The End Of Alone

She

I struggle to meet his eyes over the glass of merlot that sits in front of me, which the waiter poured with a flourish at my stuttering request. Everything in the restaurant flickers, bathed in candlelight, and I fear the other diners will sense the threadbare nervousness of my presence. I stare into the wine and imagine myself immersed in its glowing red, sinking into the fire and blood of its rich color while the delicate piano music resonates through the liquid.

It’s been a while since I’ve sat across from a man like this. Yet here we are, and I’m afraid, and there’s nowhere for me to hide.

He smiles at me. I can’t tell whether he’s shy or just waiting for me to speak first, as if he believes that I could be so bold.

I’ve studied for this so hard. So many videos, so many podcasts, so many relationship manuals that I sought out in the empty library near closing time, threading between the silent stacks. Under the unforgiving fluorescent ceiling lamps my fingers looked green and desperate as they flipped through all those pages, probing for guidance from the faceless authors that promised a cure for the solitude of any who sought their direction.

Smile, they all said. Tell him about something that excites you. Be positive. Convince him that your life is crowded with true friends, and human connection, and love. Make it sound fun.

But there’s something so kind in his face that it makes me want to tell him other things. I want to tell him about how cold it is when I’m waiting for the bus late at night, trying to get home from school. I’m the only passenger at that hour, and I feel my aloneness plodding alongside me like a ghost. It’s frigid and hollow, dark and deep. The soul of an abandoned mine. It’s there when I wake up to go to school in the morning, and there when I arrive in my vacant apartment, feeling like a stranger even there as I break into the immense stillness.

He tells me that I look pretty tonight.

I want to warn him that my loneliness is the kind that takes all the space within my reach and paints it gray. When that happens, you can’t conceal it anymore. Even the birds that you try to befriend in the park will fly from you then.

He

Her expression is that of a sleeper upon waking; unsure if the dream has ended. Through the bulbs of our wine glasses, I see her hands fluttering, twirling the charm on her necklace.

We’ve been stumbling through the first-date small talk, exchanging the usual questions and pithy remarks. What do you do? Where did you go to college? Are you new here? I think it’s going to rain! I hope that she can’t see the mounting embarrassment I feel as my tongue ties itself into a tangle of complicated knots. The sounds escaping my mouth seem less and less like words as they devolve into the clipped, unintelligible utterances of a man who hasn’t spoken to another soul in years.

But can I be so sure that I’m not that man? The hermit of this day and age does not so much reside in the void of a desert as he does in a single-occupancy urban apartment. He’s the nameless figure at the back of the elevator that makes its creeping descent toward the ground floor at the end of the workday. He’s the one who walks alone in the dark blue of the early morning. He’s young. He’s so much younger than anyone from the not-so-distant past would ever have guessed. His face is not always hidden behind a glowing screen. Sometimes it’s raised to meet the familiar eyes that he has all but stopped hoping for.

And yet, tonight, out of all the solitary nights in uniform that have marched past my waiting form, here is a pair of eyes that hasn’t evaded from my gaze. They’re wide and soft, and there’s a light in them that shines from behind a veil of shadow, asking to be noticed.

I think I almost recognize them.

She

After a few choked moments, I stop begging my words to string themselves together and force them out into the space between us. The blood has been rushing and swirling in my ears, and the sound of it drowns out the first thing I say, but I think it must have been a joke because he starts to laugh. In my overwhelming relief at this I laugh too, causing some of the wine I’ve just been sipping to dribble from the corner of my mouth and onto my shirt. I freeze, suddenly afraid, because the armor of my decorum has cracked open.

I know that it will only get wider. I’ll be behind it. Perhaps not tonight, if I’m lucky. But soon. Sooner than I’ll ever be ready for.

He doesn’t seem to have noticed. He’s still laughing at the joke, and in the midst of his laughter, he says I know exactly what you mean.

He

She looks like an ethereal being, bewildered and peculiar, blown in from a distant moonlit land. I hope she doesn’t go back.

Could she ever want me?

Does she know of anything as frightening as being alone?

She

One of the most frightening things is being known.

He

After our empty plates and glasses have been cleared away, I ask if she’d like to walk down by the river that runs along the street.

The lights of the bars and restaurants shimmer and melt together on the surface of the dark water, red and green and gold. Music makes its way to us from where the people gather on the other side of the water, drinking and talking, savoring the evening.

She shivers slightly in the damp air. I offer her my jacket and she accepts, pulling it tightly around herself like an embrace.

She

The sun has set, but tonight the darkness is kind.

We’re walking slow, matching strides. We lean inward toward each other, never becoming too distant, as if drawn to the same center of gravity.

Something is happening now. It’s tentative, and it’s fragile, and neither of us can stop it. And we won’t want to. It might help us find our souls a home.