The Owl

“What are you thinking?”

It was a question he had heard so many times that he had stopped giving her an answer. It was sort of like when she asked him to tell her a secret. These questions were more habit than true curiosities and he assumed she would be surprised if he even answered her.

But tonight, he was thinking about how much he loved her. He fought the urge to say it because it would be unfair to her. So instead, he told her how beautiful she was and put a hand on her cheek.

Her makeup was a mess from the night before but it was true.

They were laying in the bed where they had made love so many times before. The same bed that he had missed so badly during the two months when they had not spoken. He was with the person he loved more than anything else on Earth and everything felt how it should be. Everything looked exactly as it had before their time apart. The only difference was the owl now tattooed on her right shoulder.

He hated that tattoo. It was a symbol of the time they had been apart. A time when he had been a coward and she had lived a life without him. He kissed it now, hoping overtime his lips could eventually erase it and all it stood for.

Even if he couldn’t, it did not matter. He was with the person who he loved. He told her earlier that day how happy she made him. She had lit up for him the way she always had.

That was how he told her he loved her now.

But last night, she had told him that she did not love him anymore. She had looked up at him with her warm hazel eyes like a child waiting to be praised by a parent. When she saw that he did not smile back, she asked what she had done wrong. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

No, he thought to himself. He did not want her to be out of love with him, but it was only fair. He had not loved her the way he was supposed to for months.

He had broken up with her when she needed him most, but she had always taken him back.

She was a little tipsy the night before, and he wondered whether she had stated that she no longer loved him out of drunken playfulness or spite. He guessed that she probably did not know whether it was out of playfulness or spite either.

Regardless of which emotion motivated the omission, he knew that she probably wanted it to be true. She probably did not want to love him anymore.

They had been back to doing this for a little more than a month now but the only time she said she loved him was in those weakened moments of climax when she would let out a breath with a meek “I love you” floating on them. Afterwards she would make some excuse or not mention it.

Twice she had pushed for him to say it back and when he had said that he no longer felt that way about her, her little eyes had gone big as if she thought by making them the size of the moon, she could stop the tears from falling. She was actually able to beat gravity most of the time, not allowing the tears to drop, but her eyes would gloss over. He appreciated this because the far away sadness in her eyes was easier to ignore than true condensation.

The least he could do was not mess with this change. He was not sure if her not loving him was true or a step forward but he wanted to support her.

He knew that if he were to tell her that he still loved her, she would go back to doting on him the way she had when they were together. She would take care of everything. She would love him the way everyone seems to want to be loved. She would give all of herself to him and their relationship. However, it still would not be enough for him and because of this, he would feel bad.

He did not want to feel bad anymore.

He was so tired of disappointing her and he wanted the freedom to do anything that made him feel better in the moment.

Whether that meant being alone for a few hours or watching TV or fucking someone new or drinking himself into a stupor. At least it would be his choice and she wouldn’t have to be on the receiving end of it, wondering where he was and how she had failed.

He didn’t want to be indebted to anyone like that.

He has done so many things to push her away. He had thought maybe if she chose to leave, he could feel sorry for himself and that it would be easier, but the more he had thrown at her, the harder she had held on.

She explained that she had made a promise to love him forever and that she intended on keeping it. She expanded that if she really thought he didn’t love her, she would leave in a heartbeat, but she knew he loved her and that he was going through a hard time and that she would be there to support him because she knew he would do the same for her.

He had repaid her by making sure she knew that that wasn’t true. He had broken up with her the day that her grandmother died. He pushed her away when one of her closest friends died. He did not go with her to the hospital when she got sick.

And then, just to make sure she knew how little she meant to him, when they got back together, he slept with someone else.

Although it sounded like bullshit when he said it, he had told her the truth of why he did it. He wanted to be with someone who wasn’t so engulfing. He wanted to be with someone he could just like. Someone who didn’t suck him in and make him feel like the best person on earth and subsequently the worst for hurting her. He wanted to be with someone who looked at him like he was a regular guy, not the way she looked at him.

Every time she looked at him, she did this thing where she breathed in, bit her lip, shook her head “no,” and smiled.

He simply did not deserve a love like this and he had decided on that a long time ago.

Her love was too much. So instead he encouraged her to fall out of love with him; wondering how long it would take and how he would feel when she finally took back all of her love.

She looked at him and wondered what he was thinking. She asked him that question all the time but he never really gave her an answer.

He would always say that he was thinking how pretty she was but there was always something deeper than that right behind his eyes that she saw but could never figure out.

What she really wanted to know was whether he had noticed how the sex had changed. It was still miles better than it was with anyone else but it wasn’t as good as usual.

Earlier that day she had Googled, “how do you know when you’re out of love with your ex.”

She had also started to think about the absurd amount of money she had spent over the last few months to get him back. She had gone to psychics and therapists and relationship coaches. She had gone on trips to find herself and spent money on expensive diets so she would look good for when he came back. She had even gotten that stupid owl tattoo on her should which she would now have to spend even more money to get lasered off in a few weeks.

She now wondered if that was all for nothing. She wondered if maybe she didn’t love him after all.

She had loved him. She had loved him with every fiber of her being. His smile shattered her. His arms were her safe haven. She had loved him from the moment they met but something had changed. She had felt it in her gut a few days earlier and now she felt it when they made love.

The best she could figure was that she still loved him but less.

Two things had happened that made her realize that she could probably be done and finally give herself the permission to stop loving him.

The first was that he had finally been honest about one of his friends not liking her. It was a small thing but for more than a year he had made her feel crazy, telling her that his best female friend could not possibly have feelings for him and that she was a fan of their relationship. In the last week, he had finally admitted his best friend’s disdain for their relationship.

The second thing was that she now knew that he had slept with someone else. During the months they had been apart his sexual activity would have wounded her but it would’ve had nothing to do with her. However she now knew that in the month since they had reconnected, he had slept with someone else.

He had given her the excuse that he was too addicted to her and he wanted to try being with someone who was less addicting. She sort of understood, simply because she felt the same way about him but that was love. For her there was no point in being with someone if you wouldn’t fully give yourself away to them.

In one of her colder moments she had admitted that they would never work because she always felt too much and he actively avoided his feelings. They simply weren’t compatible in that way. But they were compatible in other ways including the fact that they loved each other and were addicted to one another. However his sexual indiscretion proved that not to be the case.

She reasoned that if he truly felt the way he said he did and if he truly thought she was so addicting, there was no way he would have slept with someone else while they were back together.

And this was enough to release her. The love they had shared didn’t exist anymore. Love was worth fighting for but he didn’t love her anymore and now that she knew that, she could allow herself to consider the possibility that maybe she didn’t love him either.

She snapped back to the present, feeling his hand on her face and seeing that glimmer behind his eyes that meant part of him was somewhere else, thinking about something that he wasn’t saying.

She barely heard him as he told her that she was beautiful

He inhaled deeply, bit his lip, shook his head, and smiled. It reminded her of something but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

If she still loved him she would’ve pushed for the truth but instead she nuzzled into the pillow and tried to fall back asleep.