There we go again, saying things we never meant in tones we only heard in afterthought and as loudly as the hurt we meant to hide. There she goes again, telling me im not the person she thought i would be when we met, how i lost her hope when i gave up my potential when she really means to say how i lost her love when i never met her dreams. Here i go again, wishing she would stay but always wondering why she does. Every screaming match and thrown vase, upended chair and horrid thing said is just another page in this never ending cycle of self abuse. Neither of us are hurt, neither of us hit or cut but we bruise. Egos and expectations, bruised and bloodied but never in the fights, only in the silences and the stares, knowing glances of disapproval and the sighs of exasperation. Here we go again saying itll end, here we stay never ending. It had been two months and seven days since we ended everything, since that ocean cruise ended everything. it had been 3 weeks since his funeral and only 2 days since she left the apartment, Katherine pieced herself together, held only by the strings of her ambition in the wake of everything, of him. She played over and over again in her mind that night, when she came running up the stairs in a hurried panic to reach the top deck of their cruise ship. Overlooking the seascape before them, consumed by the horrifying storm that would always stay with her, cemented in her nightmares like the backdrop to her tragedy. There he was standing in the rain that battered and soaked the deck. There he was just staring at the storm, in some of her dreams he never looks back as if thought there was nothing left for him and the storm was the only thing that was real. In others, he turned back to her, but it wasnt him how she knew him, his face was like stone, marred and chipped by his suffering, his face darkened by the storm. In another dream, the worst ones, he spoke to her, but it was with her own voice, yelling and screaming just like she would. About the things he would never be, and what she gave up for him, the harshness in that voice echoed through the air like a cavern, reverberating spited curses as thunder cracks. In these nightmares she would run around the pitch black deck hoping to find escape but none could be found, only him, the only light in all that world. Even as the lightning angrily lit the sky he never dimmed, in the worst terrors he would stare, following her panicked sprints to and fro, sometimes he would keep talkin in her voice, sometimes his own, but his face was always empty. Blank and motionless, hollow. Her screams and rages were voiced but his lips never moved,she knew they were from him though, in the way you know things in dreams, like you could peak behind the curtain of yourself, the theatrical play your mind puts on.She would always run to him though, eventually, inevitably. She would crash into his soaking wet body and try to hold him down, try to keep him from jumping. But all she felt was the railing and then see him disappear into the storm and the raging waves, that would always linger for a moment, maybe two but always too long. When she would wake up to face the reality of those memories which her mind built her hell around. She was always greeted with guilt in place of morning sun and a new sense of remorse, as if the one from the morning before had grown stale. Katherine would stalk around the house, haunting her own life and always afraid in a hopeful way that he just might be there when she turned the corner. Hoping beyond all reason to smell his cooking waft in from the kitchen and under their closed bedroom door. Hoped to see him in the recliner near the living room window reading as life passed him by, he always told her it gave him some bit of serenity to be the calm in all the storm that made society. How she longed to see him smile, that one he always had when she hurt, when she felt just like breaking and sometimes for no reason at all. That smile that hid his pain and turned it into something so warm and reassuring maybe even pure. Katherine wondered now as we all do when its too late, how many times that smile was trying to tell her something or how many times she hurt him with it because she was the one who made him smile like that, not for himself but for her. How many times had he given away a piece of himself and she let him collapse. Katherine rose from their bed-.. her bed and surged forward down the hallway and through the front door, nothing to hold her back, nothing stopping her she strolled down the street in her sweat pants and one of his shirts. Barefoot and bare faced her stroll turned to strides with every returning thought of him and what she felt was her fault, her guilt hammering into her mind like so many nails as she began to run. Her heart pounded and her lungs ached as she barrelled down the street painfully determined to be anywhere but with herself. Pistoning her legs with more fury at every "i love you" that echoed in her memories with his now sullen voice, every memory of them, of their life together all felt like the backstory to what inevitably happened, his love and words all a warning. Tears blurring her vision as the wind whipped past her face, angry sobs catching in her throat choking her as she forced herself forward until she nearly fell forward and clung herself to a traffic sign. She held onto the "danger curve ahead" sign as she fought for her breath. Katherine was on the side of a road a couple miles from her house, she seldom ever came this way, there was nothing around but trees, rock and a distant lake that caught the early morning light in a glistening yellow orange tint. She leaned heavily against the sign now that she had no more energy to run from her thoughts just the anger, the need to scream and yell and hit him for not being here, for not saying anything when he should have. She screamed a short tired yell, a breathy yell that faded quickly into guttural sobbing as she slumped down to the ground. Katherine must have been there for a while, must have caught some attention with her yell or how she lay propped against the sign in a half seated position but she had no way of knowing. She wasn't back in reality or time until she felt his jacket on her, she jerked away and snapped her head to the side to find a man around her age crouched next to her, his hair was a outgrown mess trimmed neatly on the sides and faded down to bare skin. Like he intended to be a contradiction, his beard was a rough and unkempt thing, more shadow than beard but skirting the line but still neatly outlined, controlled chaos in haircut. He flashed her a toothy smile and reached his hand out as he stood to help her up, she hesitated for a moment wondering where he came from there wasnt a parked car anywhere nearby and his suit was so clean it seemed hard to look at, like it just didn't belong. He had a light and comforting air that opposed his domineering and confident appearance, something that just drew herself to him like nothing else. Maybe it was the moment she was in where everything had just been lain out raw and bare, her harshest emotions flayed from her body for all to see and how he stared into her without flinching. Maybe it was her need to feel something other than anger and hurt for a little while, for anytime at all. Maybe it was everything that made her grab his hand and pull herself up, made her thank him and ask for his name. "Valentine, thats what my friends call me anyway, let me walk you home." He said. "No" she replied "please, id rather not" she glanced back toward the way she had just been running " He watched her as she struggled with herself, not knowing what to do, where to go, what to say. The only thing in her mind was a cautious echo, "just not back there." The wind of a passing car forced her back into the moment and he broke the silence. "lets walk up the road for a while, im sure we will find something, a diner or a truck stop. Some place a bit better to talk than on the side of a road." She silently agreed and walked forward, shrinking in his jacket but refusing to be held, pushing him away when he stretched his hand out again. Her walls were back up and her guard had returned. This stranger of contradictions wouldnt get her so easily, no one would have her again the way he had, when she was so much herself for the first time. She couldnt let that happen, she didnt deserve to have that happen. Or so she told herself on the lonely walk, in a strangers coat and sneaking sniffs of the lapel.