I'll Miss You, Bella

I've went over what I might say to my ex-girlfriend many many times inside my head, but I never quite knew what would go after it. What I would do. What I would not do. So, it's pretty hard to think about this whole long speech that you've put aside, and put it in your mouth, and say it. Then, it's even harder to stand there with yourself after you've said everything you've had to say, and look at this girl, the feelings rushing back. I didn't expect this, so when they began to flow back into me, I stood there, not doing anything, and once again her wit and charm is too much for me to handle. And suddenly, I am left speechless once again. Because, once again, I have been defeated by her. My ex-girlfriend.1

I got home last night to a dead goldfish, a spoiled carton of milk, and seventeen missed messages on my answering machine. They're all from my mother in an increment of thirty minutes. And, in spite of how desperate she may be, I pull the plug on the telephone reciever. I'm not in the mood for talking; I've already done too much today. 2

I'm tired of being in this apartment of mine. I want to go somewhere. I want to do something. I want to get my mind off of her. She's always there, somehow, and I never realized how much I really thought of her until now. "I wonder if Liz thinks of me too," or "I wonder what she's eating for dinner tonight" or "I wonder if she's dated someone since me." And sometimes I wonder if she asks these rhetortical questions too. Because I know, somewhere, she loved me. And that she wasn't lying when she said it to my face.3

It has been 14 long years since I had seen her before that Tuesday. I had moved away from her on a Thursday nearly a decade and a half ago, and it's still so vivid. I remember everything from the jeans I was wearing to how she had styled her hair. I remember standing in the doorway, and staring at her sleeping body. And I remember walking away from it.4

I remember walking past our daughter's room. The one that was not alive. Then I walked past our son's loft. And out the front door.5