She found a piece of her hair stuck to her sleeve by static, but rather than letting it drift to the floor as she always did, she wrapped it around her index finger and thumb, twizzling and twirling the strand until finally, it wound too tightly. She paused, observing the bulging flesh of her finger bound by the thin black string of hair. Her hair. It hurt, digging in and cutting off circulation. She moved her thumb slightly towards her and the strand snapped, releasing her fingers from the pressure. And of course, all of this brought her back to him.
He had loved her hair. He had told her he loved that it was soft, dark, long. Sometimes when they were especially tender with each other he would brush it for her – not with his fingers, but with her hairbrush. She hated the feeling of any hand touching her hair other than her own. She loved that he knew to use the brush, or at least she pretended that he knew. For her just the act of it was comfort and safety. It was home.
…
Nowadays she found herself obsessing over one thing, perhaps a trait or a word or a moment, and she would drown herself in it, reminiscing and analyzing it in different lights, sounds, worlds.
Today it was hair. Hair.
Perhaps she did this because she was working through her sadness. This was just one of the many stages, and eventually, she would make it to “self-realization.” He would be superfluous. She would be independent, strong, anything. But…she already knew she could do without him (maybe), and she already knew she was important (sometimes), so why did she continue to cycle through? The cycle was too slow for her to feel dizzy, too fast for her to feel bored, so it was easy for her to shuffle on and roll around in her melancholy.
It was easy for her to check his Facebook over and over again, even though she had un-friended him long ago. She still managed to find things on his timeline to stab herself with. Pressing links, scrutinizing strangers in his pictures, tracking his likes as evidence of new tastes, piecing together evidence of how he spent his time, on and on, following threads which lead to…what? Some semblance of having the intimate knowledge of his life that she used to have, perhaps. Wanting to know how he spent his days, was that so crazy?
Or what about looking through all of his letters, his gifts…and his jacket? She still had his tan fall jacket neatly folded in the corner of her room. It took all she had to stop herself from picking it up and crying into it every night. On days when she was in her cycle, when she indulged herself in her memories, she would take a shower, wrap herself in a towel, and curl up around the jacket on her bed, hugging it as if he was wearing it. She tricked herself into thinking that it still smelled like him, even though it had been five months since he’d last touched it, a year and half since he’d last worn it.
Ex-boyfriend. No. Ex-lover. Ex-fiancé? She didn’t know what to call him, this ghost who existed, but didn’t, at least not in her life. She supposed that was why people just said “Ex”. It was easy. Easy sounded nice. It had been a while since she had done easy.
Sometimes she wondered how he referred to her amongst all his new friends. Was she a fond memory? She hoped she could at least be a trifle of his youth. What she feared most was being the "crazy one." The one he compared to all of his new girlfriends and said, "Thank God you're not her." With luck, she would never meet any of these would-be critics. With luck, she would never be part of his new life. With luck, she would stop hoping to be part of it.
...
She was prone to nostalgia and dreaming, she knew it. Sometimes it was a blessing, how well she could recall her life's work. The things she couldn't remember, she constructed carefully in dream homes of painful and beautiful memories, some accurate suppositions, others circus mirrors. The curse came when she let the waves of remembered and constructed emotion play out in her mind while she lived her life in real time. She sometimes allowed them to produce tears, thinking herself a sensitive thinker and artist. Someone who was special with special problems, and a special history. But really it was just more indulgence.
...
A look in a mirror was dangerous. Look too long and she'd realize something was more than wrong. The typical dark rings beneath red eyes, dry skin, matted hair, chalky chapped lips. Something needed to be fixed. But really she was fine. She was relatively healthy. She was living, wasn't she? There are worse things. Maybe she could have used a little sun. She could have gone outside and walked to the lake, maybe biked. Maybe biked on the bike he had given her as a present. Yeah. That would have been a great idea. She supposed she should have sold the thing, or even given it back when they broke up, but it would have felt strange, petty even. She couldn't afford to seem as petty as she felt. And honestly, why would she get rid of a perfectly good bike?
She felt...tired. No. Exhausted. Opening her eyes every morning felt like more than she could bear; only the prospect of getting to go back to sleep at the end of the day spurred her on. But as she climbed into bed, as she tried to find relief behind closed eyes, the fear of nightmares grabbed her lungs and sleeping suddenly became fatal. In dreams he could walk with her, speak to her, reject her, take her back. Reject her again. A reductive melodrama with an angel and a devil. And then she'd wake up. Breathless. And she'd have to open her eyes again. And the cycle continued. Continues? Did it have to?
...
The cycle. Obsession. Indulgence. Nails.
...
Nails?
She had been looking at her nails when she recalled his constant rebuff. He had never liked it when she painted her nails, or put on make-up, or partook in other cosmetic doctoring. It was unnecessary, he said. Superficial. Stupid. She laughed bitterly at herself, hating that she had never rebelled enough, wishing that she had realized her mistake. But then the bitter laugh turned into something else.
She rushed over to find the nail polish, the nail polish remover, the newspaper. And she painted. It was on her cuticles, on her fingertips, and, by some miracle of clumsiness, in her hair. She looked carefully. The chemical fumes stung her nose and she winced. She sat on the floor, tucked her chin to her knees, and spread her fingers.
Not...beautiful. But not bad?
...
There's always room for improvement.
So she rubbed it all off and started again.