Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Lament

lament
verb. To mourn a person's loss or death. To express one's deep grief about. To express regret or disappointment over something considered unsatisfactory, unreasonable or unfair.

Fran took one last look around the apartment. Now that she was leaving, she saw for the first time how cramped and shabby it was--how mean. It was an old motel converted into one-room efficiencies, after all, not a real apartment building. It had looked so perfect a few months ago when she and Richard had moved in their meagre, starter furnishings and settled down to a life comprised of going to their two jobs, then returning home to cook and eat meals, talk over their planned wedding, and fall into the double bed and enjoy sex for an hour or two before going to sleep and repeating all of it the following day.

Was that it? Had his life with her become a boring routine too quickly? Had he been unable to face the next fifty years of good meals, engrossing conversation and great sex with her? Was that why he had left? Was that why he had turned instead to a neurotic, needy college dropout with limp dishwater-blonde hair?

She stood in the doorway and turned the latch so the door would lock behind her. Nothing was left in the apartment but Richard's belongings. She pulled the door firmly to a close and turned away.

It was a long walk back to campus and her new place. She kept up a brisk pace, barely noticing the pinching of her strappy pumps. She had dressed to the nines, right down to the heels to show off the fresh pedicure, thinking that if he happened to be there when she arrived, he would get a good eyeful of what he was losing. She shook her head as she thought of the cowardly way he had ended it. He had simply disappeared. He hadn't been able to face her and tell her that he wanted to split up. Instead, he had let her wait, alone, in that cheap apartment for an entire weekend, worried, wondering what she could have done wrong, sobbing until her face looked like raw meat, the realization coming at last that he wasn't coming--not as long as she was there.

"Bastard," she whispered.

She looked around as she entered the busy commercial district that bordered the campus. She had always liked this neighborhood of little shops and cafés and now she was going to live here: live here and see what life held for her next. Richard's absence was a gaping hole in her consciousness. She knew she would miss him for a long time, and lament all the dreams for a shared future with him that now would never be, but she also knew that she would be all right. She was strong--much stronger than that depressed doormat he had cheated on her with.

Fran paused to wait for the light to change and considered her rival. Missy. Missy needed Richard, of that Fran was sure, but maybe Richard needed someone like Missy. Maybe Fran hadn't needed him enough and that was what had driven him away.

The epiphany was startling. That was it. That was the reason she had lost him. He had turned from her competent optimism to someone whose flaws and shortcomings made him feel more successful--more needed. "He dumped me because I didn't need him enough!"

It explained everything, and the afternoon sun slanting across the line of storefronts across the street suddenly looked warm and cheering. She smiled as she gazed at her new home, toying with something in the pocket of her skirt. She drew it out and realized that it was her key to the old apartment. Why hadn't she left it inside? She wasn't planning to return there, was she?

No. Not ever. It was over. She looked at the key on her palm for a moment, shocked that the clarity and resolve she had felt just a moment ago could be shaken so easily. Two steps away was a wastecan--one of those big ones with a steel hood to keep out the rain. As the light changed and traffic halted on the street before her, Fran dropped the key into the trashcan, turned away and crossed the street.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

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