All that was left of her—left of them—was a book
He sat on the edge of his bed with the book resting on his knees. He stared at the cover, an image of mountains reaching out of the fog. He had memorized the cover art long ago but he still saw only her when he looked at it.
It might as well be a picture of her. He thought as he rubbed his eyes.
He opened the book as he had done many times over the last five years and then he closed it again. This is how it always happened. Here she comes, like a stray breeze making its way in through a window that someone forgot to close.
He first saw her when he was thirty. Her buoyant energy reached out from behind the front desk of the place where they both worked and pulled the ground right out from under him. She was a force and when their energy collided neither of them understood what had happened. There was an undeniable pull between them and a feeling like they had both just come home after a long journey away—home to each other.
He fell head over heels in love with the girl from the front desk. He knew it and she knew it. He put up a fight. She watched him struggle but she already knew he would lose. He finally gave in and she walked gracefully, knowingly right into his arms. The full embrace, the giving over to that which is larger than self was like nothing he had ever felt. She loved him and his demons and he held her closer than he had ever held anyone or anything before.
And she held him too. She held him even when it hurt; she held him through his strained fearful states; she held him through his anger and worry and she kept on holding him even when he set himself on fire. He burned him, he burned her and she held tightly anyway. She would look up at him with tearful eyes but she would be smiling. The burn was worth it to her.
He dropped his head as a tear formed in his eye and landed on the cover of the book. He quickly wiped it away not wanting it to leave a mark. He didn’t want to mess up her book. He had messed up a lot of things and one day when he placed the book back into her hands, he wanted it to be perfect, unmarred.
He wasn’t always kind to her. He rejected her goodness because it forced him to recognize the good in himself and that was something that he couldn’t do. He was worthless to himself so why wasn’t he worthless to her?
He suspects the book could help him answer that question.
He had his own answers; answers that were never productive or thoughtful but the drinking made the questions easier to tolerate. The bottom of the bottle never held any answers, only showed him his reflection—mockingly. The drink always lied to him, “Salvation is only one more drink away” but the buzz could only last for so long.
And then came the anger.
He would shove her; throw her out of his arms. He would cross them over his chest and watch as she would force her way back through his tightly clenched biceps. She refused to allow him to shut her out. He would soften as he smelled the top of her head and give in again to that which was larger than either of them—love.
He lifted the book to his nose and inhaled. He easily detected her faint smell. He wondered how such a delicate smell could linger on for so long. He reasoned that it was a gift from God because it meant that there was something left, that he didn’t totally destroy her.
But he tried.
He pushed her away—harder than before. The drinking gave him more power. He would watch as she frantically clawed away at his hands, fighting to maintain her place in his arms. She looked like a fairy but fought like a tigress. She wasn’t fighting for herself, she was fighting for him and that enraged him all the more.
She wouldn’t let him self-destruct.
He flipped through the pages of the book, catching a word here and there. He felt almost like he was peeking at something he shouldn’t see, almost like he was cheating and the words lost their life—never fully absorbed. He noticed the tearstains on some of the pages – he reasoned that those were the most important pages. She cried when she read the words that she thought could help him, the drops landing on the pages that she wished would save his life. She cried for him even after all that he did to her. He longed to go back and sit with her in the moments that she read those pages. He longed to look up into her eyes and see the hope dancing there but he hadn’t been there because he was across town, drinking.
She came to him and placed the book in his hands, “I believe in you” she had said and silently walked out of his life.
And he had promised her that he would read the book.
Time creeps in to remind him that he made that promise long ago. He hugs the book to his chest and wonders where she is now and if she is happy. He chooses to remember her instead of know her now as the person she has become in the time that they have been apart. He squeezes the book; the book that is so important to him that he cannot bring himself to read even one page of it. The book is the only physical thing that holds them together--the suspended period to their story, hovering just above the last page of them.
He can’t face her faith in him because that would give him proof that he was worth believing in and so he closes the book over and over.
It is his fear of salvation, his fear of failure, his fear of losing that last element of her that holds the book hostage.
What if he reads the book and her belief in him was in vain? What if he reads the book and nothing changes? Will she know? Of course she will--she always does. Time and distance never seemed to matter where she was concerned. Is the act of reading the book worth possibly killing the faith that lingers there still between them?
He won’t risk hurting her again.
The book is like a wish she had for him, all her love and compassion folded so neatly between the covers and her tears engraved in the pages forever. He is scared to read the book so he holds it close instead like the memory of a woman who walked gracefully into the arms of the devil and dared to love him.
He closes his eyes and inhales the book once more before placing it back on his nightstand next to his whiskey glass.
Gigi Ochs
