Drip. Drip. Drip 

Three hundred and sixty five: the number of times the faucet has dripped since I chose this spot on the couch as the best spot to sit and wait for you. Drip. Drip. Drip. Three hundred and sixty eight.

You have been gone for two days now, leaving me here waiting for you. I'm not sure if you're ever coming back and at times I'm not sure if I want you to come back. Every morning I wake up and make breakfast and then I sit on this exact spot and wait. Wait for a sign that you didn’t just abandon me; that I mean something to you.

I want to hear your steps coming towards me, to feel your breath on my face. I wait because I don’t know what else to do. I wait because last time you came back. I wait because I'm afraid that if I stop waiting, you'll take it as a sign to never come back.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            Three hundred and seventy six. I remember the first time we met on a crowded street in midtown at noon on a Monday. You were in the middle of the sidewalk, wearing your orange pea coat and standing on top of a puddle of water — a remnant of the previous night's downpour — everyone else walked by, pretending you weren't standing in their way. Later you told me how much you hated the way New Yorkers lived in their own world all the time and never stopped to look around them. "It's a beautiful city," you said, "I've been back for ninety-nine days and seven hours and I am still as amazed by everything around me as if it were the first time my mom let me go out and explore the city on my own again." It was the first time you used your numbers.

I circled around you, unsure of whether I should approach and talk to you or not. Finally I came up to you and asked if you were lost, if you needed directions to get anywhere. You said no and then placed your hand on my shoulder and told me to stop. "Look," you said, "look at the beautiful sky." That moment I realized I hated tourists in the city, they never have any purpose; they walk slowly and stare all around them without a care in the world, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk as if the rest of us weren’t on a schedule. They think New York is magical and I never figured out why. You were the same way, but you weren't a tourist. You said that as a New Yorker, I too should learn to love where I live, "because this might all be gone one day.” You laughed at the view, your eyes shining in the sun, and I stopped right in front of you. I was tempted to walk away after that.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            We stood on that sidewalk for twenty-two minutes. You were staring up and I was staring right at you. Your brown hair flapping in the wind, getting closer and closer to your butt as you stretched your neck, almost bending over backwards. You continued to talk and point out things on that sunny day, but I couldn’t hear what you were saying. The street was too loud, but still I waited twenty-one minutes before asking for your number. You smiled and said, "two-one-two," and then you paused and began walking away. I stood my ground, confused for a second, but then you turned around and waved your delicate little fingers asking me to follow. I quickly walked to your side. "What's the rest of your number?" You laughed. "You're too impatient for your own good, sometimes you just have to let yourself be surprised." You didn’t know me at all and there you were, sizing me up. But you gave me a mesmerizing smile — the kind where all of your teeth are showing; the smile you usually give me when you're trying to convince me to do something I don’t want to do. "By the time the afternoon ends, you will know the rest of my number," you said taking, my hand. It was a game to you, everything always was. But this isn't funny. You need to come home.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

Do you remember the first time we went to the restaurant on Fifth Avenue and 86th street? We sat down and you wanted to know all the nutritional values of each dish on the menu. You made calculations in your head and counted the calories and prices and time it might take you to chew and digest everything. I think that was the first time I knew that there was something going on with you, something out of the ordinary. Your counting, the fact that you were living with your parents, and your complete aversion to being anything like them—happy and comfortable—should have been enough to send me running in the opposite direction. But it didn’t. Something about you that night told me that I was about to make the best and worst mistake of my life.

            "What do you do?" I asked, unsure of whether that's where I wanted to start our conversation.

            You looked up at me from behind the menu, blinked and said, "I count." I chuckled. I thought it was a joke.

            "So you're an accountant?" You looked at me with a funny expression and a little annoyed, your eyebrows becoming one as you wrinkled your forehead.

            "No, I count." You were very serious and that time I knew it wasn’t a joke, but I didn’t know what it meant.

            "What exactly do you count?" You were growing impatient with my curiosity and inability to accept counting as a profession.

            "I count everything. The number of steps we took to get here, the minutes we had to wait for our table and the seconds that your hand remained on my back as we were being shown to our table. I've counted the number of times you blinked since we sat down and how many times I've suppressed the desire to sneeze." I was overwhelmed, and I think you could tell, because you added, "I was a math professor at MIT, but I quit and moved back in with my parents.”

