I know what I said, okay? I was there. It’s not like I have wiped my memory banks or something. In fact I am reliving every goddamned second of that day, over and over since it happened. If there was any way for me to unravel it, to take this end and untie every knot until I had long piece of string wound around my finger, no tangly bits, no complications, I would do it in a heartbeat. I didn’t go into the situation with a big plan, this wasn’t part of a greater system, it just happened and now I can’t undo it.

You pissed me off, that true. You do that all the time, but this time was worse. You know how sometimes things just bounce off of you and sometimes they stick? Well, this time your words stuck in deeply, like I was some sort of voodoo doll and you were hoping for a big reaction – like having my head fall off or something. It went deep and it hurt bad. It was like my whole body curled around that hurt and I couldn’t think of anything else but those words and the look on your face.

But the thing is though, I never meant for things to play out like this. I wanted to walk away from you and have you run after me. I wanted you to grovel, to beg my forgiveness, for you to say how wrong you were and how I was some sort of gracious saint for putting up with you. I needed that. If you have done any of those things it would have filled the space that your words had left and it would have healed over. There would have been a scar, of course, there’s always a scar – but you have to know that scar tissue, like a broken bone that’s healed, is stronger than everything else around it. I could have lived with a scar.

I might have even brought it to light every now and then so I could see how it had healed, so I could congratulate myself on my strength in healing the wound, but I wouldn’t have been bringing it up to you, I know better than that.

The thing is though, it didn’t play out like that. I got up from the table and I walked away and I realized that the ground might as well have opened and swallowed me. I could hear you saying to your friends that I could keep walking as far as you were concerned, that you were done. Sure, getting up like that was dramatic, but the situation seemed to call for that – sometimes you have to make the big gesture. But I really thought you would follow me. I thought you would run after me and maybe we’d yell and and say more horrible things, but our anger would burn everything clean and we could start again.

That’s not what happened though. I got up and walked away and you didn’t follow. This isn’t what I wanted. Not at all.

I just wanted you.