She always thought she was being so quiet and that I didn’t hear her come in, she even insisted on repeatedly telling herself to be quiet, even though she failed spectacularly. Then she would fall into bed next to me with the smell of sweat (maybe hers, maybe not) and the sweet sharp scent of alcohol and vomit on her thick, fiery breath. Then the inevitable tears and apologies would occur and I would try and ignore her. I would turn my back on her and hope that she would disappear and take her emotional problems with her. I always just assumed that she had been with another man, like it was an inalienable fact: someone rough and unshaven with strong arms, someone nothing like me. She was always so ‘friendly’ and sociable when she had had a drink. One time I even found a suspicious white stain on her black top just over her right breast, she claimed this was toothpaste but I wasn’t so sure, her breath had a particularly distinctive scent to it that night.
Then, inevitably, she would convince me with her alcohol-laden breath and her coaxing honeyed words that she still loved me and I would always take her back, no matter what she had done, always. I never regretted it the next morning when I woke up next to her and the bright morning light was reflecting off her smooth golden skin. Even with matted hair and smudged makeup she was painfully beautiful. She always looked so peaceful and this always made me forgive her and perpetuate my self-made world of pain and codependence. It never ceases to amaze me how alone you can feel sharing your life with someone, even sharing the same bed.
The rest, as they say, is history.
It is still the memory of the sweet scent of her hair that still haunts my dreams, even now as I lie in bed cold and alone. Every morning I wake and I am disappointed that she is not there. I still hope that one day I will walk through to the kitchen and she will be standing on one leg like she always used to, framed in the window by the morning light, dressed in my old dressing gown, half open, holding a steaming cup of coffee and smiling at me, just like she used to.
And now I find myself sitting on the floor in my kitchen, the very same kitchen, with my back against the washing machine. The floor is hard and it provides no warmth. I seem to be crying even though I don’t feel particularly sad. It still hasn’t sunk in that she is gone.
She is gone, and there is a hole left in me.
