I laid in bed beside him, with my back against him. In front of me was the wall. Slowly, I spread out my fingers and rested my palm against it, trying to feel the coldness of the concrete.
I had been thinking about this for a long time.
“Why am I here? I don’t belong here.” I thought to myself.
From behind me he stretched his arm to reach my hand.
But just as soon as the tip of his finger touched my skin, I took my hand away from the wall.
He reached for my face, trying to turn it to his. He carressed my cheek and felt that it was warm… And wet.
“You’re crying?” I suppose he was startled.
Then I took his hand off my face, held it for a moment and sighed.
“What’s wrong?” He asked.
I couldn’t say a word.
I thought the coldness of the wall would make me feel better.
“It ends here.” I said, almost shaking.
“What… did you say?” He finally broke the longest and most deafening silence.
With my thumb, I massaged his knuckles, hoping it would calm him while I thought of the best way to tell him.
“It’s not the same anymore.” I said. I could swear I went baritone.
“You don’t love me anymore.” He assumed. I knew he’d think so.
I closed my eyes for a while and breathed in before turning to face him.
“I still do.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
I traced his face with my fingers. From his forehead, his brows, his eyelashes and eyelids, to his nose and lips. I didn’t want to miss anything.
But I am sure to miss every part of him.
But I have to tell him. I have to tell him what has been crushing my heart.
“I don’t feel that you love me anymore.” I said. I couldn’t stop my tears from falling.
“But I do.”
“That’s what you say. But I, I feel like I’m nothing to you. It’s just so different now. I wish you didn’t change.”
“I thought you said you don’t want us to end. We were not going to fall apart.”
I couldn’t answer.
I rested my forehead against his and hugged him gently.
“I love you.” He told me.
“Sshh…” It was the first time I heard him say that after days of not talking.
I ran my fingers over his eyes to close them. He held me so close that I felt his heart beating. I wanted this to last. I wanted him to be the last. We stayed like that until he finally fell asleep.
It didn’t feel as good and as warm as it did when he first held me. His heart didn’t even beat as loud as it did as before.
I watched him sleep.
I guess only while he slept will I have the strength to tell him.
“I love you, Carlo. I love you so much that it hurts just as much thinking about how you can still try to find someone else. You promised me we would be together till the end. But you changed it all when you started flirting around. I tried to be patient. But I just can’t take it anymore that you can go on not talking to me for days. It breaks me apart that you don’t treat me as well as you did before. And what hurts me more is that just as soon as you say those three words, my heart just melts. And it’s not right anymore. It can’t go on this way. I love you too much that I never want to lose you, but I just feel that it’s you who is slipping away.”
I looked at him the whole night. I looked at the face of the man I wanted to lay in bed with and wake up next to for the rest of my life.
But the rest of my life ends tonight.
I placed my hand against the wall again, maybe telling it to protect him as I can no longer do so.
It has been forty-three days since I left.
And he never wondered where I went. He never looked for me.
So I was right. He didn’t love me anymore. He just couldn’t tell me.
I closed my eyes.
I still remember every feature of his face.
I still remember…