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I had no idea. There were no signs.
Just happened one day.
Before going out she told me to wait up for her that night.
I dunno if she knew it already then or if it was decided when she was out.
She wasn’t back at midnight. More like one or two. I was almost asleep on the couch when she came in and sat beside me. I moved over to her and she gave me an extra-long hug. I pulled back my head to kiss her on the neck but she didn’t want it then.
“What?” I said.
She shook something out of her head and pressed her lips together before speaking. “I have to leave.”
“At this hour?”
“No, Mark, my dear. I have to leave Vancouver. I’m moving somewhere else to do work. Political work.”
“Okay….”
“I can’t tell you where and I can’t tell you how long. I don’t know how long. All I can tell you is it’s effective tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow….”
“I’m sorry it’s so — such short notice. For me too.”
“You’re gone tomorrow and you dunno how long?”
“Yes.”
“Is this like a test? Like you were saying the other day, to see if we could survive being separated like?”
“It’s not a test.”
“Who decided this? Didn’t you explain about us?”
“Us is not important.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that. I waited for her to tell me more. But she sat looking at me, lips pressed together.
Then I saw how this could be a good thing. “I’ll go with you. I was getting itchy to leave anyhow. I’m only staying cause you’re here.”
She still didn’t speak.
I said, “You’re not going to Toronto, are you? That’d be too much. Anywhere else though. Okay, maybe I’d even go back to Toronto with you.”
“Mark, I have to tell you. Even if we could go together, which we can’t — You see, this forces me to reach a decision. I think we should say goodbye.”
“You mean split up?”
“Yes.”
I felt stupid. I wasn’t getting something. “You’ve been thinking this all along?”
“Little while.”
“And not telling me?”
“Nothing definite. Just at the back of my mind.”
“Cause of that thing about how old I was. When you said I lied to you.”
“Just nagging doubts. The people we are. Each of us.”
“Nagging doubts? Cause of nagging doubts we have to say goodbye forever?”
“What I’m trying to say, Mark my dear, is I don’t think we’re right for each other. I once thought we might be but now I don’t think —”
“You don’t — But you’ve always said —”
“And I was sincere. But now I have had to think it through, Mark, I don’t see this is a relationship that can become what we each need.”
“You go for Gus more. This is some kinda deal you’ve worked out with Loren.”
“Gus? I hardly know him. Gus?”
“You wanna go back to Norbert then.”
“This is the kind of thinking that — Mark, I’m fond of you, you can’t know how much. But we may have mistaken what was between us. It’s not even me you go for. It’s what I represent to you. Some idea of me.”
“No, it’s you. It’s really you.”
“And perhaps I fell for some idea of you. Fresh, young, serious. You are a serious fellow, you are. Changing, growing. Sometimes I’ve had the feeling I could mould you into the person I want.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“But I would. That can’t work in the long run.”
“I know we’re different from each other,” I said. “Okay? But different in a way that goes together.”
“The issue here is —”
“The issue here! The issue with us! The issue with our fucking social relations!”
“Don’t get angry, Mark. Maybe in a few years—”
“Right, I’m not old enough. I’m not mature enough. Missed it by one year.”
“Do you want to understand or do you want to just keep making sarcastic comments?”
“Go on with your issues. I couldn’t stop you anyhow.”
“Bye, Mark. Have a useful life.”
She stood to leave.
I grabbed her leg. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.” I hugged her legs. “I’m so sorry. I don’t get it. You gotta help me get it.”
So she tried and we talked ourselves out for a couple hours.
Then I wanted to sleep with her. Our last time together. Cause if we did, then it wouldn’t be our last time together cause she’d change her mind. That was my plan.
But she said it wouldn’t be right, it wouldn’t feel right, so we turned off the lights and stayed on the couch, holding each other until the dark outside was lighter than the dark inside.
Then she kissed me once on the lips and said she had to pack. She also had to catch Norbert when he got up for work and tell him too.
I got her to kiss me again but it was a little thing like a bug bite. She’d left me.