A Bench

He sits down on the bench. It’s just like he remembers. His fingertips slide over the wooden planks. They are dark with dampness from the early morning showers, but not damp enough to leave a mark on his khakis. How long has it been since he last sat here? 3 years? 4 maybe? The bench is turned so that it overlooks the center of the park where, during the day, there is non-stop activity. There was always something to spectate. People walking their dogs, couples picnicking, kids playing tag. They would alternate between joining the activities of the park and sitting on the bench, watching the activities unfold. Sometimes, while they sat, they would get ideas for what to bring the next time they decided to picnic. She always thought too big and he always had to remind her that they can only carry so much to the park, especially when it is only him carrying things. She always found a way to get out of it. He chuckles thinking of that. He can’t blame her for never helping carry the food, after all, he was the gullible sucker that fell for her innocent gaze and sweet talking every time. He sighs softly thinking of that.

No one was out tonight. As far as he can tell, he is the only one in the park. It is beautiful under the stars. One of the few truly remarkable places in the city. Sometimes he forgot he was in the city at all. The trees act as insulators against the throng of urbanization. No car horns or drunken clamoring of late-night partyers walking home could pierce the wooden veil. The only sound is the rustling of leaves and the whispers of grass.

He flips the letter back and forth between his fingers, careful not to crinkle the envelope. It was sealed only an hour ago. The words inside are less than two hours old. He wonders if she will ever read it. It took him countless mental rough drafts to finally come up with the right words to put onto paper. When he sat down and wrote them, he was confident, but now, sitting on the bench, he is afraid maybe he did not write enough. Should he get up and leave? Rip open the envelope and double check to make sure everything is there? He shakes his head. Of course everything is there. He triple-checked it before he sealed the envelope. Everything he wants her to know is in this letter. The letter that she may or may never read.

A silhouette appears to his left. Small at first, blending in with the surrounding trees. A ghost emerging from the night air, materializing before his eyes. He is not sure if she is real at first or just a figment of his imagination. Could his mind truly be so desperate as to make her up? He looks down at his watch. 9:17. This is the time he told her. Well, two minutes passed the time he told her, but close enough. The silhouette grows as it gets closer. She is definitely real. Soon, he can recognize every curve and feature. She is wearing the coat he bought her for their first anniversary. It is a light coat that hugs her body in all the right places. Perfect for brisk nights like this. He remembers how much she talked about it after she first saw it. They were strolling through the mall one mundane Saturday afternoon, and she noticed it displayed on a mannequin at the anchor store. He never would have thought to get it for her, but she loved it. She took it off the mannequin and tried it on. It fit just as good as it does now. After they went home that night, he told her he was going out to get some groceries. The grocery store was crowded and the line took forever. At least, that was the lie he told her when she asked why it took him so long to buy a carton of milk and cereal upon his return home. She believed it. In reality, the mall was just a lot farther from their apartment than the grocery store.

She sits down on the other end of the bench, 3 feet of dark space separating them. Her hands, fingers interlaced, rest on her lap and her legs are crossed, making her already small figure even smaller.

“How’s Daryl?”

“Can we not talk about him.”

“Sure.”

It’s been awhile since he heard her voice. After they first separated, she remained a major part of his life. They didn’t have much of a choice. They had joint bank accounts, a mortgage payment on a house, and a shared social circle to keep them together. But, over time, those connections were drawn farther and farther apart, like a string being pulled in opposite directions. The accounts were separated, the house was sold and they moved into apartments on opposite sides of the city. After they moved and before the papers were signed, he would text her sometimes. Her replies were always short, but they were still a way to be a part of her life. To remind her that he still existed. After the papers were signed and stamped, the replies became a lot more infrequent. The string snapped.

“Thanks for coming tonight, Maria.”

No response.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

“Almost a year.”

“Yeah, almost a year.” A pause “…Time goes fast.” That was not true. Since she left, seconds haven’t felt like seconds. They have felt like minutes. Hours have dragged on for days. He wished time went fast. And the worst part is he could never stop looking at the clock. When he did manage to drag his eyes away for the shortest of reprieves, the ticking of the analog hands rang in his mind, continuing to taunt him.

He had to be careful what he said next. Test the waters as not to prompt her to get up and leave. They used to have such good conversations. This bench was witness to some of their best. That’s partially why he chose it, hoping it might be able to move her lips. It is clear that any talk of Daryl is off the table, which he is fine with. Talking about her new partner did not make him feel particularly good. “How’s Shelby?” It was the only thing he could think it ask. Shelby is a safer topic. He had known her almost as long as he had known Maria. She was her best friend. She was there the night he picked Maria up for their first official date. He cracks a smile thinking about that night. Maria had gone on a string of bad dates leading up to this one and Shelby had been in full protector mode. She pulled him into the house and interrogated him so thoroughly that he doubted there was anything left for him and Maria to talk about at dinner.

