“Do you feel like going coming over here with me?” I say, indicating the back room.
“I prefer being here,” she says, biting her lip.
She’s afraid of me, of being alone with me.
The pain is something abstract, something I shouldn’t lend credence to. I’m used to pain being a regular companion but I almost believed I was going numb to it after having experienced every nuance of this agony numerous times.
And yet, there he is again, stronger than ever, running through my body, penetrating right down to the bones. It’s not something that can be repressed or managed. It’s something I can’t get rid of.
Something that has no solution.
The pain I feel right now as her eyes give me the confirmation that I’ve really lost her is without precedent. It grabs me and devours me, leaving me with the familiar sensation of solitude, where I was very much at home before she tried to free me from it.
That solitude that I am free..
“I can’t do this,” she says suddenly. “I can’t stay here. Sorry.”
I sigh in resignation.
“It’s just too hard.”
“Ciara—”
“I’m going back to my family. I need to go back to my life, my things, my work and my studies. I need to get back to my routine. By myself.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” I agree, even if it’s the furthest thing form my mind, I won’t offer her any resistance.
“I hope things will be resolved for the best. I regret so much having caused you all of these troubles. I feel terrible about it.”
“No, don’t think that way.” I impulsively move towards her but she takes a few steps back.
“I can’t love you,” she says in tears. “Not the way I am now. I’d have nothing to give you.”
What should I tell her? That I’d accept anything just as long as she allows me to be by her side? That I’m desperate, finished, in ashes without her?
“Let me be by your side.”
She shakes her head. No.
The silence between us is oppressive. Despite the noises of the pub around us, the glasses that clink, the laughter of the customers, the only thing I’m able to distinguish is the deafening silence between our two souls.
I already feel her absence, even if she is in front of me, I feel it. My Ciara has gone, leaving me defeated like I have never been before.
Because this is also what love means. I always knew it.
And yet, I’m not able to turn my back on it, to curse the heavens, wishing to forget every shiver. I wouldn’t ever give it up, not even knowing beforehand how things would end.
Despite the fact that this pain is taking away all that I have left, I regret nothing except not having been man enough to admit to myself that I am in love with this woman.
And I always will be.
I could never go back now to my life without her even if she is no longer a part of me.
“Can’t do it,” she says, before turning her back on me and walking out of the pub, out of my life and out my world.
But not from my heart.
That’s her place and no one else will ever take it.
