Her emotions took control of her, once again. They were too overwhelming to be quietened down, reasoned with or ignored. Her heart was in the mood to cry: it seemed like so long ago (though in reality, only about a week) since she had last seen him, and she missed him as intensely as ever. His absence and its accompanying longing had a peculiar effect on her: she became more withdrawn and introverted, more dreamy and more tired too – for this sadness pierced her heart and made it so burdensome to carry in her chest. She was tired of missing him (an occurrence which happened more and more frequently).
It was this terrible sense of missing that made her get in the car and start driving towards his house. She had never been there before, but knew the address off by heart. She imagined what his house looked like on the outside, and even on the inside. From conversations they had had previously, she knew him to have a piano and many books, and she was very glad that his home possessed two of the dearest material things to her, and that made her feel close to him somehow, as if they had the same tastes, the same values, or were even the same person.
She had no plan for what she would do once she’d arrive at her destination. That said, she definitely was not going to make herself known, for this was a secret adventure undertaken to soothe her own emotional pain and nothing else. She supposed she’d park somewhere close to his residence, and just sit in the car and dream some more of him, with the comforting knowledge that he was so near – only a few steps away, behind a door and some walls.
“I just want to read my book next to you,” she could hear herself say if by any chance he should happen to see her outside his house. And it was true this was what she wanted: she loved her solitude but wished to share it with him, or to live it in his company.
Now she thought of the book she was reading, and of the heroine therein. She recognised so much of herself in that character, who, like her, never forgot a gesture of kindness shown to her, who remained devoted in her gratitude towards a man much older than she whom she called a friend, and who found comfort in the thought and memories of that man. In that story, the man had missed this girl, more than he had expected. Could it be the case also, that the man she revered and thought so highly of, had ever missed her, and been surprised by the intensity, or perhaps frequency, with which this missing came to him?
As she drove along, now she thought of him again. Him driving on these same roads, every day. So this is what it looked like and felt like, to be him. What did he do, while he drove? Did he ever think of her, or replay a small conversation in his mind? Did he ever remember how her face brightened up instantly when they said hello, and how she always smiled so sweetly when they looked at one another? And what of the times he had driven for the sole purpose of seeing her, at her request? Had it been a chore to him? Had he driven those roads, and crossed these intersections, feeling very glad that she had asked to see him, for in some deep part of his heart, there was a bit of bleeding where her absence, like a little knife, was digging a hole?
Words & Feelings 