Forgive My Hesitation by Aspen Snow

Forgive My Hesitation

Forgive My Hesitation

I was alone. Always. Because I wanted to be, because I needed to be, because I had to be. I am a focused man, a man of control, a man of precision.

And I knew what I wanted in life, I wanted power. I was born for it. So I planned, I worked, and I waited for that moment I had been preparing for my whole life. And in the end I steadfastly believed that it didn't matter that I was alone. Because that wasn't important to me.

Yet sometimes, despite my firm resolve, I find myself wondering what might have been. I find myself speculating with a whimsy that does not belong in a man like me. Looking back on the life that led me to where I am now, I know I wasn't completely and totally alone.

I knew people, knew their faces, knew their voices. They cared for me. Smiled at me. And all I could do was smile back. An empty smile.

Because while I was a cold man, I wasn't callous, I wasn't cruel. I gave them the gesture, empty though it was.

And what they didn't know was that tomorrow I could walk away, forever, and never look back. They didn't know how easily I could forget their faces, forget their voices, and never care.

Never.

Because they had never really been a part of me, and they would never be. They were merely whispers in my life, carried away by my indifference, never to be remembered, always forgotten.

They didn't know just how little I cared.

I had goals, I had desires and I would let no one get in the way of accomplishing them.

No one.

In this world only the strong survive, and only those who care about their own interests will get ahead.

I kept these people around anyways, always at a distance, but they were there. There not because I wished them to be, but simply because they were necessary. I never cared to look beyond their usefulness to me.

I went into a card store the other day. Someone I knew was having a birthday, a trivial thing really, but common decency demanded that I get something to commemorate the occasion. Though I don't know why I bothered. Tomorrow I would walk away from them, their services no longer necessary to me, and I would be out $1.99.

Plus tax.

Nevertheless, I found myself walking into that brightly lit store, the cheery ringing of the bells announcing my presence, and grating on my nerves. I passed the noisily clanging wind chimes, the witty and mundane magnets, the colorfully gaudy glass figurines, and headed straight for the rows of cards at the back with a single minded purpose. I would get the card and leave the irritating store, my chore for the day done.

I skipped the sentimental ones, those cards which spoke of love, of hope. Beautiful cards with beautiful words. These would not do.

I could give such a card to the person I knew. I could scribble down a meaningful message, sign it and feign sincerity.

I was good at pretending.

I could watch them read the card, hear them say the hollow words aloud. They would smile, they would be touched by my thoughtfulness, my tenderness. And then I'd look into their eyes brimming with joy, bursting with love, and I'd walk away.

Because I would feel nothing.

Nothing.

And then they would be left with a beautiful card whose beautiful words would be tainted by bitterness, by hate. Because I would have walked without pausing to say goodbye.

And it would hurt them, knowing that I did not care. And I was not a cruel man, I was honest, I was fair.

So I walked by these cards, letting my fingers brush lightly across their surfaces, their beauty alluring, their brilliant sparkles hopeful.

Tempting.

But I was not lured, I was not tempted. Because I knew the truth. The world was ugly, the world did not sparkle.

It burned.

I finally did pick a card, one from the humor section, plucked randomly from its display. The joke inside was decidedly unoriginal and sorely overused. But it was sufficient.

And the next day I give this card to the person I know. I watch them read it, watch them laugh accordingly at the inane joke inside. I look at them, I see the smile in their eyes, a polite message of thanks.

And nothing more.

Later I walk away from them because I'm tired, because their usefulness has expired. I think back to the socially expected laugh, the courteous gratitude, and I wonder if this time they will miss me. I wonder if this time they will not be pained or angered at my indifference, at my apparent cruelty.

Because this time I gave them an ordinary card with simple words, a card which made no promises, a card they could, and would, forget.

I was gone. And maybe this time it will be them who will not care.

But I doubt this. Because I am pessimist, a realist, and I believe that nothing ever works out the way we want it to.

Because it never does.

It was time that people learned that life was not fairy tales and daydreams. It was time that they learned it was not easy.

It was impossible.

Hope, love, happiness, these are never what we dream them to be, what we expect them to be. They are worse.

So much worse.

Love, happiness, such frivolous words, ambiguous. I've seen them kill people, make them bleed.

Nothing is worth that pain.

There are some things in life that touch you, scar you so deeply that you are haunted by their memories, plagued by them.

For me it was weakness. Painful, heartbreaking helplessness.

Helplessness. Because I watched her die. She was the only woman to look into my eyes and see warmth and love. I idolized her with the blind loyalty of a son.

I watched as she slowly faded from this world. From my life. I watched as love broke her, beat her.

I would hear her tears at night, muffled cries of anguish. And eventually I would watch her die because living had become too painful. And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I was helpless, I was weak. So I grew up, and now I'm not. I'm strong, powerful, because once I wasn't.

And it had broken me.

And that was my fear, the festering wound that hasn't healed.

That never will.

Eventually I discovered that walking away from people, from everything, was so much easier than staying to fight for something that will not, cannot last. With every person I see then end, I see the pain, the bitterness, the promise of weakness in their eyes.

And I walk away.

Because their flaws will break me, hold me back.

But I couldn't walk away forever. Fate had a plan for me. A punishment. Because one day she came into my life. A stranger, a woman, one so much like me. Quiet, reserved, regal. And a little bit sad.

