“You Failed,” I said to her, in vehement anger; my face red and impassioned with a dampening glow.
She turned away, revealing her vulnerable side; the side of her I would see when we made love. But this was no act of submission, nor love; it was pure, unbounded hatred. Behind her, the sun was setting, painting the sky a lush, fiery pink. It seeped out from behind the hills and curved over the shadowed oak trees, creating a stark black stencil of my once-beloved. Her long, blonde curly hair fanned out devilishly, to the effect of a stage curtain unraveling during some horrible play. But this was all very real; as real as fine wine and torn flesh.
Her stance was callous, but in desperate retort. She gazed into the distance for what seemed like forever. And I hoped it to be an eternity, for I feared, despite my anger, that the face I’d be looking at when she turned around would not be one dear to me. By that same token, she had earlier proclaimed I was no longer the boy I used to be.
“Bullshit. I’m no boy,” I had replied. “The man you’re looking at is all you’ve ever known me to be.”
My sudden burst of ultra-masculine indignation did little to elicit any sense of disillusionment from her. All I drew was a grimace – a typical sign of her utter sincerity.
“We were young and naïve,” she had said – like children in a closet; oblivious to the thorny complexity of the adult world.
But how could I believe our love was founded on such a rudimentary level. My intuition told me otherwise. I was no child; I was old enough to recognize love. I had been through relational turmoil in the past. Those days, all of them damned respectively, could never compare to the three years we shared. There was an unprecedented synergy to our love. When the world would seem to cave in and my spirit was stripped of its essence, she was always there to rejuvenate me. When frustration would overwhelm her sanity, revealing her volatile, exposed self, I was there to tether her back to a calm reality.
I find it curious how I was able to calm her despite the fickleness of my own temperament. Perhaps I saw a part of myself in her rage. I suppose seeing her inability to cope was somewhat empowering – by comparison I was more resilient. Still, I comforted her because I genuinely hated to see her such a wreck – but those were also the times I felt the most needed. Sure, she often told me she loved me, and we were usually quite happy, but I always felt I needed her more than she needed me.
She had a close family. The six of them were a very loving bunch, full of joy and quaint togetherness. Like myself, they were always there for her, and often enough, she would turn to them. Sometimes I would actually surge with jealously when I’d see her express such exuberance for her family. Then I became the angry one. But she was in no position to calm me down, for my anger was directed at her. An argument would ensue.
We had many arguments, many of them rooted in my contempt for her lack of needing me. Of course, I never made it very obvious to her that this was the case. Our true grievances would boil under the cover of petty annoyances – the most infamous being my neglect of doing the dishes. Whatever the matter, her anger towards me was always exaggerated beyond reason. I didn’t want her to think I was solely responsible for our clashing. It was obvious to me this was a two-way street. Her fits were untamed and unjustified. I could not accept total humility.
Now here we are, yet again, embroiled with what feels like an endless whirlwind of conflicted opinions and relentless accusations. The last few months have seen us run a grueling gauntlet of trying to make peace with each other. But it has all gone to hell. As hard as I try, I can’t accept that I’m at fault. I can’t let her win. But, I can’t let her go.
“Dammit, all I wanted was for both of us to be happy,” she had cried, as her paper-thin face thickened with frustration.
It was in that response that I delivered my deafening statement. I immediately realized how brash it was, perhaps even childish — but it was too late. She then turned away and never looked back. The sun sank behind the hills and the celestial inferno quickly collapsed into darkness. I gazed over her shoulder and out the window as her stenciled figure slowly faded to black, my last words hauntingly reverberating throughout the bedroom:
“You failed.”
Then I climaxed.