Memories

Eleven

Because I love you, that's why.

"...Tom?"

"Is this Mr. Miles?" A slightly muffled, croaky voice came from the other side of the line.

"Y-Yes. Oh, just call me John." I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, realizing just how loud it sounded in the silence. In this awkward silence.

Coming back to my senses, I started explaining, "I'm sorry for calling so late..."

He cleared his throat a little before speaking again, "Oh, it's alright. Do you need anything?"

Once again, that voice. That gentle and caring voice. His voice was so similar to yours. It made me want to open up to him.

"..." I pressed my lips together until they formed a thin line.

I wasn't so sure what I wanted to do all of a sudden. Should I tell him everything? Would he believe in me? He might just laugh it off, saying it was all my own imagination.

Rationality jolted me awake and I realized just what I was exactly doing. Calling a therapist that I barely knew for one day in the middle of the night, trying to seek company. I was so pathetic. I should just forget it.

"I...no, it's okay, I called you by mista--" I had tried to lie, but I sounded fake, wavering, that I couldn't even convince myself.

"Take your time. I can wait." I flinched. His firm voice somehow reassured me. He knew I was about to lie, yet he didn't mind.

After taking in a deep, shaky breath, I finally spoke in a meek voice. It came out so strangled, I worried for a moment that he didn't catch it. "...I needed someone to talk to. About her. My wife."

He simply hummed, as though urging me to continue.

"I've been seeing her ever since that day you came. She's really there. As a spirit, maybe, but she's there." I tried to whisper, but in the dead of the night, my voice was so clear and every word reminded me of what they meant. "And it's been so, so hard. I never expected this. I thought...I thought I could mend things, maybe even fix everything, but I failed. There was really nothing I could do in the first place, eh?"

I swallowed the imaginary lump in my throat, and went on, "She's probably angry at me, blaming me even till her last breath. Maybe she died, not loving me, too." I winced when I let that out. It was a painful truth. But I felt a little lighter to be able to get that out of myself.

"I don't get why she's here now. And I don't understand why I was the one who could see her instead of the kids. I'm the wrong one, isn't it? Is this really a second chance, if I can't change anything?"

I was huffing by the time I finished talking. A strange sense of relief and relaxation flooded over me. As if I had finally let go of a huge rock I was carrying. And this was when I was completely ignoring the consequences of doing so.

I half expected to start hearing him answer back, telling me that I was just losing my mind, and that everything that I was thinking were all wrong and imaginary. I was ready to argue, because all these wasn't fake, but all I heard was silence from the other side.

I guess we both sensed the uncomfortable, long silence, so out of exasperation, I spoke again.

"To you, I must sound like I'm out of my mind. You won't understand. You don't know how it's like to see the one who would remind you of your past mistakes and memories everyday. You won't get how much it hurts to thought that you had a second chance, but it was never one in the first place. You don't understand the feeling of being weighed down by guilt."