Carmen

She died without knowing I love her. I mean, it was pretty obvious, for all the time we'd spent together, the dates and the movies and the pets. We'd spent almost two thirds of our lives together. It's almost impossible she didn't know I loved her.

But, all the same, I never said it, aloud, with words or voice or hoarse whispers. I'm trying desperately to remember saying it; it's driving me up the wall. What kind of girlfriend am I to have never said "I love you" in the fifteen years we'd known each other?

What kind of girlfriend was I.

My brain is starting to spiral, as I fall further and further into the catacombs of my mind, destroying any kind of order or sense in trying to find any moment, any small murmur or whisper where I had told her, goddammit, I should have told her. Everyday, every minute I was with her, I should have yelled the words from the balcony at interstate traffic in front of our apartment building, carved it into our door like a fucking talisman to ward off bad luck, said it in the funny accents that made her laugh and then said it for real before kissing her so hard on the mouth she wouldn't be able to breathe with how much I loved her.

Well, the not being able to breathe part is accurate at least. Now it is, anyways.

Somewhere in me, I know she knew. She said it all the goddamn time, and while I never said it back out loud, I did do a hundred things that must have showed her I loved her. Buying her favorite jam and putting it on her toast after a particularly rough night. Rubbing her feet during rainstorms. Paying the Netflix bill. Stuff like that. Small, ordinary stuff that I wouldn't do for anyone else in the world except for maybe my family, and only then with some severe whining.

I never whined for her. God, I would have walked over coals barefoot just for a dinner date with her.

I would certainly do that now, and more. But it doesn't matter what I'd do for her now, because she no longer has a "now." The only "now" she has is, "Oh yeah, her? She's dead now." I would give her my "now" in a heartbeat, if I didn't so selfishly want to keep her away from this kind of pain.

Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad for her, if the situation were reversed. She knew that I knew she loved me. That was a solid, irreversible fact. Or maybe that just would have made it harder.

God, I hope she knew.