The World Will Not End - a short story

The world will not end.

            That’s what I tell myself as I walk up the stairs to his apartment; the world will not end.

            It wasn’t that I didn’t know it was coming. I mean, I think we all did in a way. The awkward exchanges, the way he’d stopped touching me in the gentle ways that he did – a hand to rest on my thigh or light fingertips to outline my face. I knew he had begun to fade from me. But as much as you can try to prepare yourself for that late-night phone call, it never seems to come any easier.

There were only a handful of words I could think of to say at the time: please, stay, I love you. I wonder now if I could have said more. Begged more. Loved more. It’s that thought that rolls around behind my eyes now. A sharp sensation that hits me every moment or so and makes my eyes water and my nose burn like a sudden inhale of bitter winter air. Wishful thinking cannot turn want into wisdom, and love is not enough to save us.

            I fish the spare key out of my pocket; wired headphones tangle themselves in the keychain attached, clinging on fruitlessly. Only one of the earpieces still works. It plays this crackling, gurgling noise when I listen like some grating backing track that lay beneath the music; I’ve never been able to get used to it. I don’t know how anybody could, and I don’t know why I keep them still. I suppose I forget they’re like that until I hear that noise again. Or maybe I hope that it’ll have gone anyway if I ignore it for long enough. Funny that. Wishful thinking.

            When I open the door, the lights are off. It’s a drab little place with few windows and I can barely make out my feet in front of me as I step inside. I don’t bother calling out to him like I used to; there’s no point now. Breath falls uneven out my lungs in one harsh gust as I reach for the light switch, and I hover for a moment – closing my eyes and breathing in the dark. My fingers feel it over: around the plate and over the button, preparing myself for the sting of fluorescents. When they flicker on, it hurts all the same.

            I can tell his mother has been here. The blankets in the living room are draped over the back of the couch, and the dishes in the kitchen sit wet in the drying rack by the sink. She made a habit of cleaning whenever she came over. In little ways, folding the tea towels into one neat pile like newspapers or lining up the shoes by the door like you’d see in those picturesque home magazines. It didn’t matter to her that it wouldn’t last. I always liked her. I wish I could be more like her.

            I sit down on the couch; it’s the first time I’ve stopped moving since I got the call. The world will not end, I think. The world will not end. But I’m sat in his apartment and I’m crying, and my head hurts, and my chest hurts, and I can’t breathe. It’s too quiet, and it’s too tidy, and it’s too bright, and I miss him. The world will not end. The world will not end. But it feels like it will, and it feels like it has, and I wish that I could kiss him again.

            It’s been less than a week since I was last here and the apartment still smells like him. I don’t know how long it will last – the lingering scent. I wonder if I will forget it. I don’t want to forget it. I cry harder.

            Your world will not end. That’s what he had said to me on the phone, and laughed when I told him I loved him. Love is not enough to save me.

            It’s been less than a week since he called, and I can still hear his words in my head. His phone sits on the coffee table in front of me. I wonder if I will forget his voice.

            The funeral is this weekend, I think, and tell myself, the world will not end.