Unreciprocated

What had overtaken me was nothing as natural or internal a phenomenon as insomnia. The force in possession of my silent restlessness had much more to do with impatient bitterness. Or perhaps bitter impatience would better describe the torturous, churning pit of pitiful reliance in which I was forced to wallow through the least welcoming hours of the night. Such is the feeling of desperately missing someone who likely doesn't miss you at all. The worst part is being aware that she likely doesn't care for you, as you continue to wish for her presence anyway. Such were the thoughts lining the last few strands of consciousness remaining to tether my mind to the waking world, those few lingering against my will. I knew that relief could only come in one of two ways: my long overdue departure from awareness, or her long overdue arrival to my room.

I knew it was her before the sound of the door creaking open betrayed her appearance.

My back to the door, I was sure that the way I was lying would not reveal to her my weakness. She would know nothing of my over-thought anticipation of this moment, how badly I hoped she would come and how much I hated that hope. She wouldn't even know I was still awake, or that I had been for hours now.
As she stepped closer, though, I could tell she knew everything. She knew everything and wouldn't change anything. When she reached the bed, she stopped. "I had some things to take care of, I'm sorry. I did think about you," she said, as if to beckon my heart closer while keeping her distance physically.

"That's fine," I said, always willing to acquiesce and be understanding, never willing to express my real feelings for fear that no particular event recent enough would prompt such an expression. Without an actual conflict, my concerns would have to remain silent. I continued, still turned away, "I thought about you too." I could've scoffed at my sickeningly hyperbolic utterance. She knew of the understatement as well as I did, but neither of us acknowledged it. Again - without an actual conflict, our communication would continue on as vague innuendo, each of us assuming the other's understanding, the ambiguities of our language destined to drive me mad in every private moment of thought the following day would afford me.

"You always wait for me." I felt her hand on my shoulder. My senses all immediately shrieked in unison, always hoping for some physical token, some touch of guarantee, of the mere possibility of intimacy.

I turn toward her, making eye contact - something she always stressed to me. She was leaning over the bed, not so much as even sitting next to me. "Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" My question begged one singular response, asking for her to answer in only one way. Her recognition of something between us was all that I ever wanted to hear, the absence of which caused the restlessness of this past night and every other night both before and after.

Denied. "It's just so nice of you," she answered. My question had begged only one response. That wasn't it. Giving my shoulder a conclusive pat, she pulled back and began to leave. As she reached the doorway, she turned back, and said, "Good night."

With dissatisfaction enough to triple the night's previous ponderings, I answered, with none of it leaking into my voice, "Good night." I couldn't let the frustration come out in speech, for there had been no actual conflict. Kept out of my tone, all the frustration would be saved for my mind. All to ponder, and none to express.

And so the circle would continue. Always to keep me at a distance with no direct admittance of affection, but close with the prospect, the fleeting-but-existent possibility, of that admittance, I was to remain in this cyclic torture of the mind and soul.