Breaking It Down

The radio was on and there was a story about breaking down love.

Breaking it down, the process resonated in her mind. They were talking about how love begins, evolves and then ends. And then, unmistakably, they would talk about the pain. That, she could understand. She still felt it, fading away. It had been cold and stinging, growing slowly, almost like an abscess, that had burst and now was slowly healing. And yet, though she had learned to deal with it, she could still not understand why the pain was even there in the first place.

What had changed? Logically there was no explanation. Everything was the same. They still talked, he still took her places, and she still ended up smiling after they hung up the phone. They planned brunches and talked about car problems and poked each other on Facebook.

She imagined his car. He had tried something new, like maybe going off road. It was a beautiful day, so offroading made sense. The sky was blue, the car was set, the road was clear. And, if there was any car to take offroading, it had to be his. He had had it for a long time, he knew its ins and outs, he was comfortable. He had thought about it for a while, more than how much usually people think about going off the road. It was all logical, it had to be. And it was easy, no rental fees, no hassles, no complications. She could almost see him thinking about her, weighing the pros and cons and making his very logical decision.

But she wasn't a car, and even cars break down when they go off the road. The driver looses track of the road, there are holes and unexpected bumps. Even cars don’t run smoothly the first time. They need to spend time learning how to avoid the holes, how to slow down around bumps and accelerate when they go uphill.

But for him that was too complicated. He wanted things to be simple. He didn't like the bumps and unexpected turns. He had to stick with the plain road, with them being just friends and nothing more. He had tried it. He knew now how it was. No more wondering, no more what ifs. His logical decision had reached the logical outcome and he had gotten over his whimsical desire.

So, knocked down and bruised, she tried to go back. She forgot about the thrill of the unknown, the bumps and kisses or the way he held her when they passed a hole and how she thought everything was going to be ok because she was with him. She forgot the way she curled around him during the night when she was cold, and the way she grew anxious when 9pm came and he hadn’t called. She forgot her dreams of hot, cozy sex and the mornings when she would make eggs and coffee. She forgot how something at the bottom of her soul turned concave when he called her baby, as if it wanted to tell him know how much he meant to her.

Everything should have been the same. And wasn’t it? Nothing was different. They still talked about their days and friends. He once again stopped asking her to go with him when he met friends she didn’t know. He went back to his world and she went back to hers. She did all those things she used to do before. Met new people, got drunk, danced and flirted. And things were better. The pain, the dreams and the desire were fading away behind the thick walls of her now convex soul.