no loud talking

“Have you been waiting long?” I ask. The walls aren’t that far apart from each other. It seems like my voice should echo, but it doesn’t.

You shrug, and you make the noncommittal noise you’ve always done in your throat.

“It doesn’t matter, but I do know I’ve been here for a while. And I’ve been the same for a while. So I don’t know what I’m still doing here.”

I stare down at the table, suddenly remembering, suddenly humiliated. The table is made of a finely patterned wood, and it looks polished. There’s a succulent to the side. A clock ticks gently behind me. It seems as if we’re in an office for this interview this time around.

“It hasn’t been that long,” I say slowly, carefully. “I’m not sure how you got trapped in here in the first place. But—“ and I glance at you. Your face is calm, your eyes penetrating as always.

“But?”

“But I know you have to go soon. I just wanted to ask you a few things before you did.”

You sigh, your eyes dropping to also focus on the fine pattern grain. You don’t say anything for a moment. The walls are a pastel that seem to be secretly recording our conversation.

“You know I’m not real, right?” you say finally. “That I’m just a concept? I’m just everything you knew and remembered about him.”

I nod numbly. My voice squeaks as my throat tightens. “I know.” This hits me harder than I anticipated.

“I’m not sure if I can give you the answers you’re looking for.”

“You don’t have to. Just answer to the best of your ability. I just need to hear it from you. I need this to help me let you go.” I’m crying already. You reach across the table and hold my hands in yours for a moment. They’re soft and warm, the fingers long and elegant.

You sigh again. You can’t look at me. “Okay. I’m fine with that. What do you need from me?”

I glance up. You’re crying a little, too. I can tell you want to let go of my hands, so I let you, and swipe my tears away for a second. The pastel breathes easily while watching intently.

“How’s your family?” I say finally.

You smile, but your eyes are sad. “You’ve always been kind, but I contain nothing of him from the present.” You push your glasses up your nose. “So you probably don’t have to worry about that.”

I shrug helplessly. Your face, your hands, your body, your clothing—everything is there. Everything I’ve remembered and carefully stored away. What’s missing is just the reality. So I dive in. The water’s warm.

“Do you think I was worth it?”

You look at me. “What do you mean?”

“Was I worth spending time with? It always seemed like you were somewhere else when you were with me—“ The accusations are coming out like a vile stream of fish before I can stop them. “I don’t know why you couldn’t decide if you wanted to be with me or not. You dragged it on for so long. So was I even worth it?” The fish flop onto the desk and sink down at your feet, as if they were stones. They don’t swim around despite the water being up to your waistline.

Your eyes are soft. The clock is ticking gently, pecking at the dry ground behind us for invisible crumbs. “You know you were, and still are. But not for me, and not for him now. For yourself. You have to understand. You were always worthy.” You’re silently weeping again, a crevice forms. The warm water starts draining away. “You didn’t need him, but he needed you, at least for a moment. You know he felt guilty about that. You know that’s why he let you go.”

I say nothing, staring at the floor appearing as the water drains away. The fish cool and dry, and the tiled floor seems to absorb them through the crevice and melds silently back together.

“It seemed so easy that I was the one to be abandoned.”

You jerk your head, looking angry. The crevice widens. “It’s not. I know it feels unfair but it wasn’t easy. Not for him, never for anyone. Don’t ever question that. It’s a disservice to the entire relationship,” you snap.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble.

You put the broken pieces of your words on the highly polished table and push them aside next to the succulent. The hair on your hand trembles, as if flinching away from the words that just fell out. “I’m sorry for my tone. But it’s true. You didn’t need me to remind you that.”

I look at your face. I don’t know how you’re feeling, but I guess I also don’t know if memories of a person can have any sort of independent feeling.

“Do you miss me?”

You gaze at me and nod. “I do. And he will, perhaps for a time. I actually miss you terribly. It’s agony seeing you, but neither will matter to who you are, or to your fundamental self.” You adjust the cuff on your sleeve as the last fish slaps up against the side of your chair and emits a death rattle. “You get to choose whether or not it will matter in the future.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I whispered.

“I know you didn’t.”

“I just have to be selfish for once.”

“I understand.”

The clock, done with its pecking, settles back to its even ticks. The crevice is gone, having done its duty of sucking the water away, the last fish evaporated. The snapped words blended into the table. The pastel walls are just pastel. But, still, metaphor or no metaphor, everything waits with bated breath.

“I’ll let you go, now.”

You smile again, this time it seems that the sadness from your eyes had reached the corners of your mouth. “Thank you. Can you show me the exit?”

A plain, wooden office style door with a pane of frosted glass is to the right.

We both get up, clamoring clumsily out of the chairs. You face me for a moment.

“Is there anything else?”

Slowly, I approach you and wrap my arms around you.

Your stubble grazes my cheek and you still smell like the shampoo sitting on the shelf in your bathroom. It’s the same smell you had after waking up and kissing me in the morning, the smell you had after sex, the smell you had as you held me before you left me in our reality. I try my hardest not to cry, and fail.

You’re hugging me, rubbing my back gently. “I can’t come back once I leave,” you murmur.

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, but I won’t disappear. I’ll try not to show up in your dreams, but I can’t make any promises.” You draw back and rest your hand on my face, gently wiping away a tear with your thumb.

“You know you’re a good person. You deserve more than being stuck here in this place you’ve made, talking to the last memories of a man you used to love.”

You let go and rest your hand on the doorknob.

“What should I do now?” I ask.

You look at me and smile one last time.

“Live.” It was not a command, but a request.