Gwen> Stranger

He doesn’t know me enough to love me the way he says. We have never been friends. He doesn’t tell me what he’s thinking. I no longer attempt to share my deepest desires with him. When I have good news he is not the first person I call. He doesn’t know me. All we know is great sex. All we have is great sex. Come to think about it he only says he loves me voluntarily after sex. All of the men in my past probably did the same but this time I notice because for whatever reason, this time it matters.

I have never felt so broken. A man who I open up to after heart break who can easily continue to add damage has no heart himself. However, I can’t let him go. I acknowledge that this relationship is most likely the worst I’ve ever been in. I’m more miserable than I am happy. But I can’t let him go. I ache for the times we move in synchronization. I love how we move together. It makes me believe that I love him. In those moments I can’t remember the bad until he gets up, goes to the bathroom, cleans himself, and returns. Hard. Only soft after I snuggle up to him, and it’s easier for him to wrap his arm around me for comfort of the position.

He doesn’t know me. Days before Valentines Day I spend everything I have to make him happy. It’s the only way I can show him how I feel because he doesn’t hear me. I have conditioned myself to not tell him that I love him anymore. If I say it, it slips out. His response is always awkward. He pauses then returns the gesture. No feeling. Robotic. I watch him on his phone engrossed in conversations, laughing in a way I have never made him laugh.

At six o’clock in the morning his phone rings. It’s a ring tone I haven’t heard in a while. It’s a recording of a song he wrote last year that I’ve only heard once before, seemingly seeping through the cracks in the walls at the office as Zora played it over and over. He just got in. He rolls out of my bed and tells me he has to go again. Something to do with a band member needing a ride to the airport. I know it’s not true. It never is. On the nights he chooses to grace me with his presence, I watch him get up earlier than I do to always run some random errand.

I caught him once. Sitting in a cab outside of my job. Of course I thought he was there to see me. When I was about to approach the car I saw that his gaze was locked in another direction. He was staring at her. Watching Zora get her morning bagel from one of the deli carts outside of the station. Her morning routine. I realized that this was also Brent’s morning routine.

Now he’s off to see her again. I can’t object because then I get blamed for being unnecessarily jealous. As far as he is concerned I have no proof. The law rules heavily in our relationship “if there’s no proof, then there is no offense”. I deal with it. I hate him for it, but I say I love you when he leaves. He responds with his back turned to me.

He doesn’t know me. I don’t know me.

Zora> Bounce

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“I’ve loved you once, loved you twice, a third time”- Anonymous

I remember there was a time in my life where I wanted to be a wife and mother more than anything. In the span of one year I watched both of those opportunities slip away from me. There are random moments when I remember that the proposal I wanted so badly from Quincy went to someone else. Sometimes I catch myself rubbing my stomach as if the baby I lost after the attempt to take my life in May was still there; still growing.

I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I didn’t know that Brent and I created a life together. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind when I told the doctors I didn’t want the child. I was thinking about my broken heart. I kept telling myself that he was going to leave me like the others. I didn’t want to be reminded of that heart break everyday as I had to raise a child on my own, and share custody with him when he eventually settles down with the family he really wanted.

That memory is haunting me as Leigh has stopped calling and Brent won’t stop. I completely cut him off after I chose Mark at the New Years Eve party last year, and then I found out he was dating Gwen. Except for that one night when I was feeling unsure of where things were going with Mark. One night where I let him hold me, and hum the song he wrote for me in my ear. One night where I let him physically turn any pain I felt into pleasure. When I woke up in the hospital he was sitting next to my bed. Brent slipped in while Mark was preoccupied trying to alert my family. He told the nurse that I was his fiancé. I told the nurse to make him leave. He touched my stomach and I knew instantly what he was trying to tell me. The doctors later confirmed.

I finally looked at my phone to see that Brent had left me several voice messages begging me to call him. There were also two texts. One read “What do you want to do?” the other said “Don’t hate me”. That’s all I needed to see. As far I as I was concerned he didn’t want the baby because he didn’t see a future with me. A couple of hours before I found out about the child, I no longer wanted a future for me.

Now two months into this new year, I’m in a familiar place. Losing myself in the mess I created in the pursuit to feel loved by some guy. I swear men can sniff out when I’m single. As soon as one leaves another one is ready to step in and I always clear the way. What’s worse is that I seem to have a revolving door for my exes. I move on so quickly that I lost count of who is a rebound. For a while we bounce around together in perfect synchronization hitting the ground and being held firmly. Then the simplest distraction causes the ball to be stolen. A shot is taken by the opposing team. Sometimes they score and all I could think about is how I had control of the ball a couple of seconds before. A whistle is blown and the ball is back in my possession. I take a deep breath and return Brent’s call.

“Hello,” he said sounding hoarse. It was six o’clock in the morning. He probably fell asleep about an hour ago. His band was playing the late night set at the jazz bar the night before.

I closed my eyes, grabbed my stomach and whispered, “Come over”.