Fragile

"You affect me," he said when he ran across her on a lonely country corner. She was nervous, not wanting to be in this situation and having only her sleeping child in the car across the street as witness to the moment. She'd stopped to take a picture of the winding road not expecting to see anyone, especially not someone she had largely forgotten. Raising her hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight was the only response she gave. He continued on, oblivious to her shielded answers and closed-off body language.

He started showing up to her house unannounced. It never set well with her. She socialized, but barely. Excuses were plenty on why he couldn't stay long or how bad her days looked for the next week or two. "I'm simply not available," she would say without looking at her calendar. She prayed he would just go away. He didn't.

She was most annoyed by his insistence that he knew her well. He never said it directly, but she read it in little ways. He tried to soothe her when she wasn't upset, telling her to give herself a break. She was fully in control. He offered up his carpentry skills to fix things she thought were lovely the way they were. He didn't understand her logic or love for the little imperfections. He invited himself along on trips, confused why she refused his offer in exchange for that of another mother. He tried to insert himself into her life.

She hid. Turning lights off, pretending she wasn't home if someone knocked on the door. She had her husband clean out the garage to ensure she could fit her car inside it and then left the garage door closed. She sequestered her children in the basement in front of the TV. She felt helpless, torn by her role in the mess. She thought she would break from the stress, being as fragile as the relationship she didn't want.

*** Daily Writing Practice ***