All Abroad From Ship To Ship

His Love I Held For Her: Part Three

What if running from feeling isn’t healing — it’s just heartbreak wearing a busy schedule?

You’ve been calling it moving on. It’s avoidance dressed up with makeup and unlimited drinks.

By month two, I had built a wall so tall even I could barely see over it. I said yes to every distraction. Dates with men I couldn't care less about, trying to remember what attention felt like. A trip I couldn’t afford, so I wouldn’t have to be alone in the apartment. Wine on a Tuesday because Tuesday was also unbearable now.

I told myself this was all a part of healing. Really, I was doing what I used to silently judge in other people — jumping ship to ship, never docking long enough to check what was actually wrong with the hull. I mean it’s not like I really wanted to since these weren’t even potential candidates.

One night, half-drunk on cheap ass XXL and a stranger’s compliment, I caught my reflection in a bar bathroom mirror and didn’t recognize the look in my own eyes. Not sad, exactly. Absent. Like I was watching myself from somewhere else, waiting to be told who to be next. Pacing back and forth trying to avoid the waterworks.

I called Marcus. Of course I did. Three rings, and I hung up before the fourth, heart pounding, ashamed. What the fuck was I thinking? Why do I keep reaching for him, I thought, when even now, sitting across from someone new, I feel just as empty as I did sitting across from him.

“Why do I feel just as empty as I did with Marcus?”

I think to myself, processing the shame I’ve willingly embraced. I retreated to the bar to close my tab. A flash in the corner of my eye, I see him, Marcus. Fighting the urge, I scramble to my car, hoping he didn’t see me in this pathetic state because it would crush the rest of my dignity. That question followed me home. It sat on the edge of my bed like it had nowhere else to live. And for the first time, I let myself sit with it instead of covering it up.