A broken hold

 In all the years we have been together, I have held her as she slept. We never wake that way, but that is how we fall asleep. In the past few weeks, because I go to sleep early and she stays up until very late, she has been waking me and asking me to hold her, until last night. I woke because she had turned on the light, but I did not move. I listened as she got undressed, knowing by the sounds what she was doing and when. I felt her get into bed, and I waited. I could have turned and held her without her asking, but if I did that I would be releasing her from the only sign of affection she still gives me. So I wait, and wait, and I hear her snore, and I feel sad.

 I guess this is it, then. This is the true end for us. She doesn’t even require that I hold her anymore. There is nothing left to say or do. Even through our slow separation, I always held some hope we could still be friends, still care for each other more deeply than just acquaintances or roommates. But that is gone now. I close my eyes and hope that sleep finds me as quickly as it did her.

 I am surprised when she rolls over and puts her hand on the small of my back and cuddles slightly closer to me. Suddenly that lost hope is back! She has never done this before; it has always been me coming to her, never her to me. I feel the warmth of her hand on my back and her body pressed against me and I hope again. Maybe we can be friends, two people who tried at love and missed the mark, but found friendship instead. And isn’t that a kind of love in itself, the love of a friend. Maybe we can still talk and smile in each other’s company, though we soon will not live together, maybe we can call and chat and follow each other’s lives as good friends do. All of these thoughts went through my mind in a matter of seconds, as thoughts tend to do. All of the possibilities of our friendship lasting, blossoming into something real that we can both rely on and hold on to, if not lovers than at least caring friends.

 And then she said his name. It was a whisper, but it was loud enough to crush those thoughts, to tear up that road I was walking toward a happy ending. When she turned away again, when her hand lifted from my back, I would not have been surprised to see a burn where it had been. Not from a heat so intense that it could burn at the touch, but from ice so cold it could freeze in an instant.

 I lay there for a long time, wishing for sleep to come and take away my thoughts. Those thoughts of goodbye, and of never agains; of a future of misunderstandings, arguments, and fights until we walk away from each other and never look back. Now the roads I walk all lead to the same end, there is no other way to go, no chance at friendship, at understanding, only goodbye, always goodbye. But sleep is a long time coming this night, as the cold keeps me awake. And though I am covered in blankets, they do nothing to ease the chill that her hand left on my skin.