“Shelby’s doing good.”

“Remember the first night I met her? She asked me so many questions…”

She turns and looks at him. It’s the first time they have made eye contact since she appeared as a ghost on the horizon. “Can we not do this?”

“Do what?”

“The trip down memory lane. I didn’t come here to reminisce. I came here as a courtesy. You said you wanted to tell me something, what is it?”

He lifts up the letter in his hand. “I wrote this for you.”

“What is it?”

“It’s everything. All my thoughts. All my feelings. My insights and my reflections. The memories that I still think about every day. All my regrets and insecurities. Everything I wish you would have known. Just…everything.”

“It’s too late to change anything.”

“I know it is.”

“Then why did you write it all down?”

“Because I want you to know. Even if it’s too late. I can’t sit around any longer with all these thoughts bouncing around in my head. I had to let them out and the only person that deserves to hear them is you. You are the only person who I want to hear them.”

“Fine. What does it say?”

He grabs the top corner of the envelope and wiggles his index finger under the flap. Carefully, he breaks the seal, sliding his finger along the edge and separating the two sides of the paper fold. He doesn’t want it wrinkled. The letter falls into his hand and he unfolds it.

“Dear Maria…”

“Don’t read it word for word. Just tell me what it says.”

“That is what it says.”

Her hand touches his wrist and gently guides his raised hands to his lap. “You don’t have to read it to tell me what you wrote.”

Yes, he does. He has to read the letter. He spent hours thinking it over. Even the punctuation was thoughtfully examined. It’s perfect. It’s exactly what he wants to tell her. If he just starts talking, he might forget something. Or he might say it the wrong way. Anything could happen. “I would really prefer to read it.”

“If these thoughts have been bouncing around in your head for so long, you shouldn’t need to read anything.”

One look into her eyes and his worries begin to fade. They are dark blue, like the tumultuous waves of an ocean storm, far out at sea, uninterrupted by man or land. They are just as easy to get lost in too. For such an uncanny resemblance to one of nature’s deadliest visual marvels, it is peculiar how calm they make him. They always had that effect on him. Whenever nerves or anxiety started to claw their way into his mind, all it took was one glance and those monsters were all washed away by something immensely more powerful. Her.

“Do you remember the first time we sat on this bench?”

“I told you I don’t want to go down memory lane. If that’s all this letter is, then I have other places to be.”

He grabs her hand. They are cold. They never used to be cold when they sat here. When they sat her, there was never an opportunity for them to get cold because her hand was always in his. He didn’t mean to grab her. It’s instinct, built subconsciously from years of her teasingly pulling away from him. He lets go and her hand retracts to her lap.

“I promise, it’s part of the letter.”

She sighs. “Yes, I remember the first time we sat on this bench.”

“Do you remember what we were doing that night?”

“We went to dinner at that nasty restaurant on South Oak Street then on the way home you begged me to walk through this park because you thought it would be fun.”

“But do you remember why we ended up on this bench?”

“I rolled my ankle on a walnut and it hurt so bad to walk on.”

He laughs. “Exactly, and you were complaining so much about it and it barely even got swollen.”

The corners of her lips twitch upwards. They don’t form a smile or even a little grin, it’s just a twitch. Subtle, barely visible in the dark. Then they slip back into neutrality. If he didn’t have her face memorized, he never would have noticed it.

“I was complaining a lot. You practically carried me to this bench.”

She hasn’t stopped him yet. He keeps going. “That really was the worst night for you. That’s the same night you ordered that fish that made you so nauseous.”

“I told you I didn’t want to go to that restaurant.”

“I heard it was good!”

“It looked like it could barely pass a health code inspection.”

She grins. A real grin this time, not a simple twitch. He grins too. That’s all he was hoping for when he reached out. To talk the way they used to and have a real conversation that wasn’t carried out through texts or by lawyers. It didn’t matter what they were talking about, he just wanted to talk to her again. It has been so long.

“Why can’t we talk like this more?” He knew he shouldn’t have asked but he couldn’t stop himself. The grin that sent shockwaves through his body moments before disappears. All the energy and warmth it brought to the little wooden bench fades away and the brisk tendrils of the night creep back.

“Because it’s not like that anymore. All those memories, they are in the past. It’s fun to look back on them and laugh, but we can’t live in them forever. And here, now, it’s not like it was back then.”

“Why can’t it?”

“It hasn’t been like that for years.”

“What changed? What is so different now than the way it was back then?”

“Back then I was in love with you.”

“So what? That’s the difference, you just stopped loving me? Just woke up one morning and decided that 7 years together was all you needed to realize you don’t actually love me? Why couldn’t you have realized that before I proposed!”

