The Girl Made of Glass II

The people at work who have known him for years can sense a change.  One day, after we’ve been seeing each other for a month, his boss closes the door behind her and turns to him.  

“What’s going on between you and Murph?” she demands.

“Nothing,” is the straight-faced reply.

“Liar!’  

It’s an accusation laced with glee, and he can’t help but laugh.  And with that, our cover is blown.

The head of the department is the next to know.  She has known him for years--hired him when he was just a punk teenager.  She winks when we pass her in the hallway.  

The secret keeps our adrenaline up.  We often ignore each other in the main department--he will pass through, we will make eye contact, and he’ll disappear.  When he says goodbye at the end of the day, I echo the farewells of my co-workers.

***

There is a cap on everything and I knew this from the start.  And there is a paranoia that is all in my head, but it doesn’t make it any less real.  To him, it’s something of an invisible monster.  It’s something he has to believe through my insistence alone.  

I am my worst enemy.  And he will become frustrated, and he will become unhappy.  But I don’t feel like I am in the place to compromise.   I don’t want to have to stomach guilt and horror and jealousy and rage for the sake of someone else.  

He’s heard the story.  He knows the facts, names, places, and dates.  But he didn’t know me back then, and I don’t think he can understand what exactly happened to me in the last six months--how I feel like I’ve aged a lifetime but have also been given a second chance.  And with a second chance, it’s so precious, so rare, so why should I obsess over shadows?  Why should I let myself become so unhappy?

I had never experienced heartbreak.  The phrase was familiar through its associations with dramatic films and radio love songs.  But until November, I never knew what it was like to literally have my heart break.  It was more like a shattering, when I think about it carefully--atoms scattering  away like mist.  I was disappearing into the air, and no matter how hard I tried to conjure a foundation within myself, there was nothing to hold.  The world around me also seemed to break apart into feather-like pieces to float upward into the sky.  I cried and cried, but the tears meant nothing, and those remnants of the past that I managed to catch turned from beauty to rotten in my slowly dissolving hands.  

When I woke up the next day, I was living in neither the past, nor present, nor future.  I had stumbled into some invisible layer separating the three.    I felt neither alive nor dead.  Trapped inside a nightmare that wouldn’t end even in sleep, I walked through a maze of doors where all were locked.

Except for one.  And it was the door I dreaded the most--the one I avoided even trying, because I knew from the bottom of my insanity that it was the only one that would open.  I paced back and forth, trying to calm myself, occasionally pulling on other knobs that still refused to turn.  And sometimes, I heard voices from the other side that caused the tears to bubble and burst until my eyes were burning.  In a frenzy, I tried every key, every trick, every password.  And even though each time I was denied, I found myself sleeping at these entrances, hoping to be woken by the sound of a lock coming undone.  

After some time, I understood how pathetic I was.  I went to stand before that one door and placed my hand over the cool, unfamiliar knob.  Maybe I wasn’t ready, but I couldn’t wait anymore.  My fear wouldn’t wait--my fear of being trapped here forever--and so I pushed through the door and fell back into life.  

That morning, I made myself a large cup of coffee.  The first one to arrive in my department, I set to work on creating and sending out the morning reports.  When Liza arrived, I smiled and talked about how great it was to have my sister and mother visit.  I worked throughout the day without a complaint, and when I went home, it was to an empty apartment and a cold bed.  

And eventually, as the months passed by and those particles slowly fell back into form, I wasn’t the same as I was before.  Underneath my skin was nothing but glass.  

***

A girl made of glass is prone to break, and when she does, it leaves a mess for someone else to clean up.  Others can try to step around her and  some may stick around and try to fix her.  But more often than not, they cut themselves on the pieces, and she is sorry, yet they can’t help but bleed.