I miss your face. I miss tracing its contours with my finger while you slept or tried to eat. I miss your little feminine touches around our home—the candles, the food, the toilet paper. Everything reminds me of you, all the things you left behind—your photos, your books, your brother. I really thought he’d move out when you did, but he’s still here. On the couch. Constantly reminding me of you.
I miss that, no matter how much we’d argue, no matter who had their feelings hurt, or who felt belittled or emasculated, no matter whose penis was snickered at or whose vagina was mocked, whose money was stolen or who was told they smelled like an old wizard, no matter who put a dead mouse in whose gym bag or who brought whom back to life after suffocating them with a decorative pillow—no matter what, I always knew that the next morning we’d be lying by each other’s sides. Or I guess I should say, I thought I knew.
I miss having someone in my life with whom I was comfortable enough to just sit in silence for hours and hours without feeling pressure to say a single word. I remember our little “comfort silences” often lasting for days, even weeks; so that when we finally opened our mouths to speak all that came out was a series of stuttered dolphin yips. I miss that.
I miss your little quirks, like the way you’d cry while chopping onions and keep crying for hours afterward. Sometimes even for hours before. You always reacted so severely to onions.
You took our iPad. I miss it. I miss the apps and games. I miss checking my e-mail and surfing the Internet. I miss the crisp graphics and how surprisingly lightweight it was. I miss the mini easel that propped it up on tables. I loved that thing.
I miss being your partner on Pictionary nights with our friends, and the unspoken connection that we had. All you had to do was draw bunny ears for me to yell out, “You’re sleeping with Richard!” Not every couple can communicate without words like that. Not even our Pictionary friends, Amy and Richard.
I miss handing the phone to you when telemarketers would call asking for the lady of the house. Now I’m forced to say, “Just a second,” and then come back to the phone dressed like a woman because I’m ashamed to say you’re gone. That you gave up on us. That your brother won’t leave. All of it.
There’s a hollowness inside of me that was once filled by you. The kind of hollowness you feel when you tap on a secret wood panel in a rich old business tycoon’s library. But there’s no women’s underwear or Nazi memorabilia hidden behind my panel. Just emptiness. And sadness. Because you’re gone, and you took our freaking iPad.