Love, Loss, and a Park Bench
I remember the dog park.
How he sat next to me.
His arm around my shoulder.
My head tucked in the crook of his neck.
His dog sitting at our feet.
A quiet moment together in the sun.
Over time, he sat with me but leaned away,
Annoyed by a hand touch or a lean in.
The sitting turned to standing in the middle of the park.
“The dog plays more if I stand.”
And I stayed on the bench alone, pretending the distance did not ache.
It was how the relationship faded.
Not in one dramatic flourish.
But in slow, painful inches.
In the small withdrawals that left me blaming myself for the shadows he created.
And still, I waited.
I waited for the man I first met
To reappear.
The man who kissed me every time I moved and told me I was beautiful.
The man who held my hand in stores.
The man who laughed and fixed the perpetually broken furniture in my apartment.
The man who cuddled with my dog.
The man with the top knot and the tattoos who made the world feel a little more gentle.
And I watched that man disappear.
It was not dramatic.
It was not loud.
It was quiet, and slow.
Hands pulled away,
Fading texts,
A man shrinking inside himself so gradually that I looked over one day and realized,
Even though he was here, sitting beside me and scrolling absently on his phone,
He was gone.
And still I could not let go.
I kept thinking I could fix it if I tried one more time.
Just one more week.
One more conversation.
One more chance.
One more moment of softness.
Every time I thought of leaving him — of giving up — my throat swelled and my chest cracked.
So I carried it all — the weight, the caring, the emotion — for the both of us while he drifted on waves of avoidance.
When he finally woke up just enough to end things, he turned and walked out of my door — as he had so many times — but for the last time.
He slipped on his sandals.
He said goodbye to my dog.
“Maybe we will get back together one day”
(Even though we both knew it wasn’t true)
And in the shadow of his departure, I finally left — but I did not leave the man with the top knot and the tattoos and the softness.
I left the version of him that could not sustain us.
I left the crumbled remains of the fantasy he created before he knew what it would cost.
I left the hope that he would come back to the person he was.
And I vowed to hold on to myself.
The person who was loving.
The person who was honest.
The person who was present.
The person whose heart finally understood what the mind could not accept.
And now my apartment is quiet.
The door he walked through is just a door.
The dog park bench is just a bench.
