Page 21 of Returned Mail

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

I screenshot his emails sometimes. Save them in a folder on my phone labeled G. Read them when I can't sleep, which is most nights now. The bed feels too big, and the apartment too quiet.

Week five is when the exhaustion begins settling into my bones. Not the collapse-on-the-floor kind. The quieter and constant kind. I stop cooking and start ordering takeout. Thai on Monday. Pizza on Wednesday. Chinese on Friday.

The containers pile up on the counter because I can't be bothered to take out the trash. Laundry sits in the basket for days, clean clothes mixed with dirty ones because I've lost track of which is which.

Nobody notices, because there's nobody here to notice.

The toilet starts running constantly. I watch a YouTube video, buy the parts, and fix it myself at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night.

When it finally stops, I sit on the bathroom floor and cry.

Not because of the toilet, but because there is no one to call from the other room and say, Hey, can you come look at this? Because every small problem now belongs to me.

Work becomes a blur. I show up. I smile. I answer emails, attend meetings, and pretend I'm fine. My coworker Sarah asks how I'm doing exactly once that week. I say, “Good!” with too much enthusiasm.

She never asks again, and that’s okay.

People stop asking after a while. The deployment stops being news. Life moves on for everyone else. Just not for me.

From: George

Subject: Miss You

Tell me something good.

Anything.

I need a reminder that the world still exists outside of this place.

Tell me what you're reading, or something you watched. Tell me what you had for dinner. Tell me something boring, please.

I miss boring.

Love you,

George

I stare at the email for ten minutes. For one ugly second, it irritates me.

Tell me something good.

Like I’m supposed to package my life into something light enough for him to carry. The thought makes me hate myself immediately. Because he isn’t asking for much. He’s asking for dinner. A book. A show. Something normal. But normal feels impossible right now. I try to think of something good. Anything.

Nothing comes to mind.

My life isn’t terrible, but it’s empty. I feel like I'm living in a waiting room. Waiting for my real life to start again. Waiting for him.

Eventually, I reply.

From: Monica

To: George

Re: Miss You

Not much is happening here.