Maybe he didn’t miss her. What he missed were those dreams he had of her, absolutely perfect, divine dreams- perfect hands, perfect smile, perfect perfect messy hair falling over sleepy hazel eyes which he could look into and make out strange kaleidoscopic shapes. No, even that, is a lie. He never came that close to her, never dared to look at her long enough to remember what colour her eyes were, when the sun fell on them, when the moon glowed and the night was dark and he felt as though he could, he really could, touch her. Hold her hand. Lightly, lightly, before she flew away, kiss her. Should have just fucking raped the hell out of her, held her down and really really, just, feel her. So that she becomes human, not a goddess, a subject, not a human being, an object, not a subject, some vanishing piece of shit.

Maybe it wasn’t love that kept them together. He needed someone to fuck. She needed someone to fuck her. Anyone else would have been just as good. They never gave each other anything. He was afraid of giving her something to remember him by. And as for her, he assumed that she was too busy mulling over just what to get him that she never got him anything at all. They had no photographs, no letters, only short monosyllabic text messages like, “Usual?” and “OK”. No perfume, no strands of long hair on his pillowcase, no traces of lipstick on his stomach, no love bites on her neck, no french kissing or licking, just a firm cock functioning in various holes, up and down and up and up and oh fuck, yes, fuck, grunting, groaning, perspiring, crying hard, holding each other so so cautiously and breaking and crumbling into pieces and coldly picking the pieces up- his belt, her high heels, a pale white button which had fallen off his shirt, her black panty under the bed. (He makes the mistake of joking with her, “How did it get there?” She leaves.)

Maybe he didn’t miss her. What he missed, was what she inspired in him. All the people he could have been. All the places he could have gone. All the things he could have said. He never thought highly of himself, but more than anything, he yearned so much, for her to think highly of him. Instead of here, now, half gone, half kept alive by bitter anger kept alive by beer going down and cheap cigarettes kept alive by loving a fleeting shadow and wanting (and pretending not to want) to be loved, and wondering if maybe, he didn’t miss her.

Maybe, she misses him. Tomorrow she will follow the rising of the sun, slip into his room with the spare key he gave her, past his’ parent’s bedroom where they snore in synchrony, and right into his arms where she will lie her head on his chest and he will complain about how hard it is for him to move, to breathe, to sleep, and quietly and contentedly smile to himself.