Careless Words

“Do you really think I’m ‘The One’?” he asks carefully.

In shock, I stop myself from answering right away. I place my words strategically, “I wouldn’t be with you if I couldn’t see us together,” I pause.

“Forever?” he asks

I nod my head in satisfaction, content with the outcome of the conversation, but he speaks again, “Sometimes I wonder…” he trails off.

“Why? Have I ever done anything to make you doubt that?” I am getting defensive.

“Well,” he says, “Sometimes I find things that you’ve written that make me wonder.”

An alarm sounds in my head along with a string of profanities I’d rather not repeat. I breathe in as an effort to calm myself before I ask, “What have you read?”

He hands me a piece of lined yellow paper. I read the thoughts written on the paper, my hurtful, confusing thoughts....



I choke on my words because I know this cannot be explained adequately enough. I did not write out my feelings correctly and I know how bad it sounds to him. Nevertheless I spend a good fifteen minutes trying to explain myself; telling him that if we did, indeed, go our separate ways at some point I would be devastated, but I would also be able to pick myself up and move on eventually. I tell him that I love him and it would break me, but that I would be okay in the long run. I sigh, because I know this does not comfort him.

“That doesn’t explain it, does it?” I ask.

“No,” he states the obvious.

“I don’t know,” I say, “it made sense at the time.” It is quiet for three beats and then he says, “Sometimes I think you leave them for me on purpose.” I tell him that is not true. At one point in my life, that might have been the case, but not now, not after growing so much with him. I tell him the thought never even entered my mind.

“I found another one, but I didn’t read it. It’s a whole page. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what was written on it,” he tells me.

I panic and ask if he can get it for me. He returns from his room holding the one paper he should read; the one paper the captures exactly how I feel about him and our relationship. But he has only read the one that damages him, not that one that could return him to solid ground. After awhile he asks if I will read it to him. I decline but tell him he should read it himself, wondering if my words, written so carefully, can replace the words I had written so carelessly?

As he holds the paper, he looks at me intently, “I think I’ll read it tomorrow,” he smiles a faint smile and hugs me tight. I search for something to say in that moment, but I cannot speak. I realize that the thoughts I write down, the restlessness that I exorcize from my body through writing are now dangerous to others. Those writings, the ones that make me feel better; have the power to make him feel unwanted, unneeded, and unimportant. And there is no way to explain such things.

I leave the page on the counter and hope that he will remember to read it tomorrow. “If he was to read just one of my rants,” I think, “this one would give him the truth"