himself staring at her
and thinking that this might work. He starts dreaming of their next meeting, in
a few months, maybe spending more time together. A vacation. Alas...
"Sorry? Say that again?"
"Already bored of me?" She teases.
He chuckles. "I could listen to you for days in a
row without getting bored... In fact, I think I already have, at least
once."
She grins. "I know I talk too much.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t. Keep talking forever,
please. What were you going to say?”
She fixes him with her eyes. “I... uh... It's getting
cold and I thought... Well, maybe we want to..." Her cheeks color pink.
"Oh..."
He has never allowed himself to think ahead this far.
In his mind they always left this place separated, in varying conditions of
despair. "Y-yeah... I'd like that." He keeps sitting like he is
rooted there, however.
She tilts her head. "It's a little strange, isn't
it?" she says carefully, her hand lying between them on the table. "I
mean... You and I... We have seen so much of each other, I mean not only
visual... But... Also that, in fact. I feel like I have known you for such a
long time but still we have never..."
He places his hand over hers, squeezing to hide the
small tremor. Nerves or a result of his condition, he cannot say for sure now
because it is the first time they have touched and his heart flutters against
his ribcage as if about to escape. He looks up at her and realizes she has had
the same thought, her eyes wide and her mouth forming a surprised O.
He waits until his breathing has evened out. "I
think it's normal to be nervous. We'll take one step at a time, remember? This
is just a test. We can go back to looking at each other’s half frozen Skype
image when this does not work out."
He does not believe a thing he says. This is going to
an end, he can see it clearly. It has been a dream and it is time to wake up.
"A test, yes," she repeats and finally a
smile spreads on her face. She squeezes his hand that is still lying in hers
and he thinks her fingers are trembling a little as well. "A test. I can
do that.”
They sit and stare at each other, hands clasped, until
she giggles and grins. “Shall we start testing with proceeding to the
hotel?"
A great dream, though.
He does not want it to end.
He has not had sex since the diagnosis. In fact, not
some time before that, even, when he was still okay mostly but already felt
something lurking in the darkness. It had started with sudden tingles in his
legs, or outbursts of tiredness befalling him, both of which just vanished
after some hours or days and left him wondering if he had imagined the
symptoms. He had refused going to the doctor, telling himself that he was just
overworked.
Until he woke up one day, blind in his left eye.
Of course he knows it would be wise to end it now. He
could say that he is tired and wants to go home. Alone. She would take the hint
and be probably heartbroken for a while but she is not going to be too
surprised for too long. There is no guarantee that people will actually connect
in real life when they have only known each other from chats. They both
considered that possibility. She is prepared for that.
She is not prepared for him.
But just the thought of being in the same room like
her, alone with her, makes his throat go dry and his pulse shoot into the sky.
He wants her so much, his whole body aching with the longing to hold her in his
arms, his heart burning with the crushing thought of seeing her go now.
And so he nods and waits for her to get up and lead
the way before detaching his protesting body from the chair. His legs scream at
him to rest, the joints stiff and painful as he puts weight on them, his head
pounds and as he straightens he realizes that he is a little dizzy. Usually by
this time he would have taken at least a short nap and started thinking about
calling it a night already.
He realizes that he does not want it to go on like
this forever. Hiding inside his room, submitting to the moods of his body, just
waiting for the next torture it will come up with. At least he does not want to
miss out on what he thinks he can still do now. Plus, he does not feel so bad
indeed, although it is hard to say how he feels since he is most of the time
somewhere near terrible.
They leave the cafe, the cane reappears and he walks a
little slower than before, relying on the wooden stick for balance but he is
glad to find out that his legs do not fail him. This really seems to be a
fantastic day, although he has been out and about for an unusual long time now.
He will probably pay for that tomorrow. He always does, eventually.
But for now he follows after her and meets her at the
curb, waiting at her side for a taxi to stop, leaning subtly on the cane while
she talks. Her hotel is close by and so they arrive not much later, the lobby
is small and deserted, and the elevator works fine.
Interesting start.
ReplyDeleteTc
Thanks! :)
DeleteSigh...
ReplyDeleteThanks. Please don't end it here.
I hate when authors do that, so I try not to :) Thanks for the comment!
DeleteI have to say it over and over again: I love your writing. You are so talented. Somehow I am always kind of obsessed with your stories.
ReplyDeleteOh chandelier, thanks so much! Haha, sounds serious ;-)
DeleteGreat writing!
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteBittersweet and heartfelt and great like everything you write.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much.
Thanks for the lovely comment! <3
DeleteVery descriptive and detailed writing, I wish I could write like that. I am still trying to figure out what is going on with him, what kind of disability...
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dani! All authors have their strengths and weaknesses, I guess... I for one struggle to write longer stories. I start writing, I develop a structure, sometimes even a very detailed one, nothing could possibly go wrong and then... I lose interest. Suddenly the act of writing alone seems so awfully boring to me :D I could force myself to continue writing but that would be no fun. And fun is one of the reasons I write. So yeah... maybe one day :) I guess, important is to remember that we all continuously get better and that it is good to have a goal but that ultimately it is all about the joy of writing and creating.
DeleteTake a guess! Google is your best friend. WebMD only lists about 100 conditions to the symptoms I described ;-) 99% of which are simple bs because their algorithm is stupid... nearsightedness, my ass. But it is among those 100. In contrast to the only other condition (in my very unprofessional opinion) that would be also likely from the information I gave (and even doctors mix them up frequently...) which is not listed. Yes, never trust the internet.
Hmmm . . . seven 7's I -- hope your next installment includes the bells and whistles and a few blinking lights! Jackpot, indeed!
ReplyDeleteHaha, Pepper :) Hm... was that a guess? I like it! It's wrong but it's genius! I had not thought of that at all.
DeleteThe next chapter will have the solution already. So keep guessing everyone because I have a whole lot of patience (no I don't).
So i waited alllllll sunday and you didnt post. :(
ReplyDeleteSorry! I was sick last week. I never said I would upload weekly or on any specific day, though. But I'll upload asap now (you know that means nothing, right? ;-)). Maybe more guessing and less complaining? :D
DeleteOk I am crying buckets now :)
DeleteSigh..I hope you are feeling better for sure.
You see..I love a male pov..and it is soooo bittersweet..so touching.
I love it in short.
Ok I hope this is motivation enough :) :) :)
Haha, definitely is ;-) Thanks! <3
DeleteI'm better and I try not to forget to update on... guess Sunday. Promise :)