Happy Valentine's Day! (Based on a true story)

This actually happened to someone I know!

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She told me that she wants "To Save the Planet." Her jaw set, determined wrinkle in her brow.

I came home from work and every light in the house was on. Almost every light except upstairs. She won't go upstairs on account of the ghost. That's become my responsibility. She says that the ghost and I have a special relationship. If not believing in a thing makes a relationship with it special then I suppose she's on to me.

Every light in the house. She wasn't even home. I called her name once, no response. Walked from room to room flipping light switches. Then I saw the boxes.

In the bedroom, neatly stacked and taped shut. Labeled with a magic marker. On the dresser, half the items that would normally be there. Her things were gone. I peeked into the drawers on her side. Empty. Took a cursory glance into the closet. I knew what to expect.

I was on autopilot at this point. When she came home later, much later, I'd somehow ended up on the couch, sitting there in darkness. She wasn't alone.

"I didn't expect you to be here." Her face, a beautiful silhouette. My mind filled in the blanks and drew the wrinkle in her brow exactly where I knew it would be.

"I live here," Imagine a paper top made by an uncoordinated toddler, spun on the edge of a table. This is how my heart feels. The other fellow shifts. I smell patchouli.

She turns on the light. There she is, breaking my heart again. The guy with her looks like he was Saving the Whales last week. Birkenstocks, khaki cargo shorts with bulging pockets some kind of a weird dreadlocky thing growing off the top of his head. Some kind of a weird, blonde, twisted thing growing off the top of his head.

Looks like it should be held together with twigs, berries and copious amounts of magic. Not the good magic either. The Darth Vader kind.

"I didn't expect you to be here," she says again. "Thought you'd be at class." Then she notices the heart box and flowers on my lap. She fights the urge to smile ironically, glances at her new beau, then back at me. I'm waiting for the anti-corporate, anti-Catholic, anti-Valentine's Day rant but it never comes.

But I never bought into that Save the Planet jazz. I only asked that she turned the lights off, turn the heat down and use less water because it put money back in our pocket. Money we could use to do things. Money we could use to make our life better.

There is no we anymore.

She leaves me alone with the new guy. The new improved version. I suspect he has a gas mask in the back of that VW Bus that he rode in on. I suspect he has rubber bullet scars, a police record and a lifetime's worth of indignation and hostility built up towards The Man.

He probably carries a piece of blank cardboard and a sharpie, just in case a spontaneous protest breaks out. He's probably seen the sparkly end of a tazer. More than once.

I need to sit down. I am sitting. I stand up and walk around, follow her into the bedroom. It would probably be a good time to plead my case.

"I bought these for you," I hold out the bouquet of cheap carnations and the paper heart filled with chocolates. I've no use for them.

She's amused. She is beautiful. I've seen this look before. Is it polite to call a woman stubborn? Resolute. Jaw firmly set, brow a slight crease. It makes me sad realizing that this is how I will always remember her.

She takes the gift from me after an internal debate plays out on her face. "I need you to..." she gnaws her bottom lip.

I know where this is going but it's my turn to play games. I raise an eyebrow slightly. Try to look like she just didn't rip my heart out and put it in a waffle iron. I'm concerned.

She looks towards the stairs. Swallows. She mouths the words. A faint bead of moisture on her upper lip. Resolute. Scared of an imaginary ghost.

I nod. I can't pretend that I have the upper hand in something that doesn't exist anymore.

"You need me to go upstairs?" I say. Her winter coats reside there. In a closet next to the guest bed.

She is trembling. I want to hold her. A faint smell of patchouli reminds me that she's off limits now. Forever.

I climb the stairs, leaving the light down below. I know my way around. I don't need it. The climb takes longer than it used to. My knees are weak. I feel old and tired. I just want to sit down. It's cold. We never turn the heat on up here. Maybe the ghost likes it that way. Alone and cold. The ghost...

I'm upstairs with the lights off. There's a guest bed. Warm, inviting me to lay down. I decide to sit on the edge of it for just a moment. Just to get my bearings. Soon I'm under the covers. I'm not alone. I am not scared of being alone.

I fall asleep counting the ways I will miss her.


* * *

When I wake up, every light in the house is on except for upstairs. She never goes upstairs.

I go from room to room to turn the lights off. She is quick though, and turns them back on after me. We never occupy the same room anymore.

I'm beginning to forget what she looks like. Except for the crease in her brow. Sometimes I catch glimpses of it in the mirror. I can no longer see my own reflection.

I only stay downstairs for so long before the heat overcomes me. She figured out how to use the thermostat as a weapon.

I end my day staring at the boxes in the bedroom and the fine layer of dust now obscuring the magic marker labels. The box of chocolates scattered and mixed with the rotted carnations, my nostrils forever filled with the cloying scent of patchouli, hands, fingers twisted into vile instruments that I can't bear to look at.

She will never understand.

I end my day, trudging up the long staircase, back to where it is bearable. Where I can feel again. Allow the thoughts of mourning to wash over me. I can see the lights come on from here, at the top of the staircase.

I can see the lights, signaling the end of my day that never ends.

I will never hold her again. No one will hold her again.