Fragment #85

Eventually I'll forget the grain of his skin, the delicate bridge of his nose. Eventually.

Eventually, I'll stop thinking of him in another woman's arms, whispering words of love, fucking her, kissing her neck, burying his head in her hair.

The idea, now revolting to me, I'll eventually accept. It's not actual jealousy – it's more to do with my own happiness. I used to be happy with her because I loved and was loved. Her feelings wore out but the memories remain. Eventually, I will forget.

It's easier for him because he ran away with that other girl. That's because he doesn't want to have to forget. He deals with loss by adding more. He doesn't realise that one day there won't be anything left to add. That the running away has led to a cul de sac. No more fucking around. No more jumping from one relationship to the next.

The irony wills it that I realise she is not someone for me, that the differences between us are too great, but her eyes, her hands, her personality...eventually, I will forget all of these. I will have to forget how great a person she was, perhaps the greatest I've ever met. Will ever meet.

I don't know what I will forget first, but I know what will be forgotten last: how he made me feel special, how I mattered. He would listen, and respond with the clearest-cut words, those which touched my heart where no one had ever dared go, where I didn't think anyone would care to look. I realised too late he used his skill to read people to manipulate them.

She would chisel her words so they would pierce me through and through. She would feel every place she touched, she would measure pain with a knowing hand, she would carefully manipulate such raw feelings with ease, like a surgeon with a beating heart outside a patient's chest. It was as if she had always known me, that she had been waiting for me to heal me.

He made me want him, made me crave for more of us, for more magical moments. I know that eventually I'll wean him out of my system, but for now forgetting his face is the most fucking difficult thing I've ever tried doing.

What I'll never forget is how she helped me through such a hard time with grace, care and kindness. She truly was a fantastic person, though not one for me. How I envy the man who will get to build a home with her, graced by her presence...if such a one exists, if she ever allows herself to be touched, to be helped, to be happy. The last memory of her that I will have to shed, eventually, is her look of sadness and humility in the face of my sorrow, and the fullness of her hugs, whispering to me that I would be all right, eventually.

Perhaps, perhaps they were the saddest of us all.