Erasing the Memory of Him

Erasing the Memory of Him

by Leslie Johnson

The phone rang a few times before he answered. Her heart nearly burst through her chest at his greeting. She loved the sound of his voice, smooth like whiskey. Welcoming. “Don’t hang up.” She said immediately. She worried that once he learned who was on the phone he would.

But as usual, he greeted her kindly and asked after her day. She knew in her heart that she should move on. He had broken off their relationship months ago, but she couldn’t seem to find a way to erase him from her heart. She found herself helplessly going down the same road past his house to see if he was home. She worried about the day another car would be parked in the driveway, but she ignored her fear since it hadn’t happened yet.

He was so right for her - so perfect. What had gone wrong? She wasn’t even sure. She also knew that she should never have dated him in the first place - their faiths were divided. But she was edging close to forty and felt desperate to have someone in her life. The internet was new and it opened a world she felt ready for. Internet dating - Canadian Lonely Hearts.

She met several men. There was Dale, John, Chuck, Scott, Al, and now Daniel. Although things never went beyond conversation with most of them, she liked hearing that “You’ve Got Mail” welcome when she signed on. Daniel was the most cautious of the men she met. He wrote very little about his past, while she regaled him with stories from her life. She had a million of them and he loved her tales of adventure and misadventure. Eventually, he shared a few insights into his world, but with reluctance. He mostly wrote about the now.

They progressed in their friendship to an exchange of phone numbers. For three weeks they talked nearly every day, long into the night. One day he announced he was  ready to meet. She was nervous as he opened his door. There he was - not a hulking giant of a man, but handsomely perfect. His eyes were soulful and brown. She loved brown eyes.

He smiled, showing one little crooked tooth in the front that made him sexy rather than imperfect. He saw his intelligence as they talked about their days. She noticed his attire, fashionable - much more so than hers. Her heart sang when she watched him at the barbecue or putting on some music. To her, he was perfect.

He seemed to understand her, to intuit her fears and anxieties. Spending time with him was like coming home - comfortable, and easy. They were playful and funny and tender together. They had stimulating conversations about life and politics.

For the first time in her life she imagined red roses against a white dress and pledging eternity as the sun rose over the horizon on a warm spring morning.

Three months passed. Then four. She loved opening her emails and finding love letters from him. She would print them off and read them over and over until the paper tore apart and she had to print them anew. He led her down the garden path to a place she’d never been before… to the core of amore - to where love bloomed eternal - to bliss.

And then, six months in, they had their first fight. It was awful and ugly and she didn’t fare well. She fell apart. She didn’t understand. It was his birthday and his daughter was coming over. Her excitement at meeting her was smashed to bits when he insisted she leave before his daughter arrived. He didn’t understand. This was one step closer to their forever, the one she was planning in her heart. But he didn’t want them to meet. He wanted her gone. And just like that… it was over. For him. Not for her.

She couldn’t sleep. He was so ingrained in her thoughts, in her world, he was everywhere. She called him incessantly and he always took her call. He always spoke kindly to her, his voice pulling her close. Yet he managed to keep her at arm’s length no matter how hard she tried to prove to him she was worthy of his love and affection. He hadn’t moved on but he stubbornly refused to come closer. All the while, she waited for him to realize how special she was. But he didn’t care. He never looked back except when she cornered him. Then like a child, he would treat her with kindness until he could brush her off. When he was gone, she felt emptier with the fresh loss of him.

She was obsessed and she knew she was in trouble. She tried moving on herself, but each new man fell short of the perfection she once thought she knew. She found herself calling him after every date, telling him what they had done and where they had gone. He encouraged her to stick with it, but she always let go in order to come back to him. She needed him and it grieved her because she knew he didn’t want her back.

Crying herself to sleep became normal. She woke with puffy, red eyes from the tears and invested in cosmetics to hide the bags and dark circles. She gained weight and hated herself for it. And still she clung to him, even after his path took a turn she didn’t like. He was leaving her behind and she knew his decisions were meant to hurt her. He never once drank so much as a beer while they were dating; now he bragged about passing out on his front lawn after a night out with his new friends. She didn’t even know him anymore.

Understanding the battle was lost and the war would never be won, she quit her job, packed up her belongings, and moved. She secretly hoped that he would come after her but he never did. She stopped calling him and after a while, she only thought about him late at night, when she was overtired and feeling vulnerable. And sometimes when she was driving he would infiltrate her thoughts and she would be back there, back in that life  - the one she built in her mind.

The years passed and she eventually forgot his phone number. She still longed for him or what she imagined him to be, but she no longer knew where to find it. She tried to recreate her experience, but the dating sites were full of Lotharios and letches. She met many undesirables… bigots, racists, know-it-alls, game-players, perverts, and a handful of angry, broken, divorced men. It was a cesspool not worthy of her attention. She gave up her search.

Four years passed before she returned to the city where they had met and lived to visit friends. As she neared the city limit, like a long-lost friend, his phone number leaped easily to her mind as if she had dialed it yesterday. She pulled into a roadside turnout and using her cell phone, she punched in the number. Then she waited, her heart pounding in her throat, unable to hit send. She eventually closed the phone and tossed it onto the seat of her car before bursting into tears.

In that moment, his memory was so clear and vivid she couldn’t breathe. Yet he was far away; he’d always been far away. She didn’t understand how to correlate the two versions of him - the one she knew him to be and who she wanted him to be. She wrestled with her emotions, tired of feeling like an unclaimed treasure, unable to understand why he hadn’t wanted her.

She lay her head on her steering wheel and let the tears wash away the sorrow of his loss and the sting of his rejection. Even though it had happened years ago, she had never let go - she’d never wanted to. Even as she lived a new life miles away, he was always in the background of everything she did. It seemed like it had taken a lifetime to get this far. The past years were a perpetual cycle of grieving him, of allowing the idea of him to guide her. She had been fooling herself - believing she’d moved on.

Sitting in her car - not far from the third lane of a busy highway - she finally had enough. The threads of her obsession fluttered and pulled free. The wind snatched them through the window and they took wing. She watched them disappear in the wake of an eighteen-wheeler. For the first time in years, she knew that he was behind her, well and truly behind her. She was free. She had finally managed to erase the last of his memory from her heart.