Found:
Disappointment and resolve.
The eighth day dawns, a sorrowful blush on the horizon. True to your word, there is no sign of you and I wonder...
The demands you have made of me, your search for answers about the woman behind the smiles. You ask your questions in such a way that keeping silent is all but impossible. Your understanding ear, your warm and welcoming gaze, is it but a front? A facade to gain what it is that you seek? For the answers given are never the ones you want to hear. The disapproval streams off you like sweat on a laborer. You know there is more to it, so many things that I can't yet bring myself to say, but still you ask and still you frown and then... when I finally show you a glimpse of what lies beneath...
Is it easier for you to vilify me? Does it make you feel better about refusing me when you can convince yourself that I am as terrible as you want me to be? Do you really believe the slanders you level against me or do you use them to steel your own heart against your own desires? Do I deserve it, this denouncement, this malign treatment at your hands, or I am merely the scapegoat, the easiest target, the one to whom you pass the empty ache you so fear to feel?
Am I too hard on you? Or are you too hard on me?
I am a difficult woman. I know this to be true. I am willful and driven, stubborn but flighty. My heart is hardened in ways you may never understand, whilst remaining soft somewhere deep beneath the thick crust. I am, to some, an enigma. I am, to others, a walking contradiction. Our philosophies may not be the same, our experiences and pasts setting us so far apart that it should be impossible to meet in the middle, but I am trying to change my direction. Are you?
You spoke of the evils you have vowed to stand against. A good man, honourable in his intent and deeds. You spoke as if there is some great battle to be fought, some unconquerable enemy to vanquish. I kept quiet. I wanted to ask if you were blinded by the prospective glory. I wanted to ask you to think of the little evils, the ones that fester and spread when they go unchecked. Would leaving one you care for to face that which she fears most count under that banner? Would forsaking one in need count as a little evil of its own?
So many times you asked me to stay, to turn my feet from the path I walked. So many times you tried to talk me out of going. Was that a selfishness on your part? A spark of something truly Mannish behind your shining white armour? For when I wavered, when I spoke of staying for more than just the reasons I gave, you told me to go. Do you protect yourself from me now? Do I hurt you so?
Those clouded thoughts, those confused feelings, that joy we feel when we come face to face. I might believe it a fantasy on my part, wishful thinking or tales I tell myself to keep me warm of a night. But you feel it too. You said as much, hinted at more, and turned away regardless.
But I waited, as I said I would. I kept to my word, as I always do. And you kept to yours, though I wished that you wouldn't. For once, could you not be selfish? For once, could you not do as your heart demanded? Must your selflessness kill this seed, starving it of sustenance before it can grow, as surely as does my need to change, not for your sake but for my own? Can there be no compromise here? No way to give us both what it is that we crave?
My camp is struck, my horses packed and saddled. Reluctant, terrified, forsaken and alone, I press my boots into the cracked, dried earth and continue along my solitary path. I will not look back, for to do so would break me all the more. I will continue on, headlong into the past and all those little evils you cannot see.
You turn your back and I turn mine. But maybe, just maybe, we'll meet face to face again one day.