And I wondered if people saw that in me too. Sadness. Because it was there, an unacknowledged presence born of pain, of loneliness, of longing, it was a shadow on my soul.

We were inexplicably drawn to one another. The bond between us was instinctual, it was recognition and it was completely unexpected.

Her beauty was the first thing I noticed. It was shallow and superficial, but for me, a man who cared about nothing, it was perhaps the only thing capable of catching my eye.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had I not been five minutes late that morning. I walked into that small and crowded coffee shop supremely irritated and I stood in line, impatiently playing with the change in my pocket, much to the dismay of the elderly woman in front of me.

I ordered my coffee in clipped tones, practically bursting with the need to leave. I heard the young women behind the counter call out my drink order, and I stepped forward and made a move to grab the steaming cup, already anticipating that first scalding hot sip. But I was stopped by the hand of another reaching for the cup as well.

We had ordered the same thing, go figure. We turned to each other at the same time, and then to the girl behind the counter, clearly questioning who the drink belonged to, but the useless worker simply shrugged, and resumed filling her orders.

I sighed in frustration, fully prepared to be the gentleman and let her take the drink, despite the fact that it was the last thing I wanted to do. But she seemed to have anticipated my annoyance and she stepped back first, a tiny smile on that beautiful face, and let me take it.

I didn't say thank you, I didn't say hello. To be honest I barely acknowledged her presence. I simply took the cup which was rightfully mine and headed out the door, hearing the same order being called again even as I stepped outside the coffee shop.

I didn't think about her for the rest of the day, didn't dream about those shockingly blue eyes that night. Though it wouldn't be long before I did.

But I was five minutes late the next morning, and the morning after that.

And the morning after that I said hello, and she smiled. The rest is history.

Soon I knew that she had left as many people behind in her life as I had in mine. Soon I learned that it was the pain of unrequited love that had broken her, so much like the only other woman in my life. And that was when I fell. Hard. Completely.

She was my mirror, and every once in awhile, in those quiet moments when we never talked, I would catch a glimpse of myself in her eyes. And I would turn away, because I could not bear to see the person I had become.

But here she was, the first person to share my life, the first person to see beyond the coldness, beyond the indifference and see the pain, the fear.

And it was obvious wasn't it? The fear, the sadness. Only sadness could make me not want to care, could make me so afraid to trust, to feel. It was the truth, and I hated to admit it because I was a man who prided himself on strength and fearlessness.

But I was afraid, because I had been broken once.

But she would smile at me, a smile full of sunshine, of laughter and I would find myself smiling back and meaning it. And I would find myself forgetting all the reasons why I wasn't supposed to like her, why I wasn't supposed to be happy.

Because she was irresistible, because she was just as untouchable as I was.

Her and I were a tragic couple, we were both running from the pain of the past. We weren't meant to love, we were meant to hurt, to grieve.

Because that was what made us so beautiful. Sadness.

I knew at the end of this I would be broken because something this achingly beautiful could only hurt me. And then all the things I had been running from would consume me, taint me.

Break me.

But I stayed despite this. Trusted her with an innocence and naïveté I was sure I had never possessed. Trusted her because she looked into my eyes with a raging need, because I touched her face so gently with my calloused fingers, kissed her lips with a sweet possessiveness, and savored her.

I trusted her because she made me feel alive. Made me feel something so real it was painful. Desire. Need. I desired her, needed her, wanted her. And I hadn't wanted anything in so long.

In that one moment I cared. Cared desperately for the woman who had walked so quietly into my life and touched me.

The time I spent with her was magical, it was an aberration. I had been traveling the same path my whole life. And then she appeared, a vision, a solemn beauty, and she took my hand and showed me another way.

I liked to think that my touch stirred her, I liked to think that my smile chased away her demons, I liked to think that I affected her as much as she did me. There were days that I swore she saw the future in my eyes, days I swore she smiled just for me.

But one day I offered her my hand, and so much more. And for a moment she hesitated, it was brief, a slight wavering of her hand, but she hesitated, and I noticed, because that was what I did.

Her hand was warm in mine. Perfect. I squeezed it gently, a strange sort of melancholy suddenly ruining the moment. She had hesitated, she was so much like me. I should have seen it coming, should have known. The laughter had been missing from her eyes for awhile now, the warmth had faded. Her fears were catching up with her again, waiting there at the edge of her mind, preparing to consume her.

Because I had been broken by helplessness, and she had been broken by love. And so I held her hand tightly, refused to let it go, if only for the day.

Because I knew she was leaving, and her hesitation was her goodbye.

There would be no words, no tearful explanations, she would just be gone. And I would be helpless to stop her, helpless and hurting. Terrified, because my age old fear will have risen once again, the wound re-opened and bleeding.

It was ironic really, fitting, that I had spent my entire life leaving people, walking away from them, blindly running away from the helplessness that haunted me.

And in the end I would be the one left behind, weak and alone.

Only a miracle could save me now, only a miracle could bring her back, make her stay.

So I turn my back on her, on us, refusing to remember her gentle touch, the way she tasted, and I don't cry. I don't mourn. Because it's useless.

I don't believe in miracles.

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Forgive my hesitation, but I'm learning to trust in you

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Author's Note: Should there be more to this?????? I am contemplating it but I am not entirely sure a second chapter is needed....let me know what you think!