She stands up. Her voice is harsh. “Stop. Stop talking right now. I didn’t just wake up one morning and stop loving you. It would have been a lot easier if I had…” Her words waver as they leave her mouth. Her throat is clamping. “…Instead I had to watch you stop being the person I loved. Watch you slip away from me and no matter how hard I tried to hold on, you just kept slipping until I didn’t even recognize you anymore. That’s what changed.” She takes a breath and turns away.

“Maria…”

He begins to rise, but she holds up the palm of her hand, stopping him mid-motion. She takes another breath and sits back down.

“You brought up the night we first sat here. Well do you remember when I rolled my ankle on that walnut. You laughed your ass off. I was hopping on one leg, clutching my ankle in pain and you thought it was the funniest thing in the world. But you didn’t let me fall. Right when I lost my balance, you were there and you wrapped your arms around me and you carried me to this bench. You were still laughing the whole time, but I knew that you wouldn’t let me down. I was laughing too. You held all my weight and you did it with such care. You didn’t rush me as I hobbled over and your grip didn’t crush me. Back then, I knew that you couldn’t protect me from everything in this world, no one can do that, but I wasn’t scared to walk out into the sunlight each and every day because, even if you weren’t an impregnable shield blocking every trial and tribulation in my path, I knew that you were the person that would always be there to carry me back from the brink. You might laugh at me and my blunders or be an ass about helping me walk ten feet with a swollen ankle, but under all of that fluff I could still see your love. You cared back then. You cared about every little thing I did, things a normal spectator would never notice or even think to ask me about.” She pauses and takes another breath. He never knew she had so much to say. “Do you remember the day I asked you to come to a party with some of my office friends? It was Evelyn’s birthday and everyone in my department went out for cocktails. I asked you to come with me. Do you remember that day?”

“Yes.”

“You told me you didn’t want to come. You said you would rather stay home and watch Netflix, so I went without you to Evelyn’s birthday party.”

“I was in the middle of one of those nature documentaries.”

“The one about the rain forests, right?”

“I can’t remember. What does this have to do with me becoming the person you didn’t love anymore?”

“It’s the first night I couldn’t feel that underlying love. Maybe it disappeared before that night and I just didn’t notice until then. Something like that, this feeling I can’t even describe, is hard to keep track. It might have disappeared hours, or days, or weeks, or who knows how long before. I was so sure you were the one, I got lazy and stopped paying attention. So maybe I can’t blame this all on you, a relationship is two people after all, but that was the first night I noticed your love was gone. We were still friends. We were still partners, but that spark was gone. Sometimes it would flicker and I would trick myself into thinking it was always there and I just lost track of it in the moment, but it wasn’t always there.” Her voice tightens with every word. “It was a lightbulb flickering with its bouts of light. Like the overhead light in a hallway of a scary movie. Flashing on and off. The first, telltale sign of the horror that awaits. A warning. A warning that I ignored. You didn’t care the way you used to. You weren’t the person I loved and I didn’t want to stay with a person I didn’t love.”

“Maria, I never stopped loving you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Her eyes are glassy. “I don’t doubt that you never stopped loving me. We wouldn’t be sitting on this bench right now if you did. Something just wasn’t right anymore. I’m sorry.” Her eyes are glassy pools. Her words stiff as boards.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“Wow, maybe I should have written a letter too.” She tries to laugh but it gets caught in her throat. “I didn’t know I had that much to say.”

“Neither did I. Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

“Probably for the same reason you are only now telling me what’s in that letter. Which, by the way, you still haven’t said.”

He starts to unfold the letter again, and once again she stops him. “I told you I don’t want you to read it. I know you were never one for spontaneous speeches, but I gave you my thoughts off-the-cuff. Time to hear yours.”

He sits the letter on his lap and turns his body to a better angle. When was the last time he really look at her face. Yes, her eyes and their deep tempest blue are unforgettable, but he found peace in the comforting familiarity of the rest of her. All of her features are soft with the exception of her eyebrows which are always manicured neatly. Her cheeks are slightly blushed from the quiet breeze. He used to wake up to that face every morning. He would roll over in bed and there she was, her head half buried in the side of a pillow. If he didn’t already have every feature memorize, he might try to ramble on with his words to give himself more time to stare, but hers was a face he would never forget.

He motions at the letter. “I guess I should have known it was a waste of time writing this out.”

She smiles. “You really should have.”

