Our eyes stared deep into each other’s, waiting for the other person to break the silence that consumed the car. We had just made it to my house, with a heavy weight on his shoulders, he took a deep breath and shifted the car into park. Still, with my eyes glued to his, I waited with patience for him to make a sound. “Look, Anna, I have something to tell you.”
His eyes now veering away from mine and onto the floor of his Kia. His leg pumping up and down every second of the silence we sat in. At this point, I was more intrigued by what he could say than I was worried by his next sentence.
“Tell me.”
I grab his hand with a bit of urgency and make him stare with a direct look at me. He directs his attention to, instead, stare out through the windshield, acting as if he’s trying to figure out what words to say. How to form his sentences. How to ease the news. I shake his hand to distract him from his concentration. To look in my direction. He, then, looks at me and says, “I’m moving back to Connecticut, and we need to break up.”
All I could say at that moment was “ok.” “Listen I just can’t deal with the stress of living on my own anymore. Paycheck to paycheck is not how I pictured living here would be like.”
He blurts out.
“Michael, when exactly did you decide on this?” At this time, I felt stunned by what he had just said. All I wanted was answers.
“Yesterday.”
He looked at me as if he was unsure as if this idea was raw, unedited, and he was submitting his rough draft to me. A million and one questions surfaced my mind. At this point, I didn’t even look at him. I looked at the floor of the car so that I could think about what I wanted to ask him. “What made you decide on this?”
My mind felt overcome with confusion, questions running back and forth through my head, why now? Why ever? What went wrong? He took a minute to respond as if he was worried that his reasons were not valid enough.
“Well, yesterday I thought of 20 reasons why I should move back. They seemed to be good enough, so I made my decision.”
I stared right into his face, reading every muscle twitch his forehead, his cheeks, and mouth made. All I could see was that with this crazy talk, he was sincere. “How can you be so sure?”
I could not accept the fact that this talk was happening. The fact that he could consider such an idea.
“I don’t know Anna, I just realized yesterday that I needed to move back to Connecticut.” Confusion filled his face, his breathing shifted from a normal consistency to a higher speed. His leg once again moving up and down. I leaned back to sit fully in my seat. I let the cushions in the chair comfort me. I felt like giving up, to stop asking all my questions. No matter how hard I tried to find answers.
Michael just could not give them to me. With one final question, I ask, “Shouldn’t you give this more thought?”
His continuous breathing stopped right after my final question. This was where he drew the line. He seemed fed up with my comments and was finished with my interrogation. “No, I’m done thinking about it and answering your questions. My decision is final.”
I snapped back at him and said, “Your decision was made practically 14 hours ago, without any real thought, Michael.” He banged his hand on the steering wheel, every muscle inside him tensed up, he filled his lungs with a large amount of air and with every bone in his body he yelled: “Stop!” Once again silence filled the car just how it was when we first started this conversation.
“I just want to get out of this car.” I felt defeated, nothing I could say or do was going to make the situation better. Clearly, his mind had been made up. I slammed the car door, walked up to the front of my house. The only answer I had now was that he was an idiot.
