It’s 1:26 AM on a Saturday. Sleep eludes me. The magnesium and chamomile and melatonin swirl through my veins trying to force my brain to power down but I’m firing on all cylinders. My body aches from the over exertion that I put myself through working out every day.

I lay there on the bed staring at the ceiling. A shaft of unremarkable white light from the neighbours study illuminates the room in a brief way silhouetting everything within, drawing a skewed version of the window grill on the adjacent wall. The blades of the fan catch the glow every time it revolves in an endless loop filling the room with a mediocre strobe. The blackout curtains which were fruitless in their duty shiver every now and then when they come in contact with a draft cutting in through the window. A light drizzle patters on the corrugated metal roof of the gas bank three doors down. The smell of the rain, of wet soil lingers.

I plug in my AirPods. Turn the noise cancellation on and in seconds there is a deep silence that envelops the entire room. It’s as if I just entered the void. I turn the volume up to maximum and hit play on Space by French Fuse. As I close my eyes to escape the moment, the swell of the music engulfs me and in front of my eyes the memories unfurl in a symphony of emotions.

The blue haze of the bar. The bass from the music overpowering us. Our bodies moving to the beat in synchrony. The electric first kiss which sent tantalising electricity through the spine. The feeling of consummate bliss as we lay in bed, spent. The first time the vulnerability came shattering out of her in uncontrollable tears as she sat and wept reliving the monstrosity of her childhood. The next morning, when she slept in my T-Shirt, sleeping the most tranquil sleep she’d had in decades after the cathartic release from the night before.

The apex of proximity to another human being that I ever felt on New Year’s Eve when I held her hair back as she disgorged all the alcohol she couldn’t handle as the world outside counted down to another futile milestone. The arduous journey to the summit of the mountain where we sought divine intervention to give us the resolve to see our journey through to the end.

The look in her eyes each time as I presented her with a token of my love like a gentoo penguin, bequeathing my heart, my love, my life to her. The look in her eyes as I got her inked on my forearm. The promise of a tempest that would crush me beneath its weight.

The fight on the terrace. The atrocity of the curse I laid on his mother. The call five minutes later that she had died. The misdirected anger towards her knowing that in that moment I had lost her forever. The anguish in her eyes when she returned and sat across from me telling me she was scared but not able to utter the words that it was over. The distance that started to creep in eerily into our conversations. The excuses that followed incessantly. The otiose efforts to claw my way back in.

The decision to take a break. The flutter in my heart as she responded in frantic anxiety. The messages that eventually attenuated. The endless despair as I waited five hours for her to show up to the promised date. The blue haze of the bar, only this time signalling something ominously putrid. The smothering grasp of steely inevitability choking me as I drove back home that night, ring still in my pocket. Crushed by heartbreak I bled out into the darkness.

I’ve cried, I’ve been angry, I’ve been afraid, I’ve felt guilty, I’ve felt ashamed, I’ve felt lonely and in some fleeting moments even hopeful and finally reached this point.

I’ve bled all I can bleed.

Now there is but one thing to do. Rebuild.

Part 2 – A Love Born In The Shadows