“She doesn’t want people to see the evil things that happen inside.”
I am opening my lungs and taking a deep breath of clean air.
Carrie is crying and she is laughing too. She is shaking but she is still. She is sad but she is happy. She cares, yet she does not.
And I am so confused by her.
And it.
And us.
Mostly us.
Because we always made sense. Until we didn’t. And now…Now what? Now what are we? I don’t know.
“I cared,” I say. My heart is in a vise and someone is squeezing it. It hurts. It always hurts when Carrie is around. “I cared, Carrie.”
My voice is that of a little boy again.
A child comforting another child.
A young boy consoling a girl.
A teenager consoling a friend.
An almost-man soothing his almost-girlfriend.
“I always cared,” I whisper, and I stagger backwards, drunk with the pain of it all. With the pain of Carrie. Of knowing her, and living her. My steps are clunky and slow. I sit back down on the ugly sofa, and I put my head in my hands and I close my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Don’t.”
“I am.”
“I said don’t.”
“But—”
I look up. “Stop it. I can’t do this anymore, Carrie. You can’t do this to me anymore. You can’t keep lying and using and faking your way through life. You just can’t keep doing that to me. It’s not fair.”
Her face crumples and she looks away.
“You keep saying that you’re sorry, and then you go and hurt me again. You’re just as bad as your dad, Carrie. You’re a fraud just like he was.”
And then we are in silence with neither knowing what else to say. What can be said? What is left to be said? We’ve both hurt each other so much. Too much? Can you ever hurt someone too much that it makes everything else end?
I want to say yes. My heart begs me to.
“You have to let me go,” I say. Because she does. I can already feel myself weakening. I can’t let her go. I’ll never be able to let her go. She’ll always have a part of me. She’ll always have control. I’ll always want her, no matter how much she hurts me.
Because love is eternal.
Love is everlasting.
Love doesn’t let go.
And neither will I.
