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Ever After By WK Taccic "I don't want to see you anymore," he said. Then he sat there for the longest time, waiting to see what my reaction might be I suppose. Waiting to see how I would take that. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. After a while he said it again. "I just don't want to see you anymore." He said so without quite looking at me. That was common enough lately. It had come at last; I would have to accept this unwelcome truth. He was confronting me with inevitability, I dreaded what would follow. To hear him say it, that would give it shape and some semblance. He was putting finality between us, and it was unbearable. Not that this was any easier on him, I could see that. I could see how it pained him to do this. He had that familiar look of weary resignation, somehow that made matters that much worse. He was somehow able to plumb something deeply maternal within me, seemingly without fail. He would get this look about him, a 'the world has me where it wants me', beat-down, beat-up look whenever things wouldn't go his way. So very Will, pushing me away as he pulled me in close. I wanted to be sympathetic, my feelings for him kept tugging at me, prompting me, but I just couldn't give my mercy so freely. I knew I might need it for me. Because he was failing me, he wasn't pulling me in close this time, like once he would have. Once upon a time he would have held me if I needed him to. Once upon a time he never would have said what he was saying. We had our once upon a time, Will and I. Now things were different as we sat together at the kitchen table, and I waited for him to continue. Things were so terribly different as he sat there with his hands joined, and he tapped his foot anxiously, and he licked his lips nervously. He was ashen and disheveled. There was a cup of cold coffee on the table in front of him, and a cigarette perched precariously at the edge of an overfilled ashtray. He ignored them, the cup and the ashtray, both his. He ignored everything in that room, me in particular. He sat there looking miserable, with his elbows on the table and his hands cupped together with thumbs tucked under his chin to prop up his head. He was staring at his knuckles, blinking slowly, sometimes shaking his head. I recognized this pattern, he had his say and he would say no more, nothing at all, until he simply had to. Until he must. Until I provoked him. Not that I meant to. I knew better. This was nothing new, he had only, finally and at long last, lent a voice to whatever turmoil was within him. At last he was venting those personal misgivings that I could see were there, I could perceive them readily enough. Whether he knew it or not. I could even place them. Uncertainty, that's all it was. Uncertainty bred by events we had behind us, some unfortunate circumstances. Bad choices. Things had changed since, but things always do. That's the way of things, they change. I know it was hard on him, and I never thought otherwise. He probably never really forgave me, though I'm sure he thought he did. I don't think he got past it, but then again, neither did I. God knows I wish it hadn't happened, I would go back and stop it if I could. To keep him from that hurt, I'd do anything not to have him hurt like that. Not an option. We don't get to go back. This was inevitability between us, treacherous and unsure. I braced myself for it. I might have asked, but I didn't want to know, I preferred oblivion. I wanted to be oblivious to the obvious, although I was anything but. I wasn't curious, and I didn't want to seem curious. I felt no need to be informed, I cloaked myself in willful denial. Or at least I would have had Will allowed it. Still nervous and still fidgeting, he glanced my way and our eyes locked for a long moment. Then he took a deep, sharp breath, expelled it with force, and I could see tears begin just as he looked away once more. "You," he began and faltered. Silence again, as he lifted the cup that sat there, sniffed at it, even put it to his lips. Then he lowered it quickly with his handsome, almost pretty face marred by sheer disgust. Once upon a time I would've laughed, but as it was I didn't even smile. He stood and stepped away from the table toward the kitchen sink. He dumped the cup in the basin then went to the fridge and grabbed out a long-neck, popped the cap, didn't drink from it. Instead he crossed to the window over the sink, leaned against the countertop, stood there staring out into the night for quite some time. There was nothing to see, the thick night was impenetrable, but he stayed there. He drew from the bottle a couple of times before he finally elaborated. "You should probably know. . ." but then he stopped. Yet again. I waited. I knew he'd go on when he could. He sighed, and drank, then he turned back to face me as he stated bluntly, "There's someone else, Annie." He tipped the bottle back and emptied it, then set it on the countertop behind him and repeated softly, "I met someone else." I blinked at him. I don't know what he expected but that's what I did. He tried to clarify, or justify, or whatever. He said, "You would. . ." but aborted the effort. Another attempt, "She's just. . ." but it wouldn't take shape, apparently. He must have surrendered to his inadequacy because he made no further effort to rationalize her away. "I'm so sorry," he concluded, still inadequate. "Oh, Annie." I heard what he said but it didn't mean much. These were words that meant next to nothing to me. I was lost in time, flooded by memories. A defense, maybe an escape. But that's where I was and I stayed there. In hiding, unwilling to accept this truth from him. I retreated to happier times. The day Will and I met at the campus library, crowded and hot but that didn't matter. Because suddenly there he was, and he told me later the same day he felt the same way. Suddenly there I was. A date made in haste, another date came from that one. Then another, and another, until that magical night when I gave what he accepted so graciously, so gratefully. Ours was a mutual devotion, reciprocated adoration, we were quickly inseparable. One night he held me close with my head rested on his chest, and he whispered undying love. Pledged himself to me, there was a little bit of forever in his promise. "I'll always love you, Annie," he told me with fervor. This he guaranteed, "We'll always be together." That was forever too, and he added to it when he proposed. I echoed it, amplified it when I accepted. We had forever in our ceremony, expressed forever in our vows. I meant them, and he did too. There was no doubt about that, not then. But doubt does come. Pervasive, invasive. I said nothing when he said there was another, and I made no move. I just sat there, motionless and numb. I tried not to believe this was happening. He came back to the table, angry, seething, maybe self-loathing. He leaned against the table and railed, shouted, demanded, "What did you expect, Annie? What did you think I'd do?" He shook a finger at me and assailed me with his fury. "What was I supposed to do? Huh? Goddamn it, you tell me, what was I supposed to do?" I didn't, wouldn't. I just glared up at him so he could see what he was doing to me. Maybe that was too much. Maybe I should have explored the sympathy option. Perhaps I should have considered just how difficult this was for him. He reacted badly. "Fuck you!" he bellowed. "Don't you dare! Don't even give me that look! This isn't my fault, and you know it!" I did, I couldn't deny it. There was more fault in me than I could put in him, but I kept thinking of that pledge, our promise to one another. I meant to keep it, I would honor our forever. My silence prompted him to continue, "Your accident was eight months ago, Annie." Then he slammed a fist against the table top and repeated, "Eight months!" He threw his arms up, snorted in angry derision, "'Til death do us part'!" Again he leaned against the table, and again he thumped his fist against it. Emphasis, a counterpoint. "'Til death do us part'. Remember?" Of course I did, but that was only one little link in the chain of our eternal bonds. Words and just words, the promise mattered more. His given, mine returned. We promised each another an eternity, we gave each other forever. I meant to keep that promise. Death didn't do us apart, it couldn't. I wouldn't let it. He shook his head, slumped against the table, sagged to his knees. "Oh God, Annie. Dear God, please!" He wept and wailed, he insisted and implored, "Please just let me be! "I don't want to see you anymore."
About the Author WK Taccic is the made-up name of a real person from the Midwestern United States. Prevailing Middle America sensibilities may have impacted his work, though he prefers to think otherwise.
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