your heart is a muscle

"It's like you're giving up before it all goes wrong."

It was pretty much pitch black in the bedroom but that's the way Cris liked it. With the darkness came a kind of silence that allowed her to think. Today was a day that required a lot of thinking and Cris had been sitting in the dark room for hours. Carlos hated the thick curtains, hated the way it could be midnight in the bedroom and two o'clock in the afternoon in reality. If he were here, he would have long ago come in to jerk the curtains open. He would have forced Cris to leave her cozy chair and join the sun in reality.

But that's what all this thinking was about. Carlos wasn't there. It was day three and this was supposed to be easier. After all, she had asked him to leave. She had sat here in this bedroom for less than an hour. She had walked down the hallway into the kitchen where he was making his faux homemade chili. The only thing homemade about it was he brought all the precooked ingredients home and put them in a pot together. He was all smiles, and for a moment Cris had hesitated. Seeing him there did make her doubt her decision but not enough to actually stop the train wreck. She shook the doubt off and soldiered ahead.

Soldiered would be a heroic way to think of it. Cris had blindsided him. Right smack in the middle of the best relationship they had either ever been in, she called it quits. Quietly and simply told Carlos she didn't want to date him anymore, requested that he leave, and offered to cover half of his hotel costs. Of course, he didn't take it quite as quietly or simply as she offered. But Cris wasn't expecting that. She had already resigned herself to her position, she was willing to explain, to let him rant. She was unwilling to become defensive, to resort to an unnecessary argument.

Cris had tried to take the stronger side, point out all her flaws that annoyed him. Point out all the moments in their relationship that had been contentious. But Carlos kept picking at it. He knew her too well, knew that whatever had really become the deciding issue was something Cris didn't want to say. Then finally it spilled. Cris's anger unexpectedly bubbled over, the only way it ever really came out, and before she knew it she had blurted the whole truth. The truth that had grown from a conversation six weeks old, a truth that had festered while Carlos thought all was okay. A comment about moving to the suburbs, a house with lots of land and space. A life Carlos though of as relaxing and fulfilling. A life Cris had dashed away from as soon as she got her high school diploma and would never return to.

Carlos didn't even fight it anymore. Just started packing a bag in silence. And that's how it was for a solid thirty minutes. Carlos silently packing his bag, calmly choosing and folding his items. But there was a fire burning in his eyes and Cris knew there was more he would say before he left. He did. Carlos turned around with his suitcase to stare Cris directly in her eyes. And told her the truth, a truth that was real and not some fabrication in her mind. That he loved her more than he'd ever loved anyone, that he wanted to live with her more than any specific location in this world, but what he refused to live with was her constant doubt, her constant search for what's wrong, her unwillingness to talk to him or fight for their love.

Carlos left because Cris asked him. And now all she wanted was for him to walk in this bedroom and open the curtains so she could feel the sunlight.