"Loving You Is Easy" by Eliza Falk

Loving You Is Easy

Loving you is easy, was the first thing I noticed. Before, I had thought loving ought to be hell, if it’s worth it. You picked me up and I reclined my seat, letting myself be cradled by the seat belt, while you rolled over hills coming up on mountains, older than old, rocks with layers tilted up by tectonic collisions and exposed by glacial retreat. Lowering my window all the way, I leaned my head against the boundary of nothing, so I could see all of me and a sliver of you in the side view mirror. I liked to just stare at you.
You took me to Cookout, where we got milkshakes and parked facing the street. My eyes tracked the headlights flashing by, making roars of resistance against the air as they passed. Bits of Reece’s Cups got stuck in my straw, and I put every ounce of my being into the effort to suction them through. There were just the sounds of the street, my mouth against the straw, and the music of our shared playlist.
A favorite song of mine played, and I mumbled to the dashboard that you didn’t have to like it, that it wasn’t your style. You told me you did like it, which I knew you’d say, and I wanted to perhaps needle you, make you fight for me to believe that you enjoyed a song you’d never spend a second of your life on if I hadn’t forced its waves through the speakers of your car.
You told me that there was something we needed to talk about. I asked if we could let my song finish first. The look in your eyes was one I hadn’t seen before, and I was such an ardent student of your face. I didn’t want to let what you were going to tell me forever change that song for me; so few things in life we have control over. You agreed, and we sat in the shadow of the news for forty-three seconds, which ruined the song anyways.
Home. You were going home. It was too much for you, doing classes online, away from family. It felt like being in a bubble that got smaller and smaller, and you listed the things you missed about your home, up to the detail of the way your mother bought two types of vegan burgers for your meat-eater family’s grilling, because you flipped your preference so often that it stressed you out to choose in advance.
          You were talking like an apology, like you had signed a contract to stay with me and needed to fulfill the requirements of an exit clause. I was so hurt that I told you it was fine, laughed, and asked why you thought it was such a big deal. If I could make you stumble, second guess how much of my heart was yours, maybe it’d be less humiliating that you were leaving me stranded in the world, tied only to others by fiber optic cable.
          I slurped up my milkshake, using my straw as a spoon and sliding chunks into my mouth amidst the liquid remains. With a half-affected yawn, you said it was getting late, and put the car into reverse, then drive, then we were back on the interstate, which wasn’t like the roads near my house growing up, the ones four lanes wide on both sides with indefinite merges and the smell of diesel lingering in the air no matter where you go.
          It was too dark now to see anything except the headlights. I was soaking up the lasts of your presence. Appreciating you while loathing how you were taking yourself away from me. What was worse was that you were eliminating the existence of us, this special other thing that poofed into the world when you and I were together. That’s what you were apologizing for.
          At my apartment, you put the car in park, pulled the emergency brake up to account for the slant on the road, uphill from the band’s trombone house, aptly referred to as “The Bone Zone.” You unbuckled your seatbelt and I reluctantly unbuckled mine. Then we were just looking at each other. Your tired eyes trying for something to say. There was nothing to say. We hugged. I’d see you in a few weeks, when you decided you were ready again. Probably. That’s just what you told me. Your words made such an effort to cushion the world for me, and, for the first time, they fell flat.
          Then I was alone, watching you depart, your car falling back a half foot when you take off the brake, then lurching forward, and out, northward, towards a different sort of place.

Eliza Falk

Eliza Falk is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia. She currently works in the environmental field and is writing her debut book. You can reach her at @ElizaFalk on Twitter and Instagram. 

Headshot: University of Virginia

Photo Credit: Staff