The glow of the downtown skyline below me, so close I can almost step over the edge of the hill and walk over to it, but such a distant world from me.
I look down at my evergreen ribbed sweater top and pull the sleeves over my tight knuckles and crouch down near the dead grass. The cool air feels good against my cheeks. The frost is coming, I can feel the weather turn as it nips at my cheeks and the edges of my ears. But the burning of my eyes from all of the crying is all I can feel at this moment; the ugliness of the most recent fight still weighs me down and forms a pit in my stomach.
The cramping in my legs forces me to get up and as I inhale sharply I realize I haven’t been breathing. I keep doing this; suspending reality and letting time slip by as I fall into my non-dream world. I can’t even tell you what I think or don’t think about during these moments, but it scares me that I kept doing it more and more. A series of unaccountable non-moments is preferable to the waking moments that I keep walking back to.
We lived in a tiny two room illegal unit carved into the side of a cliff and had to walk twenty steps up and down each time I would ascend or descend into our out of our self-created hell. I opened the door and found him sitting by the dining table, mirror red-rimmed vacant eyes looking right back at me. I don’t bother to acknowledge his presence and walk past him into the bedroom. How depressing these walls are, seemingly pushing in all around me, inching closer and closer with each passing day.
We thought we had been happy once but when I try to think of what we spoke of, of what we shared in thoughts and likes, or even if we relayed dislikes, I can’t come up with a single conversation we had.
Wherever we’d go, they would ask if we were siblings. Tall, with dark thick hair, lightly bronzed skin, and striking features – there’s worse to be compared to. I don’t think we saw anything beyond each other, at least nothing real, other than skin deep. I thought I saw a shared pained past, an inner struggle to contain demons, a desire to move forward and work towards a new life with each other. The last one is what bit me in the ass, that was just a projected shared trait, a one-sided fantasy that never took any real root in our relationship.
I didn’t drink then. That wasn’t until I wanted to drown out the pain of failure.
He didn’t drink much either, I figured (hoped) he didn’t like it and only did it socially but it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t the case once we were married. Once we were married… How could it change so drastically?
Back in the bedroom I changed into a t-shirt and crept into bed. As I heard the sound of the light switch flick off I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. I heard his shuffling as he stepped out of his clothes and slipped in beside me and I concentrated on willing myself to sleep. As the bed shook from his silent sobbing I squeezed my eyes tightly and gripped the blanket so my eyes wouldn’t accidentally give me away. But as I felt him slither towards me I quickly fell into my non-dream moments and slipped away..
Susana Benavidez 