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My heel kicked out before I could stop myself. The super hollered as my boot went through the drywall across from me.
“Now don’t go doing something you might regret,” the super shouted as he grabbed me by the collar.
I had a foot on him. Probably fifty pounds of muscle on him. And I was younger by about twenty years. There was no way he could have dragged me out of that empty apartment if I hadn’t let him. Lead-footed. Dead-hearted. I sank against the wall in the hallway as he locked the door.
He waggled a shaking finger at me. “Destroy anything else and I’ll call the police, son.”
I waited till the jangle of his keys had disappeared around the corner before pounding my head back against the wall. Again and again. Do something I might regret? What the fuck did he know about regret? I laughed bitterly. It came out as more of a cough. Like I was choking. Like I was being choked.
At Rachel’s work the director had the same question for me: who are you?
From the moment he laid eyes on me, hands clutched at my chest, pleading for answers, begging for help, the question had been written across his face, clear as day: and who the fuck are you?
“I’m the one she saw in the audience,” I could have said.
“I’m the one she searched for,” I could have said.
“I’m the one she wanted to dance for,” I could have said. I could have fucking said, “For me, goddammit! For me and me alone!”
But those words wouldn’t come. None of them. I stood there with slumped shoulders. With shadows beneath my eyes that had nothing to do with the red-eye international flight. With all the sleepless nights before that. With the crying and aching and dying before that. I stood there with a week-old beard. With desperation. With a fucking pathetic shrug.
The director sighed and patted me on the arm. “It’s Vegas, honey. That stupid saying is bullshit, you know? Nothing fucking stays in Vegas. And certainly no one will.”
He left me there on the stage. The empty stage. The empty stage where Rachel and I had shared dinner. Shared silly dreams. Shared ideas for the future. A little cottage on the seaside. A restored theatre in a small village in France. A tattoo parlour with a dance studio upstairs. Weddings. Marriage. Babies. Everything.
And in the end, nothing.
I tried all the bars we’d been to. At each one I got the same question: who the hell are you? At each one I got the same answer: people leave. That’s what they do. No, she didn’t leave a note. No, she didn’t leave a number. No, I have no fucking clue where she is. At each one I got a drink.
I followed our mad dash along the strip as if I could pick up the scent of her. The scent of us. As I stumbled along the sidewalk, I heard laughter and whipped around thinking that maybe it was us, Rachel and me. That I’d found us. That we still existed somewhere, somehow. But inevitably it was another couple. Their arms draped over one another like ours had been. Their bodies colliding against lamp posts like ours had. Their mouths sloppy and eager over one another’s just like ours had been.
What a fool I was to think we were different. That I was different. Different for her.
People left. That’s what they did. Rachel left.
So why was I running to the Denny’s at God knows what time in the morning? Why was I climbing up on the empty table and shouting at the top of my lungs for her? Why was I spilling coffee over the edge of the table like she could be summoned back to me with remnants of that night we fell in love?
Fell in love! What a joke. What a goddamn joke. Love was just denial. Love was all of us telling ourselves that we’ll stick around this time. Love was just what we called the space of time before truth. Love was hiding, lying, pretending. Love was playing a role. Because in the end everyone would leave. In the end the masks came off, the curtain closed, the game was over and everyone went home.
We all were left.
If I knew this, if I fucking knew this, then why was I running, still running back toward the theatre? Why was I yanking on the locked front doors till the glass rattled? Why was I falling down in the alleyway? Pushing back to my feet? Falling again against the back door she said was always open? Why was I letting it give me hope once more when I found it open? Open like she said.
I ran down through those dark corridors. Nothing to light my way but the green glow of the Exit signs. I’d only been to her dressing room once, but I knew the way as if by heart. I ran to it. Why? Why did I run to it? I ran to it and I wrenched the door open.
She wasn’t there. Of course she wasn’t.
The couch where we’d first made love was still there. The antique armoire. The mirror in the dark. I panted like a dog there in that little room. Sweat dripped down my back. Rachel was gone.
That’s when it really hit me. When there was nowhere else to look. When there was nowhere else to find her. When there was nothing to face but the truth.
She left me.
I think I destroyed that little dressing room. There in the dark. I tore at the cushions. Maybe with my fingers. Maybe with my teeth. I screamed. Screamed till my throat was raw. But there was nobody to see me. Nobody to hear me.
I was what I always feared: alone.
