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You Could Be Happy
I watched you smiling that night. Your face was alive with laughter and for a moment I believed that it was because of me, because of the wedding, because of the past ten years.
But you weren’t smiling at me and you weren’t talking about the wedding and I wonder sometimes if you had forgotten about those ten years. Or maybe that’s the only thing that kept you around so long.
At the time I didn’t see this. I didn’t let myself see this because you were laughing like that when I first met you, the first time we kissed, the first time we danced, the first time I proposed. It was rare to see you laughing like that anymore and I liked it. I had this vision of taking you home and unzipping the back of that purple dress and listening to you laugh against my mouth.
You didn’t want to leave with me though. You told me to go on home and get some sleep and that you would get a ride home with someone else and I was tired enough that I agreed.
When you said goodbye you didn’t say I love you and it had actually been awhile since you had said the words, awhile since I had said the words and maybe if I had… But I didn’t realize this that night. Even though I watched you through the review mirror as I was pulling out of the parking lot. The way you walked toward him, the way you circled him and smiled at him and laughed for him. It was enough to make my stomach drop and I almost slammed on the breaks and put the truck in reverse and went back for you.
Ten years builds some kind of level of trust though or maybe it’s just blindness and I knew you would never do anything like that. And he’s good guy but he’s never really been a threat. Except that I saw the way he looked at you, knew that he wanted you, knew that it was killing him not to be with you.
It kills me now not to be with you.
And I wonder if I should have told you that more often. I wonder what he did differently that made the difference in the end.
I watched you come into the bedroom that night when you thought I was asleep and I knew then that I never should have left and that something, maybe everything, had changed. You were later than you said you would be and your hair was down around your face and instead of slipping into bed next to me you grabbed your pillow and slept on the couch.
The next morning I asked you. Looked into those eyes I had fallen in love with ten years ago and asked you.
You lied to me and said that everything was fine and you’d said it before and it was a lie then too but for the first time I saw the truth.
For a week you didn’t let me touch you. One night you were in the kitchen making dinner and I went up to you and kissed the spot on your neck that you like to have kissed and I told you that I loved you but you pushed me away and before you could hide yourself in the bathroom I could see that you were crying.
He left a few weeks later. The night of his going away party, as we were driving home, you told me about how he kissed you on Casino Night. How you kissed him back and that maybe you love him too.
You said it like it hurt to say it, like maybe you were just realizing the truth yourself and just like that ten years disappeared.
I watched you leave that night. You cried the entire time.
It’s been four months since you walked out the door and the apartment still smells like you. At night I wake up and for a moment I’ll think you are there but it’s only your scent lingering on the sheets and it fills the entire room and my head and it is in these moments where I realize what I have lost.
You left your shampoo on the edge of the bathtub. It is still there and I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
We’re all still working together but you avoid coming down here and I never go up there. The whole downsizing thing ended up actually happening so now he’s back here too. Sometimes I see you with him outside in the parking lot and you’re not crying anymore and he’s kissing that spot on your neck and I want to tell him that you don’t belong to him.
But I turn and walk away. It’s too painful to watch. Too painful to know that you could be happy with him. You could be happy doing anything and maybe you are and I’ll never really know because you aren’t with me anymore.
There are times when I wonder if I should have stopped you. If I should have found a way to remind you of everything we had shared for ten years but you’re gone and there’s really nothing I can do anymore.
You could be happy and I’ll never really know.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Inspired by the song "You Could Be Happy" by Snow Patrol.
shannanagin is the author of 6 other stories.
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