Invisible

We lay in bed barely touching: our hands slightly grasping each others. I turned to the side and felt her warmth of her back on my chest. My heart was pounding so loudly I thought the room would be swallowed by the sound. I summoned strength to hear her answer the question I had not dare ask directly before.
“Diane… Diane…?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you care about me?”
“What...? Yeah.”
My heart slowed down but the sound still boomed. I took a deep breathe and continued.
“Well it’s hard to see that anymore. You have become so cold, you seem to hardly notice me.”

She let out a long exhale.

“Diane, I really care about you… I feel a bond with you that I rarely feel with anyone. If you tell me that you really care for me I will stand beside you and help you fight these demons… but you have kept me so far a way… if you don’t want me anymore, tell me. “

She didn't move, but responded, “I really don’t know how I feel. All I can see is obstacle in front of me and until I clear that away I can’t see anything else. I have worked so hard to fight this. I never wanted to come back here, I thought I won and was safe. All of sudden the sky has darkened and I it feel all around me. There are moments where I want to cry and moments where I feel I have conquered the world. Yet nothing has changed, I go back to where I started, where I started before it all came back… this is not how I see myself. I believe I am a different person than the one you see before you. I need to change these things and I may have a way, but I am not sure.”

Diane described the machinations that were working against her and pulling her down. How when she is there, she is in another world where I don’t exist. My messages break through randomly and momentarily I exist again. She talked about how this happened before and she had left it all with a golden ticket out. Times had changed and golden tickets were no where to be found.
Then as an afterthought she said, “I have told some of my friends I like you.” That was everything she could give. After all that had happened, she told someone she liked me. The pounding of my heart gave way to a hollow sound that consumed everything in that room.

Diane had pulled away the veil and now I saw what lay underneath. Diane was in pain and I could not reach her nor could I really touch her. She hardly noticed me. This depression was her companion, not me. I was an accessory to distraction. I became silent; I did not know what to do. I wanted to look into her eyes and search the gray for something I could recognize. The room was dark and I wanted to leave, but I didn’t. Hazing morning arrived and I wanted to leave, but I didn’t. I wanted to make sure I heard everything, that there wasn’t something hidden away in her heart. I wanted to hear that although buried, a spark still burned for me. I waited expectantly not knowing how position myself in room where my dimensions had become awkward.

We went out for breakfast and I didn’t know if I wanted to scream at her, shake her or walk away. Instead I pulled into myself, covering my wounds. She looked around me anyway but noticed my quiet demeanor.

“Where are you?” she said.
“I don’t know. Somewhere far away”
She gave a half-hearted smile.

I struggled eating the breakfast I thought I had wanted. My stomach has always been the biggest indicator of my emotions and that day was no different. It turned over on itself, while my lovely companion across the table ate her food in peace. Breakfast came and went. Out of the tunnel Diane said “I’ll call you later” but I felt nothing.