“I brought up the story of the first time we sat on this bench because I thought it was a pretty amazing parallel to us. We ended up on this bench by a forgettable chance that we turned into something incredible. When I met you, it wasn’t on purpose. I decided to go out and get a slice of pizza at 2 AM in college and you just so happened to be there with your drunk friend who decided to flirt with me. You kept apologizing out of associated shame, but I thought it was cute and walked away with your number. Fast forward and we have been dating for 3 years and we are moving to a new city together. Fast forward 2 more years and we are getting married. I didn’t realize when I was standing on that altar that 3 years later I would be sitting across from you signing our divorce papers.” He laughs. “I just summed up the last 8 years of our lives in less than a minute. And all of that started with a chance. A chance encounter that shouldn’t have amounted to anything and instead it amounted to 8 years of my life. It’s still a part of my life. You are still a part of my life. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about you. And I know…I know that doesn’t change anything and I know it never will. You left for a reason and me pouring my heart out is not going to fix our problems. But I will say it now and however many more times you need to hear it, I never stopped loving you or caring for you or whatever you think I stopped doing. I will always have your back, even if you don’t have mine. I’m sorry that I made you feel like I didn’t.”

He takes a breath. His eyes are starting to get watery. Tears are not one of the things he experiences a lot, but she had a habit of bringing them out in him. “Can I ask you something?”

She is chewing on her lip. It’s a nervous habit of hers that he always found cute. Her little cheeks would scrunch up and her mouth would shrink. “Sure.”

“How would you get over losing you? I’ve tried everything. I’ve deleted your number only to type it back into my contacts lists.” He shakes his head. “It’s hard to delete something you have memorized - I’ve tried seeing other people but none of them compare to you and I can’t even fathom another second date after what you gave me. You just set my expectations way too high. I’ve focused on myself. I’ve tried new hobbies. I’ve taken vacations. Nothing works. Everything I do – everything I see – makes me think of you. If I know you have touched something, I can’t dissociate your memory from it. It’s all tainted with you. But not in a way that makes me sick. No, it makes me sad. I’ve thought about throwing everything out. Starting fresh. But will that really fix anything? I don’t know what to do Maria. You were always the one I turned to for help fixing my problems, but I never considered what I would do if the problem was you? So that’s why I asked you to come here tonight. That’s what I wrote in this letter and that is the only thing I’m asking of you.” She looks at him. He can’t read her expression. “Please. It’s one last favor after everything we shared together. Tell me how do to get rid of you?”

She’s chewing her lip again. It’s amazing there is anything left to chew on. After a moment’s pause she speaks. “You don’t have to get rid of me to get over me. You don’t have to scrub every memory of me from your life. Sure, you can throw away the mug I got you for your birthday, but every birthday you are still going to remember the time I got you a stupid mug. Forcing yourself to forget just doesn’t work. I’m a part of your past, there’s no point trying to deny it. You are a part of my past too and it is a part that I am extremely thankful for even if we didn’t end up the way I had hoped. If it helps, I’m still reminded of you sometimes too. Every time I go to the grocery store and see a pineapple, my first thought is ‘he doesn’t like pineapples’ and I walk right passed them, even when I need a pineapple. But I don’t get sad every time that happens, I actually enjoy the feeling it gives me because it reminds me of the feeling you used to give me. It’s a familiarity you can only get from devoting years of your life to one person. So I’m going to tell you this. Don’t erase me. Don’t use others to get over me. Don’t try new things just to distract yourself from me. Do things because you want to do them. Meet people because you want to meet them. Remember me however much you want, but don’t let it drag you into the past. We had fun back then and you shouldn’t let that happiness get overshadowed by what happened to us. Make new memories, but don’t forget the old. I know you can.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

She scoffs. “It’s not. But it’s necessary.”

“I spent days thinking about what I wanted to tell you. I even wrote it all down in a letter. Then you come here, sit down, and tell me all of that without even thinking. How am I supposed to get through this without you?”

“I just told you how.”

He sighs. “Is this it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Is this the last time we will sit on this bench together?”

“I think so.”

“Does that make you sad?”

She looks down at the bench. Her hand gently follows the grain of one of the wooden boards, her fingertips dancing upon it like a ballerina. “It makes me appreciative.”

He nods soberly. “It makes me sad.”

She stands up. “I hope one day it doesn’t.” Then she turns and walks back towards the trees. He watches as she transforms from the person he loved – loves – into a shadow once again. A dark silhouette that fades into the night like a ghost, disappearing as quickly as it first appeared.

The letter weighs on his lap. Gingerly, he lifts it and sets it down where just moments before there had been a person. The scenes from the night reply in his head over and over, breaking down every line of dialogue and miniscule action. It’s almost morning when he finally lifts himself from the wooden bench. He didn’t realize how much time has passed. With the night still playing in his head, he turns and begins walking back to his apartment. As he fades into the early morning light, becoming just another passerby in the park, the only indicator of what happened on the bench is a single white envelope. Inside, a letter, written with the care of a man hanging onto the frayed ends of his past, trying with all his might to pull it back. A letter he knew would never change anything, but he still felt compelled to write. A letter sitting on a bench that now met nothing. Or at least, not what it used to mean. But there was a reason he felt it there. An irrational, impossible reason.

Maybe she’ll come back for it.