She held the phone to her chest in utter disbelief – all this time; he had been carrying her around like a weight upon his shoulders. He had thrown all she was—all they were—into the deep dark bag of failure with all the other things and people that he had given up on. She was horrified to find that she had become part of that darkness, part of that heavy burden---part of what he couldn’t face within himself. She didn’t want him to remember her that way.
She suspected from the very beginning of the end of their relationship that she might end up in that bag of demons but she thought that it was only temporary. She believed that it would only last until the heartache was over, or until he found what he threw her into the fire to find.
She could feel her hands tightening around the phone. Two years of not understanding had unexpectedly come to an end in one hour, in one conversation, in one phone call. She stood there in the darkening office, the sound of chirping printers and muted desk phones fading from her awareness as she replayed the confusion she had felt over him during the time leading up to their phone call today.
Despite their personal split from each other, they shared the same employer so complete avoidance was next to impossible and staff meetings were a must for both of them. He would always sit at a distance and pretend--not so successfully--to be unaware of her presence, as if eight years of loving her could be hidden underneath the conference room table. He appeared anxious and she couldn’t make sense of why, when two people had meant as much to each other as they had, he found it so awkward to be near her. How could he just pretend her away? Why did he feel like he had to?
The emotional energy between them was something she recognized but his behavior was another thing altogether and she didn’t know how to reconcile the two. Her logical, believe-what-I-see mind battled her not so logical, believe-what-I-profoundly-feel heart and both challenged her intuition—she hadn’t known what to believe. Now as she stood there, two years later in the quiet office, she finally understood what had been going on all this time. She hadn’t known that he had been avoiding her because she was a source of “real-time” pain for him. Time had allowed her the grace of healing but apparently hadn’t been as generous to him.
The phone conversation started innocently enough, she needed his opinion on something and because of their history together, knew that she could trust him with the sensitive subject matter. She pushed the memories of their failed relationship aside easily enough, her current need for advice taking precedence over any doubts she had about seeking his council. She picked up the phone and dialed the three numbers of his extension that unbeknownst to her, would not only link her to him, but would finally cast light on the confusion of the last two years.
They ended up talking for an hour, the topics ever expanding and the original reason for the call becoming lost in the conversation between two people that understood each other so well. She glanced down at the computer and noted the time and length of their conversation. The office had long since cleared out and here they both still sat at their desks talking to each other. She could feel so much more conversation yet to come and the enlightenment she felt as a result, turned to motivation. Never one to hide her feelings or be scared of reaching out, she suggested that maybe next time, they should talk over coffee; that maybe, it was time.
The following silence hit like a mute bomb, severing the easy conversation that flowed between two once-best friends reconnecting. For a second, she wanted to reach out and snatch back the runaway words, rip the hopefulness from their joyful stride and rein them back into her mind but it was too late.
His awkwardness came flooding back in an attempt to drown the friendly conversation but she wouldn’t let it happen. She took advantage of the break in conversation to dispel his obvious conclusion, that just because the conversation was taking place in the “protected” environment of their after-hours office, that it didn’t mean that either of them was safe from the feelings that could result—good, bad or indifferent or that the conversation didn’t “count”. She pointed out that she was OK, that he seemed OK and that it was clear, due to the length of time that they had been on the phone that they missed talking to each other. The conversation might as well have happened in a coffee shop—the “safety” that she sensed he perceived, wasn’t really there.
The tension eased as he absorbed what she said and there was a moment more of silence between them before she opened her mouth in an attempt to resume the friendly conversation but he surprised her by interrupting, “It’s hard for me to be near you because when I look at you, I see all the pain that I put you through. It reminds me that I failed at us.”
She was rendered speechless at the emotion in his tone, the cracking voice of a man who didn’t understand that she wasn’t hurting anymore; a man who clearly couldn’t see the friendship resurfacing for the hold that the ghost of his own past actions had over him. Her heart ached at the thought that he looked upon her with darkness and failure and that she had become something that he did wrong. Time hadn’t moved on for him, the image of the broken person she was the day his behavior drove her from their home for the last time was how he still saw her. The love and good times they shared weren’t sitting amongst the warm and comfortable memories of his past; instead they had become a reminder of his grandest failure---love.
She wasn’t having it. Yes, he had hurt her terribly, pushed her around, and let her walk out of his life with barely a thought of the eight years they had put in together but her belief in love had prevailed, rising steadily over the two years since the split, to hold the hurt—and him—warmly, comfortably. She reached inside to tap her light—the only weapon strong enough to be used against his darkness. She was not going back into that bag without a fight.
She stood up abruptly, phone still pressed to her ear, passion burning wildly inside, “We both failed.” She whispered aggressively into the receiver.
She told him how she remembered him with fondness and that she still held tightly to a lot of the things he had taught her; black coffee and dessert, the smell of sandalwood and gardenias and his love of U2 and The Cure--- all things that remained a part of her, ingrained by having learned them through him. He quieted and she could feel her words penetrating, getting through to help to free him from his self-imposed prison of failure and also secure her place outside the bag as something good that happened that had come to an end, not as something that should have never happened to begin with.
“Don’t remember me like that.” she ordered passionately, as she blinked back tears. “The love is still there, it just went through one hell of a transformation. We’re both doing OK—right?”
She took a steadying breath and he laughed a little and quietly said, “You’re very different than you were back then”. It was a sign that he was seeing her as she was now and not as the broken woman she had been when their relationship ended. He continued, “You’re funnier, too—in the weekly meetings, you make people laugh.”
“I’m more zen nowadays.” she joked. The conversation was still solemn but becoming lighter again.
The positive energy between them was palpable as the conversation wound down into a sweet silence. She smiled into the phone and she realized at that very moment, that she had been waiting two years to have this conversation and hadn’t even known it. This was the beginning of a new chapter for her, for him---for them.
They said a quick and quiet goodbye, both of them understanding the profoundness of the phone call but neither wanting to speak more on it, knowing that it was new and fragile and that there was no reason to rush what time had already started—forgiveness.
The distant hum of a dial tone brought her back to the moment at hand and she looked down at the phone pressed into her chest. She slowly released her grip on it as she eased herself down into her desk chair, eyes fixed on the gray cubicle wall in front of her.
Compassion for what they both had overcome on their painful two year journey seemed to culminate in this very moment and she could feel it begin to overwhelm her. The phone call had accomplished so much---it confirmed her belief that if you cultivate love, the hurt will eventually wither away and it also offered him freedom from the notion that she was his failure. She offered him a trade, swap out the bag of darkness for the chance at being friends again—she thought it was a good offer.
She logged off her computer and gathered her things as tears rolled down her cheeks, eager to join the smile on her lips. She stood and made her way to the office door, glancing once more over her shoulder at the phone sitting on her desk as she remembered his last words to her a mere thirty minutes earlier.
“Maybe next time we should do this over coffee.”
She laughed out loud as she flipped the light switch to “off” and closed the office door behind her.
November 2011
