Sinking

What I don't want anyone to experience is when someone you care about looks you in the eye and lies to you. Lies to herself and to you at the same time. She tries to convince herself AND you that everything is fine and there is no reason to worry. She looks at you with glazed eyes and tells you how everything is fine.

Everything is just fine.

It's like something broke inside me. It's the most hackneyed metaphor in the world, but no other way to convey that feeling better.

I looked at her and knew that she wasn't going to talk to me straight now. She'd turned the other way, and she wouldn't be back in my lane anytime soon, maybe never. We wouldn't even have to be physically far away from each other, but we would still be very far away.

It feels like I'm standing on an island and I see her sailing away on a sinking ship and she smiles and shouts to me that this is how it was planned, that there is no need to be afraid, that as a last resort, she will jump off and swim to it. And I stand there, looking at it, crying, and I can't help her in any way, any way at all. I can only stand and watch and hope that she survives and I will see her again. Her real, honest, good as I knew her.