            I wanted to ask you why you quit, but it was too much for a first date.  I remember how one day, long after I had forgotten about your job at MIT, we were crossing the Brooklyn Bridge when you told me that you hadn't quit, that you had been fired because you didn’t like the grading system and you thought classes were the wrong number of minutes and you wanted all your classes to have twenty-eight students, no more and no less. "They told me I was too difficult and that there was no way my working there was going to make sense anymore."

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            That first day, I followed you around for a while before you said anything. And then the first thing you said — when we got to 37th Street— was: "How many blocks did we just walk?" I counted, and when I paused to tell you my answer, you said, "Those are the next two numbers of my phone." I wrote it down, growing impatient at not knowing and yet completely enamored with the way you had me wrapped around your finger. I didn’t care if I was about to spend the rest of my life following you around.

            The day went on like that. You counted the minutes we stopped at a light and the number of times we crossed paths with someone who was pushing a stroller. I didn’t know how you did it, how you managed to count the most arbitrary things and still get the desired results. You said I blinked twenty-eight times in three minutes and that the block between Fifth and Sixth Avenue had forty-two cracks on the sidewalk. The day passed like that, me following you around, you counting everything. At that time I couldn’t fathom how deep this need to count ran, I didn’t understand, but I do now.

After we walked half of the city, I realized that I was going to be late for dinner if I didn’t run home, and if I didn’t make it to my mom's on time, she would throw a fit. I told you that I would call you, but you just said, "It's OK if you don’t" and walked away before I had the chance to turn around.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I still remember every detail of the day I asked you to move in with me. It was after the first time I had dinner at your parents' house. "But I'm already living with you," you said with a mischievous grin.

            "I know, but all your things are still at your parents', which means you have to go back every couple of days and that makes no sense." I was nervous you were going to say no. I don’t know why, because everything that had happened between us until that point seemed to point towards a positive response. But you can’t blame me for being nervous. Especially now that you're gone, I see that my nerves were founded on something other than my fear of rejection.

            We began packing up your things from your parents' house the day after I asked you to officially move in. Under the watchful eye of your mother, we stacked things carefully into boxes, all your old mathlete trophies and your books on physics. You never looked happier and I never felt better.

            When we got back to our apartment, I asked if you if you wanted to unpack your things. I told you I would make space for you in the living room and the closet. But you said you didn’t want your past tainting our future. I never thought your past was as bad as you made it seem, but I didn’t want to push you and I honestly didn’t really care. If you were OK with having my records on display instead of your maps, then I was OK with having my records on display. Except now I look at our apartment and there is no sign of you ever being here, aside from a closet full of women's clothes. I sit on our bed and I walk into our kitchen, but it looks just the same as it did before you ever came into my life. Maybe I should have insisted you to leave more of a mark in our place. But I never thought you would leave me like this. I thought we'd have forever and there would be pictures of our wedding, our children and eventually our grandchildren in this apartment.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I haven't told my mom that you're gone. I don’t want to scare her. I think she'd be more upset at you being gone and me not knowing where you are than the fact that you left me in the first place.

            The funny thing is that since the beginning you had me going slightly crazy. The day after we’d met, I wanted to call you but I was too nervous to dial. I thought going to work and going through my usual routine would give me back my confidence, my composure. It didn’t. I walked around all day in a daze, people asked me what was wrong and I told them I wasn’t feeling too well. I didn’t want to tell them the truth. Months later, you told me the people I work with are all unfeeling robots. At first I protected them, because if they were robots so was I. But you were right, you usually are, they would have never understood that the reason I was acting weird was because I was nervous—I had always thought of myself as confident, even slightly cocky, before meeting you.

"Go home Tom, you look pale and if you're feeling sick there is a chance that you'll get everyone else sick and you know we can’t have any of that." My boss was right about my paleness but love is not a contagious disease. I packed up and left anyway; I didn’t want to be under the fluorescent lights of the office anymore.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            I walked home clutching my phone in my hand. By the time I let go of it and dropped it on the table at my apartment, my knuckles were sore from holding on too tightly. I opened and closed my hand a couple of times. "Just do it," I told myself, "she isn't some scary femi-nazi or too-cool for you office babe." You picked up on the eighth ring and said, "I knew you were going to call."

