Should've Left It By The Lake

I was disappointed in myself, to be honest. Disappointed to be sitting in the spot on the bed where I paused to type. Disappointed by the words I wrote. Disappointed by the sadness in my heart, the loss of someone I didn’t want that badly in the first place. What is it they say? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…what the fuck was I thinking?

I was surprised at my determination. My determination to find him, to hunt him down like some poor animal. It was a quest, where more unanswered questions just pushed me forward. Where was he? How was he? So many question marks had roamed freely in my mind over the years. The universe magically, and glaringly vengeful for some unknown crime I had committed, only paused to happily oblige.

His face appeared on my screen one afternoon, and within weeks, I had willingly fallen into a conversation I recognized but only vaguely remembered.

I poured my heart out to him from the beginning, six years of unspoken conversation overflowing in an instant. I feared he would go away with my words. I feared I wouldn’t have the chance to say them again. I had to get them out.

The words came quickly, and it was my best writing. I couldn’t stop. Inspired by memories of our past, memories I had clearly romanticized, building on misread signals, only improved on by years of silence. My heart had written a romance, and my words were ready to do whatever they could to make it happen.

Naturally, he always avoided answering anything. The School of Deflected Answers, I referred to it. Seemingly without batting an eyelash, we would dance around entire conversations, him often repeating the same questions or keeping his answers as vacant as possible. The mystery only drew me in more. I felt there was more information I needed, more to the story.

What was it about him that I found so magnetic? So genuinely electric? The job was clearly admirable, requiring strength and intelligence, a passion for an impressive power. But over the weeks, I had seen the weakness. Physically, emotionally. He wanted so desperately to be that strong person that others perceived him to be, even though he knew the truth. His job seemed more like a cheaply made Halloween mask, unable to truly hide the person behind.

The vagueness of his words, a characteristic I had initially found enigmatic, grew tiring. Now, his answer diversion, his lack of true conversation, only brought great confusion and emptiness to our interactions. I would stare for hours at our saved words, trying to read between the lines, analyzing each emoticon. I wanted to believe the story I had written about us. Failure, my search resulting in nothing more than an opportunity to examine where my path had taken a wrong turn, seemed a disappointing ending.