Lonely

Today, when fresh out of the shower, bundled in a charcoal grey towel, I checked my e-mail account, and he had replied to me. Thoughts of coffee chased out of my head, I sat down at the desk and clicked to read what he'd written to me. My hair, hastily rubbed, stuck up around my head, and I felt a drop of water run around the side of my neck, across my collar bone and into the top of the towel.

It was the usual blah blah, work ok, family life ok, (he knew this was a topic to keep away from, but always he told me it was ok so that I would not get my hopes up again) Blah. Then the final sentence...

"I don't know alot about depression but I know one of the main causes is loneliness. Perhaps being at home with friends and family soon will help! I hope so."

The initial reaction one of anger, bitterness.
Too fucking right you know nothing about it, mate, to come out with such a cliché!
Fucking guilt talking, of course I'm lonely, you fucking left me.
You went back to your boring wife who you don't talk to, who you'd told me you couldn't talk to, not like you could talk to me; and all because you want to make things "work".

And now you won't talk to me like you used to anymore; when we used to spend everyday texting, mailing, messaging each other for months. I had long ago thrown caution to the winds and shared every thought with you, and stupidly I assumed you had done the same. But now I keep thinking, the realisation that I was just a tiny corner of your life,turning over and over in my head. That I was something to fill up the dull hours while at work, and in the odd moments when at home alone, when you could text to tell me what you were thinking of. And no matter what the content, the fact of the text itself made me smile, that you were thinking about me to reach across the miles and tell me something.

And after you made that choice (again, how did I not notice each time you chose duty, monotony, conformance over me?); after the choice and after an age of drawn out goodbyes, after another "final" further decision to live up to that choice; then all the focus and interest and communication between us was withdrawn and you say I'm lonely!

Fucking Brain of Britain, how long did it take you to work that out?

The anger burns in me, corrosive, white hot channels through passive flesh; anger at you for stating the bleeding obvious; and scalding anger at myself as I ask "How did it take me so long to get to this point?"