Letting Go

"Regrets can hold you back and can prevent the most wonderful things taking place in your lives" – Eileen Caddy

She was angry and no one could blame her. Furious in fact or at the very least that is how she was to appear. Her hard-nosed exterior was on par with the sitcom house... a set and a set up; so long as no one messed up the illusion, the illusion stayed.

When she was five, her best friend moved away... she cried for a second and then pulled herself together and said she didn't like playing with him anyway.

Twenty years later, eighty or so centimeters taller, from cute to sexycat... her nose still screwed up the same. She couldn't let him see her cry, not that he'd never seen her cry, but she couldn't let him see her cry over him. So she told him she didn't like him... She did say it was a case of just not anymore. The idea of pretending that she never had appeared unbearable.

If he saw that she was lying, he didn't let on... he knew better than to force her.

"I'm not that fond of you anymore myself," he said with a revealing tender look.

He had, after all, seen her at her best and her worst, even if he didn't know it. He took the piece of paper she held out to him; unsure of what to do next he asked her what she wanted him to do.

"Shall I open it now or later?" "It doesn't matter really."

He decided to open it later. More than anything she was relieved. Every since he asked her what he would do without her, with a sincerity that made Gandhi seem deceitful in comparison, she had felt a roughness in her throat. The harder she tried to swallow it, the more she realized that the wonder she was feeling was about to leave the room... It was going to walk right out of there and out on them.

She'd never doubted that he felt something, though she wasn't so bold or cocky as to expect that he would. When they first reached the room and she'd stumbled into his arms, she felt as though she was reaching home. She did not know if home was still there, and worried that pinning all her hopes on feeling as she always had before could be setting herself up for an even bigger fall.

Home had been there like it was never there before. It made her wonder if the farewell she'd written was actually redundant from what she'd just experienced. She'd gone there with the intention that she'd never be in this position again, and so regardless she passed the letter on. She had expected him to push her away, instead he held her closer and tighter than he'd ever done. She wanted to hold him tighter too, but couldn't see how it might make things better. When she'd gone to leave the hotel, she thought that that was it. She never imagined him following her all the way to her work, pulling her into a corner; she never dreamt he'd blow her kisses with a sad look on his face, or that that would be her final image of him.

After all, there was never anything mushy about fuckbuddies.

He was so caught up in everything, he walked out of the hotel without checking out though he had no intention of returning to the messed up bed. She was so busy trying to act like she wasn't on the verge of tears, that she looked everywhere but him and focused on imprinting every moment they'd ever shared onto her brain, and then worried he'd notice she was looking everywhere but at him, she'd stare straight into his eyes. All she could do was rationalize her thought processes and imprints. After all, good memories are worth holding onto and meant nothing less than that. For some reason she seemed to think he was the best memory and one she would never manage to shake.

As they stood waiting for the tram, she tried to make sense of the look on his face.

"I don't know what to say," he said.

She'd seen that look before back at the hotel room... She had looked into his eyes, and he into hers. Locked gazes weren't enough to change anything, and this she knew. Locked gazes were like threats that were never followed through... when you both had a clear understanding of what each other felt though it wasn't necessarily where they stood. She didn't know what to say either, she'd said it so many times she didn't have it in her to say it anymore.

Short of pulling a Glenn Close, there was nothing left to be said.

He pocketed the letter and she felt a moment of panic trying to recall precisely what it was she had written. The context had changed dramatically since she first put the pen on the paper, determined that she'd leave him with herself intact. Or at least, with all the cracks covered up until he could not see them anymore.

Without the typical nastiness or blunt rejection that goes hand in hand with the average break up, the choice had been a tough one to make. In the end she made him make it so she could hate him a little... but hate doesn't work when there is nothing more than good feelings about someone. He made it as she knew he would... she knew she would never love someone who could make the other choice. When he chose his child, or so she wanted to believe, she knew she could never regret a moment of what they had shared. Yet she had to tell him that they were over and done for, no further discussion. She wouldn't have made him make the choice in normal circumstances until he pointed out that the strength of their relationship was based on the weakness of her other one.

"You let me in," his eyes pierced her heart as they looked over her face.

