What I Whisper In The Dark

There are just some things that you can't say to someone's face.

I could give examples, but I'm sure you can come up with your own. Insert it here.

In my case, I try so hard, so much of the time, to be happy. To make the most of every situation. And it's hard for me to say that I'm not okay, because I desperately want to be okay, and to be content with what I've got.

I've never really had to start my life from scratch before. In the fifth grade, my family moved from one side of Dallas to the other, but I still had my friends and my extra curricular activities in our old city. When I went off to college, my roommate was a friend from high school, and another of our friends lived directly across the dorm hallway. When I graduated and moved to College Station, Matt had already lived there for four years, and had a solid network of friends we'd hang out with, and I made friends with their girlfriends, who eventually became their wives.

Moving to Virginia has been really hard. I got here and knew no one. Matt had only been here a few weeks longer than I had, and really only knew a few co-workers, most of whom were just acquaintances, not yet friends.

And then Matt's work schedule blew up, and he was working from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., midnight, 2 a.m., 3 a.m. And I've done my best to get out of the house, go do things, keep myself occupied, but without a job yet, without knowing anyone very well, I am alone a lot.

In those few snatched moments together, he asks me if I'm okay. And I say yes, I am fine. I am happy you're here.

But things break. I was getting frustrated, and bored, and you know I don't do bored. On Sunday, he came home from work right before midnight, and I was busy screaming at him in my head so I wouldn't have to do it out loud, because I know it's not something he can control. I just wanted to go to sleep, for him to go away because it'd be easier than being honest. Because what I was yelling in my head was that I was ready to go back to Texas, that I'd be happy to leave everything here and just take myself home, where I belonged.

God, I miss home.

We were lying there, me with my eyes closed, when he asked if he could take me on a date. I cracked open one eye, and said the same thing I did when he asked me to marry him. "Really?"

It felt weird. Awkward, in a way that we never have been, even at the beginning. It was like there was a valley between us filled with all the things we weren't saying, all the things I couldn't bring myself to say to him. Things like, I am not doing very well here so far. That I would never actually go anywhere without you, that it's not your fault, but that I am hurting a lot right now, and don't know how to make things better for us here.

So I waited until the light went out after our date. Until the breathing quiet. And I told him in my quietest whisper, not even sure if he'd be able to hear me. And he already knew. But it was a relief to say it.