A Regular January

When I saw the words "we need to talk" on the screen, my cheeks flushed, and burned. A horrible gut-wrenching feeling shot through my blood. Nothing good follows the words "we need to talk."
I made him call me at least. In the end. He sighed into the phone. After that I knew the words to follow would not be happy.
A cry was caught in my throat. Several, actually. I took deep, long breaths to stifle it, which in turn, revealed their intent to escape. I let out a small cry and the sobs began.
He said he couldn't give me the time I deserve, he said the guilt he felt killed him, he said he really needed to focus on himself right now.
And all the while all I really heard was: "You are not worth the effort."
I knew that wasn't what he was saying, but it still felt terribly real. I knew I needed to let him go, but the excuses and the sobs kept coming. I felt hopeless, a bird without wings. I kept trying to say something, but already I recognized what I had missed so many times before. He was already done, he had already thrown in the towel, he had already given up. Even if I could get him back, it would be a compromise. A deal for a beat-up jalopie he had already given up on fixing and would sell away slowly for scrap metal anyway.
So I couldn't even beg.
I came downstairs crying, to a mother who understood, but didn't have the right words to say to me. He still likes you, he wants to be friends! Like somehow that made it ok. Only one thing she said really comforted me amid the "it'll all be ok"s. "Someday you'll be in a relationship where you won't feel like you are holding it all up yourself."
I wanted to believe that was true. Because I knew that was how I felt so many times. Like I was keeping the whole thing together, pieces that never quite wanted to hold on to each other completely, sliding this way and that. Ready to topple at any instant.
I thought about that as I tried to go to sleep, sobbing some more. I tried to stifle them, because I knew those around me (specifically my mother) would eventually grow tired or be at a loss for what to do. I know they would worry and eventually that's all it would be. Just meaningless, helpless worry. Because the tears wouldn't stop any time soon.
I kept seeing his face, in my brain, as we got in his car, turning to kiss me, a look I had coined as his "kissing face." I knew it so well as I watched his face and his hands come near me, to pull me closer to him. I saw his arms around me, coming from behind, a surprise I had always longed for from him, now happening at the ice rink. I saw him leaving Hires, slipping me a five to pay for the shake. If I had known, if I had known at all that there, in Hires, was going to be the last time I kissed him, I would have followed him out into the parking lot and made out with him like I wanted to. But social convention of those around me prevented me. I gave into their stares when I should have just done what I wished, one last time. Melt into his sweet soft kisses I had grown to love.
I could see his face, smiling at me, laughing. I could see his body, moving toward me, something I had grown quite comfy with and had grown accustomed to, all it's quirks and little personality movements. All this caused me pain, for I knew I would never see or feel it again as I once did.
I cried at work. A couple of times. I felt so ridiculously terrible. I had let someone in, I had let someone in and that had hurt me, again. Giving me some sort of reason about disappointment and not hurting me. I felt these words sting me, pointing blame where it seemed to want to be benign and helping. Where it wanted to take away fault, it merely felt placed. A paradox of emotion, it seemed.
My boss bought me a chocolate shake, and smiled at me hopefully. He had no idea what to do. He was my boss, he didn't know me in that well of a social context, and so social interaction failed us, but I as I looked at the chocolate mountain before me, I had to smile a little. He had tried.
I felt so isolated. I had to beat this, but he had been my solution. Which was probably a problem in the first place, but I had grown to him. I felt myself slipping, back to the four walls I had to beat against. It was no good. I had to wait out my sentence. Sleep was the only safe place, and it was hard to come by. But in sleep, in my pain, my brain mercifully gave up and did no damage with dreams. Sleep was safe.
I heard his words again in my head, and they made me crumble.
I can't give you the time that you deserve, I need to focus on myself right now. Perfectly logical reasons, I knew, but I was still here, without what I wanted.
Hurt and alone.
He talked to me again, to check on me, but it only did more damage. I was hurt and so my words had edge to them, as my angry words often do. His help felt more like another slap in the face, a taunting gesture, even though I knew that not what they were meant to be. It stung and it bit a second time, dealing out the hurt in as much force as had been there the day before.
I cried at the pain of the situation, him holding out this beacon, one that I could not accept without pain. And him thinking me foolish and childish. This made me feel I meant little to him, and drowned me again in anguish. My emotions felt so big and so weary, overly dramatic, he might say. But I couldn't help it I felt so easily and so deeply. Why did I have to feel punished and silly for this?
I wanted to hold on to one thought.
This had to be the worst of it. It could only get better from here.