What Should Have Been

“As I write this I’m struggling with the myriad things I long to say to you.”

He pushed his chair back from his desk, trying desperately to focus on a single cohesive direction.

It was late. It always was when he finally had the chance to unwind and put his thoughts onto the screen. The coffee usually helped. It never really did much for him besides giving him the jitters, but he knew that if he didn't let it out it was going to continue to eat him alive.

He forced his hands back on to the keyboard.

“I know we never really knew each other...”

He hesitated, hands hovering over the keys. The pain in his chest was growing unbearable, and he felt as though something was trying to choke him from the inside.

“...but before you left I had envisioned a long and beautiful life with you.”

He choked for air as the emotions began to take their toll.

“I loved you. I still love you. I can’t help it.”

A tear rolled down his cheek.

“I know I’m not much of a man. My life has been one self-induced failure after another. I’d love to blame my parents, my upbringing, my teachers, or whatever, but the truth is that I should have been smart enough to avoid all of those pitfalls.”

He cringed as vivid recollections of his numerous failures rushed into his mind.

“I should have been smart enough to prepare for this, to maybe even avoid it, but as always I destroyed yet another relationship before it even had a chance to blossom.”

He slammed his fist onto his desk. He hated himself for leaving such a horrendous wake of destruction in his path. He knew that no one who ever knew him ever went away unscathed.

“I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. I was too self-absorbed, too damn stupid to keep it from happening, and now you’re gone.”

He slumped over his desk, almost shaking from the pain and the rage. He knew that no one could ever hate him as much as he hated himself; that there was no way she would ever read the words he was so desperately trying to get out of his head and on to the screen.

“I don’t care how this sounds. I miss you. I miss the life we could have shared. I wanted to show you the places where I grew up, and share some of the things I once found beautiful with you. I wanted to make you smile.”

He had pictured that smile of hers so many times. And her eyes. He knew he would be able to see her happiness in her eyes if he had just been given the chance.

“I would have done anything to make you happy. I would have given up anything, sacrificed anything...”

He brushed the tears off of his cheek with his sleeve.

“I would have died for you.”

He wanted to die. The guilt and the shame he had been enduring were practically begging him to end himself, but he knew that even though killing himself would make the world a better place it wouldn't bring her back to him.

“I wish I could tell you to your face how much you mean to me, how much meaning you brought into my life just by being there. I wish I could hold your hand, tell you everything is going to be alright, hold you close when you’re afraid or when you need a shoulder to cry on. I wish I could have been the kind of man you needed me to be.”

He stared at the screen for a moment, lost in the memories of what could have been; what should have been.

“I know you’ll never read these words, but I have to say this anyway. I’m a better person for having had you in my life those fleeting moments. You changed me. You made me want to live for the first time in a long time. You made the world beautiful to me. You saved me.”

He didn’t bother wiping off the tears. There was no stopping them.

“I love you. I always will. I’m so sorry I never had a chance to hold you and to tell you just how special you are to me.”

The pain was unbearable. He wanted so desperately to end it all, but knew that it was not what she would have wanted.

“The doctor told us it no one’s fault, that miscarriages just happen. But I can’t help but believe that it was all my fault. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I wish you were here to tell me everything is going to be OK, that it wasn't my fault.”

He began to weep. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out.

As he sat there trying to regain his breath and composure, he imagined what she might think to see him so distraught. He choked back the tears and straightened himself up as if she had just walked in the room.

He smiled as if she was there with him.

“I love you honey. You’re my pride and joy. You’ll always be daddy’s little girl.”

What About God?

“But you’re the only guy I've never cheated on!”

And there it was again. That upturned lower lip, that strained redness in her eyes, and those tears. Those god damned tears.

I remembered how much those poorly-applied-makeup streaked streams of manipulation used to drive me nuts, and almost couldn't help but revel in their pitiful ineffectiveness.

“What do you want?” I started, unable to contain my scorn, “A medal, or a dang lollipop?”

 “But…”

I laughed. I couldn't contain it. There she stood, face all contorted in a woefully lame attempt to elicit compassion; trying to use the same tired tactics she had used for the entire 8 years we were together.

“You’re not supposed to cheat!” I threw my hands in the air and shook my head in disdain. “And you know as well as I do that it’s only because the opportunity never presented itself.”

 “I would never cheat on you!” The whine in her tone didn't work on her ex, and it certainly wasn't about to work on me.

“Really? And what about the pastor of the church in Sciotoville?”

She opened her mouth as if she had the ability to muster anything of any value to add to the conversation, but it was her turn to listen.

“You cheated on your ex with him! It’s what killed your first marriage. You fucked him for four years! And you were still fucking him right up to the time we met.”

“But I stopped seeing him when I met you.”

I knew I was no prize, and not exactly the poster boy for stability, but I also knew that I wasn't an idiot.

“You stopped seeing him because he moved out of town when the church people started questioning why he was spending so much time with you while his own wife was at home going crazy over it,” I shrugged and shook my head, “and you were still calling him when we first got married, so don’t even.”

Her mouth remained open but nothing was even making an attempt to come out of it.

I continued, remembering the years I had put up with it in the hope that it might someday get better, “and you haven’t changed a bit.”

She straightened up as if she were about to retort with conviction and righteous indignation, but slumped back again, knowing that I was finally immune to her bullshit.

“I have to go,” I said, trying my best to put an end to the proximity induced nausea and get back to counting my inventory.

She looked down for a second, eyes darting side to side, and then raised up again with an ‘Ah-hah!’ look on her face, which she quickly hid behind that almost comedic tragedy face that she used to twist her face into around my friends to try to make them think I was mean to her. I knew she was about to say something so ridiculously asinine that I might just pass out from the sheer stupidity of it.

“But what about God?”