a sentence is a string of words…

by Chloe Whincup

“I have to tell you…”

and it always stopped there, the words on the very tip of my tongue but always holding back, afraid to fall. The truth is, you aren’t the only one that doesn’t know how the sentence ends, I barely let myself think about how it ends. I know how it ends. I’ve seen it end so many different ways in my mind, but they all have one common thread; I unravel as you head for the door. So many scenarios spun from my mind that I can barely remember your face. If I sat down with a sketch artist, I’d describe you from behind. I could tell them that you never stood tall, always slightly hunched from all that weight you carried on your shoulders, so heavy from that chip you kept there. I could tell them about your slow gait, leaving slowly but not so surely; you are gone nevertheless.

That’s all I could give them. I don’t know what colour your eyes are; I only ever knew you through touch, not sight. We met mainly stumbling into dark rooms in drunken stupors during lonely nights, whilst candles burned down to the wick. It wasn’t always this way, we were once so intertwined; we used to finish our sentences and know each other's faces but now the only thing that ever seems to finish is you, the wax stains remain but you do not.

The worst part is I don’t think you ever knew, how possibly could you? I never told you, I never finished the sentence. Nothing ever truly bad happened between us and in all honesty, there was nothing for you to know. The other shoe never dropped and neither did the penny. Everything I ever thought I knew about you was just a cover story concocted by my own mind to excuse all the pillow talk of empty promises. I stuck my fingers in my ears whilst you made blanket statements with no nuance, leaving feelings threadbare; treating me as a nuisance. Even so, you were still treating me at all. So I held back, so that I could keep on holding you.

I have to tell you something, I’m sorry I couldn’t before but I don’t think I was brave enough yet. That shame you carry around with you became contagious and the whole ordeal made me feel sickly, my cotton mouth nibbling my nails down to the quick. Perhaps it had to happen like this, as if there were an invisible thread between us. You would think me a fool for that, if you thought about me at all. Despite everything, I can’t keep this in any longer so I’ll tell you now. I’ll tell you even if you won’t hear it;  I cared more than I let on and I would have loved you, if only you would have let me.

I don’t regret letting you string me along.