Elbow Room

I just need time alone, away.

He told me these exact words on the 20th of August last year. When I asked him where he was planning to go, he clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in dismay. The rest of the drive back to mine was silent after that, excluding the radio in his car that blared out a steady beat, pounding in my ear.

When I looked at him that day, he was different. Unrecognizable from a distance, with a haunting darkness and looming melancholy over his face. His eyes never lit up, and a frown stained his face eternally. I was upset, disappointed, in rage with what he had become.

But I didn’t say anything to him.

“Hey,” he called out as I shut the car door. “I’m going to be alright, I just need some time.”

I didn’t say anything to this. I couldn’t. One look into his mellow eyes and I thought he was going to leave and never return, and I was ready to forget him. I didn’t want to see him ever again. After a year, I had my fair share of tears and anger and disappointment, I was done with constantly being physically sick and tired of worrying.

So when he arrived back at my front door on the 21st of August this year I screamed. Whether it was purely from joy or panic, I am still unsure. I was ready to yell at him and ask where he’s been, slap him and hug him. I didn’t dare answer the front door or climb down the stairs.

“He’s back!” My mother flung my bedroom door open, overzealously, expecting me to be excited. When I turned down her offer of seeing him again, she gave a pitiful smile and proceeded downstairs with pursed lips.

He came back the next day, and the next, until it was late September. After weeks of attempting, my mother forced me to see him. She told me I could just greet him and decide whether or not to say anything else. I agreed and made my way downstairs.

I thought I was going to yell at him and interrogate him mercilessly, until I actually saw him.

How he looked from the stairs, playing with his car keys and humming, made me smile the slightest bit. I wanted to cry and laugh, run up to him and literally jump for joy. Seeing his face made me realize how his freckles had multiplied and the gleam in his eyes had emerged once more. Displaying his pearly white teeth, he opened his arms, timidly, and waited for me to go up to him and embrace him.

In a few hours, we found ourselves inside his car headed for a frozen yogurt store.

“I told you I’d be alright,” he clicked his tongue. “I just needed some time.”

“And a hell lot of elbow room,” I smirked his way. He laughed, throwing his head back.


Katya Tjahaja