If I Go Missing

by Leslie Wolfe

His betrayal hurt so badly I couldn’t breathe for a while.

Some things I’ve buried deep inside the most hidden crannies of my heart, too painful to think of. Others I’ve kept reliving, over and over, doubting myself, blaming myself.

I believed only healing would come, even though it didn’t always seem possible.

Days melded together in a slew of sorrow and avoidance and lies, each lie a little bit easier to tell than the ones before, as I was weaving an alternate reality where I didn’t have to explain anything to anyone or deal with my pain. Where I pushed everyone away.

Life doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. We can’t go back when present events leave us shattered and desolate.

I have it together now, even if some of my cracks are showing, and I cannot let anything, or anyone, crush me again. There would be no coming back from it.

I sentenced our love to death. Only our love didn’t die. It lived on inside me, where I’ve been trying my best to suffocate it for the past decade, to no avail.

A lone tear rolls down my face. For what I lost. For what it could’ve been.

The funniest thing about lies… they grow on you like a second skin, each new lie a patch stitched to other lies, while truth withers underneath, suffocated. And so, the truth dies smothered, making room for the new, shiny coat of lies to prevail, to grow stronger. But once someone or something rips off a piece, the entire web unravels, exposing the ugly, contorted nature of who we really are, who we were before we covered ourselves in pretense.

Instead, I’ve been planning my exits so I don’t run into him. My willpower has been proven paper-thin, and I know, deep inside my heart, that if he says the right thing or does the right thing, my resolve will vanish, and I will fall again, hard, beyond repair. And I’d break the heart of a kind and loving man who’s done nothing wrong other than marry a woman who never got over another man.

That day on the café patio, when I said goodbye, I saved myself, even if I thought it was going to kill me.

And now here I am, finally seeing the love that was right in front of me, but only after I’ve lost everything.