The Captain's Epilogue

[Tyler Anderson]

I actually wrote this as a creative nonfiction piece for my Creative Writing class. For me anymore, however, I can barely find where to draw the line. Here it is, enjoy and comment.
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In the car, we’re sitting there; her and I. It’s been quiet for some time, and my headlights illuminate houses of strangers. The air is on, the air-conditioning because it’s the summer, and it’s too loud. I turn it down, turn it all the way off, and crack a window instead. I want fresh air, I want something besides that dense mood in the car; the end of something is never easy to sit through. And when it’s down, all I hear is the sound of nothing and your attempts at quieting your sniffles; mine are there, although slower and more humble. I ignore them.
It was because of the distance. I was leaving and you were staying. We knew that going in, but it was unspoken. When I told you the first time you were sincerely disappointed, I thought it was just a hurdle. Turned out to be a dead end.
Sometimes the end is slow and gradual. You see it coming from miles and months before. It’s often agonizing the way it creeps up on you, like a terminal illness. I’ve been there, most of us have. We’ve had to live with the end everyday until you find yourself there. You think it’s the worst, but it isn’t. The worst is sudden, like the end to a rollercoaster or the cliffhanger at the end of the film. Except there is no sequel.
“So, is this it?” you ask.
I go to answer, and so many things that I could have said;
We still have the summer, let’s enjoy it.
We can surely make it work, you just don’t think so now.
Meeting new people isn’t what I want, I found you already, and you’re perfect.
I’ve cared for you more than any other person I’ve known.
All of those things, I didn’t say. Instead, I said
“I guess it is.”
I couldn’t look at you, so I concentrated on the steering wheel and squeezing it as hard as I could. You were crying, I knew that. I didn’t think I could ever get so close to it myself. It was an end to one of the greatest things in my life.
You left. There was no embrace, no kind words spoken. Just a
Goodbye.
But really, that wasn’t when you left. You left me the minute you said you wanted to talk; somewhere deep inside of me it clicked then. Maybe it was eventual, and known.

It’s the fall now. We’re friends, and we visit; quite frequently. Before, the long dark time when there was no you, I fell apart. It’s stupid to think of and it’s even stupider to say; an expression of heartbreak used for generations, but it was what I was. I invested myself in something in you, and when you left you took that part. I was short.
But, when we were together again, it wasn’t the same. It was close, but not the same.
I was going through withdrawals, I wanted it again. I’d do anything for that chance. I reasoned to myself alone, second-guessed your words and over thought everything. Every friendly embrace at the end of the night was like coming home to me, and I held on as long as I could. Because after that it was just like the night in the summer, every day.
But, finally, I decided to risk it.
“Do you still have those feelings?” I asked, deep into discussion late at night with you.
You said you did. And for a moment I was happier than I’d ever been before. It was that certainty and warmness, it filled me again. But there was something in your voice, a wandering tone that suggested that we were going someplace different. And we were.
After a while, you said
“When I’m with you, I want to be with you. But when you’re gone, I don’t.”
It was honest, and that was the most terrible thing.
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Now, I’m different, sure. I see the thing in different light.
“I don’t know why I was so down,” I’ll say to friends. “it wasn’t that significant.”
But that’s a lie and I know it. Sometimes I don’t want to acknowledge it, but that was the closest I ever got to something true. I think about it all the time still, but it’s distant. I’m burying her, and it’s a deep place where I’m digging.
There were always new things, new people and new experiences. And truly, if I could write a letter to her, I’d say
I’m grateful for it all, in the end. You were wiser than I was then. Although it saddens me more than anything, you were right. I am so happy to have lived that, and I never would have changed it for the world.
I hope her and I always stay acquaintances, although I think a strong friendship is out of the question. I don’t want to slide back down there again, I would never wish for that to ever happen. And being too close pulls me in, she’s a singularity to me, it always ends with me in an orbit that ends in a crash.
But, I’m finding inspiration and meaning in everything, finally. There are new things to look forward to, new people, and new experiences. She was right about that, about me being happier without an anchor in her. She was wiser in that moment.
Still, there’ll be scars. It comes with the end of anything good and deep. And as silly as it seems to the outside, and as silly as it seems even to me sometimes, I regret nothing. Finally, I regret nothing. I can live with the scars, and love them for what they are. Because they are apart of my experience, and me.
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"Why don't I ever listen to me?"