Do you love her?

My knees were shaking. My mouth dry, my mind a blank. I tried again to listen to what he was telling me, but no matter how hard I listened I didn’t hear anything over the mind shattering silence in my head. I listened and there was nothing, and it drove me crazy. Time did not matter as I just stood there frozen. Then, as suddenly as the silence disappeared a question screamed in my head; “Do you love her?”

Suddenly that was the most important thing in my life. His answer. Did he love her? Like it would somehow make it better to know. To forgive though I could never forgive him. Or to leave, though I thought I would never be able to. Yet I was scared, scared that by me asking I would somehow make him love her, make him think of her in a way he hadn’t before and then realize that, yes, he did love her.

Still I whispered my question. Whimpering like a puppy afraid of being hurt by its owner. “Do you love her?” He looked at me, but I could not meet his eyes and looked at the floor, to my feet. The seconds went by as I wondered just what I wanted to hear.

A yes would send me to rock bottom in a heartbeat. I would break, my hart would shatter into pieces so small it would take me forever to glue them back together. But still, a yes would be the end of this chapter but also, in time, a beginning of a new. At rock bottom there would be only one way to move on. Upwards.

A no would be my chance to keep this going. This tango between to people so destructive that anything in its way would be destroyed. Like a hurricane this relationship was tearing me up by the roots, and blowing away everything I had built up. A no would be a prison, the final nail in the coffin for all my values. With a no I would forgive the thing I vowed I could never forgive. A no, and he would own me forever.

He drew his breath as I held mine. “ I don’t know” he answered. As always not doing as I expected, as I needed. What was I going to do with “I don’t know”? Stay and fight? Make him see, as I so clearly saw it; that it was me and no one else for him? But what would I be winning? More pain? More drama? He was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and for that I loved him. I was mad with love – literally.

But I could not live with “I don’t know”. For the first time in a long, long time I dug myself out of the hole that had become my life, the hole he had dug me. A grave for all my strength, moral and self-worth. I reached for my jacket. The room was spinning. The colors turned grey, everything turned gray. My hart pounded in my head. I put my jacket on, taking time buttoning every single button, my hands shaking. Then I took my bag and turned for the door. I needed to go home and cry and rinse myself of all of this. To be white as driven snow yet again. To live. And maybe someday, be happy again.

“Nina…” He called my name in a low voice. In my name, I heard everything. Every feeling, every thought we ever shared. Maybe he wanted to ask me to stay, maybe he wanted to say he was sorry, that it would be only me if I came back. Maybe he just wanted to say good bye. But I didn’t stay for all these words that might have come, I had already overstayed this relationship and the hollow person that was left of me would die in his arms if I did not leave at once. “Nina…” was really all I needed to hear.

-----------------------------------------------

I don’t remember much more of that night other than that I walked around all night in a daze. Tears streaming. No tears for him, but for everything he was not. But somehow I lived through, and after a while, a long while, I found myself again and greeted her happily. But sometimes, even now over five years later, I have the worst bad dreams were we are still together. I wake up shaking; turning to find my fiancé snoring heavily at my side and then thanking God it was just a nightmare.