Stolen Lines #1 - I Spoke, But It Wasn't The Right Answer.

I tried to think of the right answer. Unable to think of that, I spoke anyway.

He had asked if there was a chance that we would get back together. After hemming and hawing, standing in the entryway to Kohl’s, waiting for this call to be over, I said, “Maybe. I just need some time. To figure out if this is what I even want anymore.” Little did he know that I had already bought furniture for my new apartment, an apartment that he didn’t know I had leased. I was moving on, trying to shop for new clothes for my new life without him, while he asked questions that I couldn’t bring myself to answer with honesty.

The next few weeks were difficult given we were in the same apartment, living completely different lives. Well, no, the new reality wasn’t that different. We had been living different existences for some time. After six years together, we were staying in separate bedrooms since I had a 9-5’er and he was working at a bar at night. Once every couple weeks, we may have shared a bed. Only to have one of us get up in the middle of the night and go to the couch or the other bedroom, unable to sleep with the intrusion of a near stranger into our personal space. We lived on different planes, shared friends who would tell me what this man, who was living under the same roof, hoping to live the same life as me, what he was up to. We rarely talked on the phone. We didn’t have anything to say to each other. The only remaining thing we had in common was a rent check, our dirty laundry, touching more frequently than we did.

I never gave him the right answer, the honest answer, the answer he deserved. My actions spoke for me. I moved out, I stopped answering his calls. He was not the future I wanted anymore. I didn’t know how to express this to him without hurting him so I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have the right answer, the one that he wanted.

This is a part of Grace's experiment. The first two sentences were stolen from Night of the Avenging Blowfish, by John Welter.