Looking down at the ocean below you, you wonder what would've happened if you had asked him to stay? That could've solved all this heartache, you think, all this storm inside you at the mistake you made attempting to marry the other man, the man you'd dreamt about your entire teenage years, at the right boy's eyes growing more and more wet as he stood there in the airport terminal, telling you he loved you but he had to leave. He didn't ask you how you got past security, he didn't ask you if you loved him back. These were moot points. He left. He left, so neither answer matters now.
What if you had told him you loved him earlier? Would he have listened? Would that have arrested the development of the monsters growing inside him, clawing at the beautiful parts of him, shredding them to ribbons? They ask you to tie your hair back with them while you fuck on the scratchy carpet your bedroom, in the kitchen, on the living room floor, in the damn bathroom of the bar, but never in his bed. They're the ones patting you on the head and telling you you're pretty, and isn't it great he's not obsessed any longer? This uncaring bad-boy facade wearing you down to your thinnest layers, until you finally tell him everything inside you except the thing that would've gotten him to stay.
He should've said he loved you, but you should've, too. Lying by omissionĀ is a game you've both perfected at this point, but maybe it's time to come clean, he thinks, when you ask him if he loves you and he answers "of course I love you," because what is there left to lose? He knows at the end of this conversation, he will be sitting on an uncomfortable airplane seat with all of his belongs packed in bags above him, save for the sweater you stole sitting innocently in your dresser drawer,Ā and you will be standing alone, watching the escalator for far too long, begging him to come back and finish what you both started.
You'll never know that when you asked him to meet you on the bridge the day before he left, kissing him back after he kissed you and asking him to start over, start fresh with you by his side, he did come. He did see you and smile, wonder how the hell a rainstorm so beautiful could blow through the parched land of California. But, he listened to his gut. He knew he needed to get out, but he was never leaving just because of you. He was leaving because that place you loved was killing him. You were the catalyst to something much larger than either of you. You tell yourself this at the ocean crashes against the rocks beneath far beneath your angel-white heels.
He never said goodbye, but he told you why. Said that if he did, he would never leave, and you wish he would, wish he'd say goodbye just so he would turn back around and unpack his suitcase, even if it meant not being with you. He loved you, he loves you, and that is, in the end, just as beautiful as it is tragic. He loves you, and he left. You love him, and you never said. Now, it is too late. Now, he is happy, even if it is without you, and you were left in pieces on the couch you used to eat tacos with him on, used to fuck him on, used to watch pointless documentaries on holidays meant to be shared with family on, and now you never will again. You are standing, contemplating the drop, with your back to what was supposed to be your new family.
And, isn't that the point? He became your family, the closest thing you had to healthy. But, maybe a healthier alternative doesn't mean the healthy alternative, and he knew that. He became more enlightened than you could ever hope to be, but because you don't share that enlightenment, you group him together with all the men who have abandoned you, even if you say his name with reverence on your tongue as stand on this cliff-face.
The man of your childhood dreams abandoned you at this runaway train of a wedding as you peer into the abyss in a lace white dress, your father left you as a child and never apologized for it, only came back when he needed your money, your boyfriend in college didn't love you enough to stay, and this boy. This airborne boy who flew 2,000 miles to escape this town, to escape you; you say all their names with vitriol, with malice and spite and spit them into the sea, but not him.
And, in the end, you don't jump off that jagged cliff into the waiting arms of death below. You don't jump, because there is revenge to plan, there are fathers to send away, there are still fires to set. And there is a boy 2,000 miles away who would be devastated at your funeral. You might never see him again, but you don't need to to feel the effect of what he did to your life. He taught you that you don't need to set fire to everything you lose. He taught you that self-hate can be left behind, can be in a life you don't lead anymore. He taught you that it's okay to love someone and have that be enough; no sweeping musical numbers, no black-and-white toned dance breaks, not anymore. Just a boy and a girl, two people who dream of better lives, and who sometimes need to leave love behind to reach them.
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