I stand in the doorway and watch him for a moment. He sleeps like a child,
flat on his back, limbs flung out in relaxed abandon. Not what I would have
expected from a guy so inherently distrustful and paranoid. He seems more
likely to be curled into a fetal ball, arms clutched around the pillow to
ward off the inevitable nightmares. His breathing is deep and even, and his
head is turned away so I can't see if his eyelids twitch with REM sleep. I
wonder what sort of monsters will populate his dreams tonight? I hope I'm
not one of them, but I know I will be someday. Maybe as soon as tomorrow,
if he accepts that I'm really gone.
I have to go. I could say it's for his own good, but it's not. It's for
mine. He has a power to destroy me that no one else has ever had. I
haven't always been a loner. I've had family, close friends, sexual
partners, and a few true lovers. He has the potential to be all that and
more. He can be everything. I can't let it get to that point. It will
destroy me and won't do him much good either. He'd bounce back, a little
rumpled and rusty, just like he's bounced back from so many setbacks and
heartbreaks.
Hell, maybe I'm fooling myself that he would care that much anyway. I hate
this indecision and doubt that wash over me. I go through life at full
speed, working the angles, calculating the damages before they happen, and
cleaning them up as efficiently as possible once they do. I'm a spin-doctor
at heart, but even I can't see a way to make this work.
I rub a hand over my eyes, suddenly exhausted by more than tonight's
activities. The strain of the years and the weight of my fears are dragging
on me in a way I seldom allow. Yeah, I have fears. Only the stupid and
psychotic don't have them. Mine are varied and colorful, but the biggest
ones are wrapped up in dark blue sheets on a mirrored former waterbed. I'm
afraid he will love me. I'm afraid he won't. I'm afraid I can't protect
him. I'm afraid that— Well, the list goes on. And so I should also be
going. I've lingered long enough. Any longer and I will move from
procrastination to self-torture.
Silently, I turn to go. My throat aches, but my eyes are dry.
What could it have possibly meant,
I can feel his eyes on me as he hovers there on the threshold. Indecisive
is not a term I would ever apply to him. He always seems to know what he
wants and how to get it. Sometimes I envy him that. I have focus, but he
has intensity. I can feel that intensity right now from all the way across
the room. It sits on my chest like a lead weight. I'm pretending to be
asleep, so I have to resist the urge to shake it off. I wonder what he's
waiting for.
I know he's leaving me, but I want to see if he can really do it in silence.
I clench my teeth to hold back the questions tumbling around my mind. It
seems like I've always had more questions than answers where he's concerned.
I spend my professional life, which is really my whole life, asking
questions. Questions are the very cornerstones of my work. Big questions
like are the aliens really close to colonization? And small questions,
where were you on the night of November twenty-third? I ask questions all
day long, but I can't ask him the most important ones. Why are you leaving?
Will you reconsider? Do you love me? I need the answers desperately, but
I'm terrified of them.
Maybe I'm a little afraid of him too. In the black river of lust and
violence that has flowed over us, the violence has mostly been mine. I'm
not proud of that, but I had my reasons that, at the time, seemed perfectly
valid. Ah, the irony of an Oxford trained psychologist who doesn't
recognize his own sublimation. He is a killer. He could have fought back.
He could have killed me so easily if he wanted. Something kept him still
when I hit him and that scares me a little. Almost as much as my own
actions scared me—scared me into stopping. I don't hit him anymore. I
haven't in a long time really, but it's always there in the back of my mind.
The awareness and regret of what I've done to him.
Not to say he's blameless. We've both done our share of damage to the
other. But, somehow, something good came out of it all. I'm afraid to call
it what I want to call it. If I speak it, I can't take it back. It becomes
as real as that stupid Velveteen Rabbit. Can I do it? Can I handle the
consequences if I do?
I open my eyes slightly and see him turn away. Panic makes me sit up and
say, "Don't go."
...we talked of sainthood,
...better now we never talk, arguments are fewer,
"You're awake."
"Yeah. Don't go. Please?"
"It's the best thing for both of us."
"Who says? Maybe it won't be."
"It's not safe."
"Nothing truly is."
"I'm damaged."
"So am I. Come back over here."
"I can't."
"But you did. And now you'll stay?"
"I can't."
"But you will."
"Yes. Will you make room for me?"
"I already have."
"Do we have to talk about it?"
"Not tonight, Alex. It can wait, but you have to be here."
"All right, Mulder, I'll be here."
"That's all I'm asking."
"For now you mean."
"No, I'll leave the rest up to you. Now, move a little closer so we don't
have to talk at all."
"Good idea. I do, you know."
"I know. I do, too."
Physics
by Amy B
You rack and ruin,
odds were thin,
It's so hard to gauge,
when something left him,
I know there's no sorry,
there's no time to cry,
the thoughts that remain,
I have rewired...
now I'm left here with the questions,
and the sudden descent,
and all the empty gestures,
calculate the damage,
divvy up my dirty share,
take away the promises and the complicated stares...
and porno magazines,
now I'm missing the H,
on my typewriter keys
better now we never talk, I'm done if you are.
