shards, please

For months after I last saw him, I was the audience, the glass, and the performer, all at once.

No matter how much I try to explain, how much detail I go into, how long I know someone. I’ll never be able to get across to you just how it feels. How it felt. What was left behind.

When I was 9, I took horse riding lessons at a paddock near my dad’s house. When you ride a horse, you have to look in the direction you want to go. If you look left for too long, the horse will turn left, because it would feel you lean, even if it was just the tiniest amount. The paddock had a tiny, dusty room attached to it for the prideful parents to watch from, with an old, worn sofa and a big glass screen looking in, like an interrogation room. The horse would always turn to see if my dad was looking. He never was.

When I was with Him, and for the weary months after, I would have the same dream every night. In it, I watch myself standing in the viewing box, soft hands pressed against stained glass. On the other side, the paddock was replaced with a vast, white nothingness. He stood in the middle of it, watching the glass. At first, it looked like he was watching me. His face was motionless, mouth twisted into a waspish smirk, but his sharp eyes moved with my hands. Or maybe my hands followed his eyes. I open my mouth to apologise - unsure what for, but desperate to say it - but it falls on deaf ears. I am banging on the glass now, screaming, and he is on the other side, shouting back at me. From his side, I realise then that he cannot see me. Reflective glass.

My view switches intermittently, like a bored father flicking through television channels, between watching myself wailing and screeching to be heard, and him tirelessly yelling at the blank glass in front of him. His demeanour does not change and his anger does not falter. He seems hungry for it, holding that fucking smirk across his face and drawing distaste into his lungs like it was his lifeline. On the other side, I am gasping for air and dehydrated, shaking legs and broken nails from etching desperation into glass. Something inside tells me that if he does not hear me, there will be nothing left to hear.
My cheeks turn grey, breath raspy. I throw myself at the glass until I collapse. My whole room is shaking and he, in his nothingness, stays completely still. I curl on the dusty, hay-ridden floor, cold and alone, until I wake up.

Once the dreams started, I stopped fighting back. A question I had never tried to ask suddenly had an answer writhing around in the pit of my stomach. I watched his tantrums through a glass screen, motionless, wondering what he would say if it smashed in front of us and he finally saw me standing there behind it, sparkly shards at our feet. The glass never even splintered.

Every conversation with anyone since - with any substance, at least - followed the same pattern. I felt my dull eyes trace their mouths, calculating the distance between theirs and mine and how easily I could pull back if they pushed forward. I watched them laugh heartily through the glass, and I watched myself watching them.
For months after I last saw him, I was the audience, the glass, and the performer, all at once.