Lonely

My outpouring of love and patience finally runs dry, and I find myself angry all over again. This man I think I fell in love with is not some martyr or hero, protecting me by staying away. Nor is he some sadist getting pleasure from watching Crazy Bitch abuse me. With a sinking heart I realize there is another option I never considered, one that is far simpler and much worse. It’s so obvious I nearly laugh.

Not Just a Fling Guy isn’t some special breed of man. He’s just another run-of-the-mill coward who doesn’t want to be with me, and doesn’t have the balls to face me. The disappointment is so heavy that I can hardly carry its weight. Its presence is so large it’s like a physical being I could reach out and touch.

He swears to mutual friends that he’s still on our pool team -- the team we built together --but he doesn’t show when the season starts. I call, and he doesn’t answer the phone, so I report to his voicemail that I’m removing him from the roster and replacing him with someone I can count on. I lose my mind and wail in the bathroom. I can’t keep score for the game; every other breath I start to cry all over again.

When the night is over I sob the whole ride home, then I sit in the driveway and sob some more.

He disappears completely.
He is never coming back. He does not want me; if he did, he would have chosen me.

I am consumed by loneliness. It catches me when I’m driving, and I fly down the highway sobbing to myself about things unfinished, and the man who was likely never any good for me to begin with. It twists my guts when all I’m parked at the bar catching a football game and a burger, all alone. It haunts me in the dark in my great big bed, this emptiness, and I don’t know how to get past it.

All I know how to do these days is cry.