Thomas jerks forward again but stops himself. He shakes his head once, silently telling me not to cry. His bunched fists open and close at his sides. He is dying to touch me – I know. But I won’t let him.
“See, that’s worse, Thomas,” I tell him, getting choked up. “Because if you don’t hate me then that means you…” I can’t say love. I don’t think I can ever say love. “Feel something opposite of hate, and if you in fact feel something opposite of hate, how could you not find me before this? How could you not pick up a phone to tell me you don’t hate me? I went days and weeks thinking you hated me, that I ruined every fucking thing in your life. I thought because of me, you’d never be happy. People kept telling me it wasn’t true, that it couldn’t have been me, but I never believed them. I still don’t believe them. How could you do that to me? How could you let me carry that burden? How could you do that to a person you don’t hate?”
I don’t know how long I’ve kept these words inside, and how long I can go on now before breaking down and sobbing on this godforsaken sidewalk. My tears show no sign of stopping, and I feel a sob beginning to emerge.
So maybe I’m being selfish. Obviously, he never had the time before this. He was busy taking care of Hadley and his son. I should let him off the hook, but I don’t want to. I don’t. I can’t. Loving myself means fighting for myself, fighting for my sanity, and I will fucking fight. I won’t be a martyr even though guilt keeps pouring out of me like tears and sweat.
“You don’t. You don’t do that to a person you don’t hate,” he whispers, his eyes red-rimmed. The tears shining in them stagger me. I mean, I know he must cry—he’s human—but seeing it in the flesh is…defeating. I feel defeated at his tears. I feel like I’ll crumble right here.
“Then why d-did you?”
“Because with you, everything is new. I feel like I’ve never not hated anyone before.”
A broken chuckle escapes me at his deliberate use of my terminology. He doesn’t laugh though; no. “With you, I feel that I’ve never had any feelings before, like it’s the first time I’m feeling anything at all. Do you know how terrifying that is?” He shakes his head and answers his own question. “It’s very terrifying. I have so many things I want to say to you that I end up saying the wrong thing. I’m so scared of taking the wrong step that I never move at all. I don’t know why I do that. I don’t know why I keep fucking things up when it comes to you, but all I can say is you make me feel like…I’ve never taken a breath before, like I’ve never lived before.”
It’s spooky how he said the same thing I was thinking about earlier, that he looks…unlived somehow.
We’re soul mates, my heart whispers.
Shut up, moron. We don’t think about those things anymore.
There’s an eerie seriousness in the air, and I don’t know how to deal with that. “Well, that was…um, very poetic.”
He tucks his hands into his pockets and rolls on his feet, as if embarrassed. “You wake up the words in me.”
That stirs a memory from long ago, but I can’t quite grasp it. Why does it feel like I’ve heard that before? And why does everything feel sad and hopeless again? Like even if all of this is true, too much has happened?
“I don’t know what to do with that,” I tell him honestly.
“I’ll wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For you to figure out what to do with it.”
“That’s…” I shake my head. “You can’t do that.”
“Sure I can.”
“What if I never figure it out?”
“Then I’ll keep waiting.”
“That’s crazy,” I scoff. “That’s…like the book.” My heart bottoms out then. It’s exactly like Barthes’ book, the one I stole from him ages ago. I still have it tucked away at the bottom of my drawer.
“A lover is the one who waits,” he paraphrases. “Then, I’ll wait. Forever.”
The Bard
In the months following my divorce, and getting custody of Nicky, I’ve thought a lot about what bravery means. Is it the absence of fear? Is it the feeling of being invincible?
I realized I already know what it means, that I’ve already seen it. My father was a brave man. It’s an odd and jarring thought, but it’s true. All my life I assumed my father was weak, that he wasn’t even a real poet, and I did everything I could to not be like him. But, as it turns out, my father was braver than me.
Bravery is picking up a pen and writing. Bravery is gouging out words from inside you and then imprinting them on a page to make them permanent. Bravery is knowing they might not ever be read by anyone, that the art you leave behind, the contributions you make to the world, might never be known by anyone. Bravery is knowing all of that but doing it anyway.
Like my father did. He wrote for himself. He didn’t care about the awards or validations. He wasn’t a good father, no, but in his own way, he was brave—braver than I ever was. I put so much stock into what I don’t want to be that I forgot what I could be.
I’ve started writing again. It’s poetry. It will always be poetry. That’s how I express myself. It’s the voice of my soul, like Anesthesia. The testament to my loneliness even when Hadley and I were together.
I’ve been working on a collection about Nicky. It helps me deal with things that happened. I don’t know where Hadley is. She left, just like she said she would. All I can wish is that she finds the peace she’s looking for. Maybe one day she’ll be back and Nicky can meet her. But until then, I’ll tell him stories about his mom.
Nicky has grown up so much. He is walking. He laughs. He plays. His favorite toys still change every week. It’s as if there is no past for him. He doesn’t remember being in the hospital or almost choking to death.
I do. I remember those things. They keep me awake at night. I check up on him constantly. I sleep more on the floor by his crib, than on the bed. But that’s okay. For now, they make me feel in control.
When I watch Nicky take stumbling steps, I look down at my own feet. I flex my toes to understand the mechanics of walking. There are times when I feel that every step is my very first step. There are times when I look at the world with Nicky’s eyes and wonderment.
And I keep coming to the same conclusion: that bravery is not the absence of fear, but the courage to do something despite it—taking that first step despite the danger of falling, creating a piece of art knowing that people might not appreciate it.
Bravery is like falling in love. You don’t know if the person will reciprocate, but still you fall.
Bravery is waiting for my Layla. I couldn’t ask her to love me back then. It wouldn’t have been fair. She’d already given me too much, and in return, I’d hurt her too much.