mindless

I always thought that what she needed most was loyalty. She had enough enemies and critics to go around--if she wanted me to question every effort she would have asked. So I did what I could to make sure that, whatever goal she set, someone would be there to help achieve it.

I told myself it didn't bother me that in public she met my loyalty with indifference, that she couldn't afford to reveal how much she relied on me. I pretended to understand. And I had almost convinced myself that it didn't hurt every time I found that she had kept some pointless secret from me or hadn't sought help I could easily have provided.

Then she disappeared one summer, without a word. I considered spending the time moping, and discarded the idea as a waste of time--if nothing else, she wouldn't get anything out of it. Carrying on as if everything was normal was, of course, impossible, since "normal" required her presence, so I resolved to find a new normal. I made friends, I fell briefly in love, I took time to myself. The midsummer festival came and, drunk on summer wine and freedom, I talked about her for the first time--about us, really, but it seemed already like I wasn't talking about myself anymore.

When she returned with the first chill of autumn at first I worried my new self would disappear, but when she smiled at me--in private, of course--my will no longer abandoned me. I could look her in the eye, and smile back, and my mind, at last, was my own.