Member-only story
During These Midnight Hours Without You
I gave you up and felt the withdrawals.
The digital clock doesn’t tick, but I still see the green glow of 11:59 turn into 12:00. On nights just like these, I remember when you’d rub circles into my back until I breathed easy and closed my eyes to the luminescence of the midnight hour. Back then, I made the mistake of thinking you’d always be there — ready to take away the brunt of so many sleepless nights.
But of course you left. Of course you did. Why wouldn’t you? Everyone is out there to save himself. You weren’t any different. I don’t know why I pretended you were.
12:00 turns to 12:01 and then 12:02 before I shake away the comforter and sit up on the side of the bed. One of the cats bumps its head against my arm as if it’s trying to comfort me and lure me back to lying down. But animals know only so much. No matter how loving they can be, they don’t know the depth of human emotion — and the burden of it. Even now, my shoulders hang down, an apex as if I’m ready to take flight somewhere, and I’m so close to crying that I feel like such an idiot.
The bed’s long grown cold on your side. I can’t fill the space without thinking of you, of promises that turned to ashes, of dreams that went up in smoke.