If she'd ever literally felt cracks appear on her china heart that would pinpoint the time.

"Of course I let you in!"

She wanted to scream those words at him, but she felt a tenderness towards him that was beyond description. His sweet smell was enough to quell her strongest anger. She had such emotion for him that no matter how much walking away would hurt her, she knew she could never seek revenge.

Every time she ran the numerous alternative outcomes through her mind it always had reached the fact that he was with someone else, she was with someone else. If those 'someone else's' were to just fade away, then maybe they could have had something that was not only special but also socially acceptable. Something that wouldn't rip the roof off from over their heads if found out or hurt people that they cared about, even if their actions seemed to say the contrary.

But now it didn't matter whom they were with, he was going to be a father. She recalled when she had thought she was going to be a mother and so she'd struggled. The conclusion she drew was that it didn't matter how much she loved him, her baby would always be first and that was how it was to be. In the bigger picture, the chemistry they shared needed to be forgotten; hidden like an Egyptian mummy in its tomb.

Their chemistry, or energy as they preferred to call it, simply couldn't be contained. For every time they had resolved to control it so they could maintain their friendship, they had increased their public displays of affection. First it was in the secrecy of her bedroom, then in dark corners of city nightlife, and later under the summer sun. Whenever they met, they would peck each other hello and goodbye. It was only someone who was watching closely that might notice his extra firm grip on her arm or her affectionate squeeze below his ribs. They often joked about how platonic they were trying to appear.

The stolen moments of affection were a large source of her anger and frustration. His unwavering friendship was the other primary source. The closeness they had developed from the moment they first came in contact had kept her alive in many respects, but as time wore on and the closeness became strengthened it was what hurt her the most; in the end she felt like a piece of deadwood – not just chipped away at and sunken, but drowned good and proper.

She had known it was reaching the point where she wouldn't be able to pretend that she didn't particularly care that much, that she was capable of seeing him as little more than a good friend and a sex toy. So she tried to nip it in the bud and told him that she loved him; she didn't expect anything of him, but she loved him. She waited to hear the sounding of his rapidly receding footsteps, but they never came. Instead he smiled at her, and held her affectionately. Later he told her he felt the same.

She wasn't always the best judge when it came to people's emotions, but as he spoke she swore his lip trembled slightly.

"This is just too familiar."

He held her in the spoon position; she could feel his heartbeat in her back. Thumping her with vibrations that she wanted to hold onto forever. She rolled over and buried her head in his chest, trying not to think; thinking was overrated at times like this.

Part of her had worried that in appearing emotionless she might lose him somehow, but she could see it in his eyes; he was only too aware of how she was feeling. It was then she remembered when she'd first slipped the cuffs onto his wrists, tying him securely to the bed. The flicker of vulnerability, the uncertainty he couldn't share, which his face gave away. When she mentioned it several months later, he was astounded that she'd even seen it; they had always appeared to be somewhat effortlessly in sync with one another's moods. Their ability to read each other's body language, as well as their ability to pick up on each other's moods, meant their times together were rarely spent in confusion.

The weakest point in their association was when they tried to pretend to feel something other than what they did. Having the relationship they had had, it wasn't all that long before they discovered that each felt equally irritable when they were trying to avoid temptation. Naturally, it seemed, was how they did it best. In many respects it was the rawness that made it impossible to exist under repression and restraint, and this only increased as the connection grew.

It was as he said, several times,

"It's hard because neither one wishes the other out of their lives."

They had deleted one another from their phones numerous times, only to be confronted by the numbers embossed into their memories. Even where they tried to remove temptation, ultimately one of them, usually she, would send a friendly text.

The first time they went a good week or so without any contact. Eight months later, she'd whittled her tolerance for temptation down to just several hours after seeing him. She had decided against going straight home after work and lingered, languishing in the comfort of alcohol and female company. Her fingers soon made their journey from her drink to her phone.

Good memories came with a high price at times.

The next day she checked her phone. As she read his well wishes, she knew he had read her letter.

"To be upset over what you don't have... is to waste what you do have." – Ken Keyes Jr.

The only solace she found in his quietly determined farewell was the knowledge that he loved her enough to let her go.