Things Trish doesn’t know:
The nights you spend sitting on the fire escape across the street, the one that leaves you a perfect line of sight to her balcony garden, her kitchen, her open living room. A good pair of binoculars. A thermos of whisky.
No one’s going to hurt her, not while you’re around.
How you’ve used all your tricks–legal and not–to vet the people in her life. From the doorman to her manager to the lady at the dim sum place who always slips an extra bag of sweet buns into Trish’s order.
You know that the guy who walks his dog past the entrance to her building every morning has a wife and two kids under the age of three, and that the smile he gives her on the days their paths cross is the same one he gives to the elderly woman in his building when she drops her groceries in the hall. You know that the homeless man who rummages through the bin on the corner served two tours in Iraq, and just couldn’t make his old life fit when he was discharged. You know his parents still hang up fliers with his picture–neatly buzzed hair, freshly pressed uniform, sweet eyes and a proud smile–every month at homeless shelters around the big, big city. “Ben, come home” written in his mother’s hand at the bottom of every page.
You know her routine, even the parts of it she thinks she varies. First Monday of the month, jog to work. Tuesday, call a car. Wednesday, jog a route in the opposite direction, pick up a box of pastries for the office, and hail a cab. Next Monday, do it all over again in reverse.
You know when she rises, when she sleeps. You know her towels are going to be neatly hung up in the bathroom after her shower, but yesterday’s underwear and bra are probably tossed on the floor in the corner of her bedroom. You know there will be two back-ups of every kind of concealer she wears in the drawers of her vanity, but that she’ll forget to buy milk more often than not.
It’s been months since you’ve heard her voice, since you’ve felt the comfort of her hand on your shoulder, or your back.
It’s always been Trish who grounds you, who pulls you out of yourself when you get too deep, back into the world when you go too far under.
And even though you had to leave, had to cut yourself out of her life–for her own safety, for your peace of mind–there was no way you’d ever leave her completely behind. No way you’d ever leave her on her own.
Things Trish will always know:
Somewhere out there–in the dark, in the shadows–there’s a woman who loves you. And even though Jessica can step out of your life, even though she can disappear into the night without so much as a word, she can’t let you go. Not completely.
She can’t cut herself out of your memories or your heart.
Not that she hasn’t tried.
But she’s been the most important part of you since that first time she stepped in front of your mother’s hands. The first time she stood up for you. The first time she made you believe you could stand up for yourself.
And maybe Jess needs a little time–her pain, it runs so deep. And her nightmares, some nights they even frighten you. Not her–you’ve never been afraid of her. But you do fear the toll they take, the price she pays for surviving every night.
So you understand why she left. You just wish she’d taken you with. You wish she’d trusted that there was no place you were safer than when you were at her side.
Still, she’s not completely gone, she’s not gone forever.
You still feel her sometimes in the mornings, when you run your old route in the park, when you swing by that restaurant the two of you always ordered take-out from on girls night.
And at night, when you’re slipping into bed, you can still feel the warmth of her body between the sheets, the comforting promise of knowing that when you turned in the middle of the night, when you woke at the strange, unusual sound in the dark, she’d be there to soothe you back to sleep.
Maybe she’s not with you in body right now, but she’ll always be with you in soul.