It was something she heard, read before, even used casually. Now staring at her phone, short breath, eyes stinging, hands barely able to hold on to the devastating small glass brick within them, it was a painfully accurate expression.
"Do not text me anymore."
She swallowed hard, gingerly placing her phone on the table. How does something that started so wonderful, crash and burn like this? What did I even do that made her act this way? I must have done something pretty bad.
They had been talking for a couple months. She had small hopes that perhaps their tiny flick of a spark would bloom, only, it did.
Standing in her room, in the aftermath of the flash fire, she staggered over to her bed and collapsed.
Sleep wasn't hard to find.
Bones weak, but nothing close to the pain in her chest.
She murmured into her pillow at first. Then, turning onto her back she whispered into the dark.
But, was that really the only answer?
She plagued herself rereading deleted messages behind her eyelids. She tormented herself in the memories she'd rather forget trying to find any sort of clue, sign or otherwise for where things went terribly, and utterly wrong. Why they continued to go wrong despite her best efforts.
Being unable to talk in the other woman's presence, being unable to look the other woman in the eye, doing as much as she could to become small in the room, she knew it looked bad. She knew it could be mistaken for anger and bitterness, or worse, pride. Perhaps it was those things on occasion. She was a woman, too, after all. But, when you're walking on eggshells, isn't the answer to be quiet? To assess the situation while trying to muster up the courage to send an olive branch?
She awoke with salty crystals in the corners of her eyes.
Grimacing at the clock, she sighed.
She sat up in bed. Wondering why did connection have to be so hard. Wondering why she continued to yearn for the other woman that so clearly slammed the last door in her face.
In every sense impenetrable.
"What am I supposed to do now?"
The answer came after the second attempt at a depression nap proved even more unsuccessful.
You love. You wish her well. You pray for her peace. And, you leave it be.
Though it still confused her, that is what she did.
She took her love, buried it in roses, and stopped looking back.
