The words came tripping, tumbling, rolling over each other pushing their way out, trying to be first, but each one just came behind the next, until they were all mixed up, almost backwards. They came in flows of syllables and bitterness and tears and whines and loneliness and hiccuping breaths and ‘I’m sorries’ and snot. They emptied themselves like a bad fish dinner, spilling out over the phone and leaving their malodorous mark on the countertop and floor.

I don’t know what they’re saying or what they’re doing but I’m crying and trying to keep them under control as they spill, and tumble, and vault and stab.. And then, once completely purged, there is nothing but a silence that I don’t know how to handle.

I was certain he’d hung up on me, and that this tirade was for naught, other than perhaps to vent my spleen, but that would not move me forward at all. The obvious next step would be to say “hello?” But that itself felt like a form of defeat, like I was expecting him to be gone, to be overwhelmed with my weirdness and sadness and inability to cope and he would be unclear where it all came from. The silence ticked on for a few more moments, and then I heard him say, “I’m sorry.”

My hands were shaking enough that the phone rattled on my ear, but I still heard the words loud and strong and comforting. I was reunited. I was reunited with the fact that I love this man, and that my angst was just a symptom of how close we are and how distant we are and how much I feared the space between us, and because of how much I depend on him, and how easy it is, sometimes, for small hurts to become big walls.

And those two words were him coming back to my rescue, once again, offering me a way out from that stupid place that I keep going and staying. Again, he was right there where he’s needed.

My words, having had their say, became still in my mouth and in my head.