            "Oh! I thought you weren't in or maybe you were avoiding my call." I told you as a smile spread across my face, my cheeks starting to hurt.

            "Sorry, I can’t pick up before the eighth ring." I wanted to ask you why but I didn’t want you to think I was judging you or that there was something wrong with the way you were. It's strange that you can’t do things like others can, but that's part of the reason why I love you. I know lately I haven't been very good about appreciating your quirks, but if you come home I promise to cherish and adore them.

            "So, listen, I know we only just met yesterday and I could be some psycho —"

            "But you can't."

            "Why not?"

            "Well, because psychos don’t work for banks. I assume they have some sort of screening process before offering a job to just any person who walks through the door." I laughed, because you always take everything I say so seriously. When you didn’t laugh with me, I cleared my throat and said, "You're right, you're absolutely right. But what I really wanted to know was if you maybe wanted to go get some dinner with me tonight?"

            "I can't walk more than ten blocks in any direction at night."

            "That's OK, how about I come pick you up at eight and then we'll walk as far or little as you want."

            "OK, I live on Park avenue between 76th and 77th Street. Fifteen steps from the corner of 77th and Park, and twenty-three from the corner of 76th and Park."

            "I'll see you then."

            "Yeah," you said and hung up.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I know that the only thing you hate about me—sometimes I still catch the resentment in your eyes—is that I am the type of person your parents wanted for you, that they had done everything in their power to ensure that you married someone like me. But I have my own demons to deal with and they're so much easier to figure out when you're here.

            Now it's getting dark again and I haven't moved and you're still not back. It's been three days; must you really continue torturing me this way? The faucet has dripped one thousand, five hundred and eighty eight times. For a while it stopped, because it thought no one was here to count how many tears it shed, but I was here and so it began crying again.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            Did I ever tell you that giving in to your wish to get an abortion was the hardest thing I ever did? After we fought over it, you made me sleep on the couch for three nights before you begged me to come back to bed. "Three is a bad number. Three nights is enough," you said.

After I crawled in bed next to you, you asked, "Will you come with me?" Afraid of what I might answer.

            "Of course I will," I answered, tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

            You made the appointment for a Saturday morning. I was scared. More than anything, I feared losing you, which I have now and I can’t make sense of it.

            We sat in the waiting room, side by side. You were cracking your knuckles calmly; I had one arm around your shoulder and the other was clutching the armrest. "Your nerves are going to get the best of you," you said, playing with the hairs on my arm. I told you I didn’t know what you were talking about and you told me I'm always fidgeting. I shook my head. To make a point you placed a hand on my vibrating leg; I looked down at your fingers spread out over my corduroys. Their pink tips glowing as you squeezed and told me my leg had shook sixty five times in the last twenty-nine seconds and that it was going to be OK. I desperately wanted to believe you because if you weren't scared then I shouldn’t have been either. I made sure to stop shaking, but as soon as you took your hand off my leg, it began its uncontrollable quake once again.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            After the abortion was done, we took a cab home and I made sure you were comfortable. I went out and bought you a box of twelve donut holes and tucked the sheets around you tightly, the way you like them. We lay on the bed all day, watching movies and cartoons and sometimes just talking as I traced patters with the tip of my finger on your arms. I was sad but I was also happy because it seemed like everything was really going to be OK. You said you definitely didn’t want this scare again and that you couldn't go through another abortion. "Physically, it might kill me," you said matter-of-factly. You said that when you were ready for kids, then we could do it together and be in it together. Until then, you said, it was better to be safe.

On Monday I went back to work as if nothing had happened and you went back to your spot in the library — the one that gets sun from the floor to ceiling windows for the longest hours.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

It's a new day and I just made myself some eggs and I'm sitting in the exact same spot as yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Two days ago, I told myself that if you weren't back by the fifth day, today, I would call the police. But I'm still hoping that nothing happened to you, that you just needed some time to think and figure things out after I asked you to marry me. I told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you; I thought you felt the same way. I should call the police, I really should. But maybe I should call your parents first.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

             I never thought I was the love-at-first-sight type of guy, but things moved fast after our first date and it never felt like we rushed into it. I called you every day and you started spending more time at my apartment. I still had to go to work and you would always slip notes into my briefcase—why did you stop doing that? I would find the notes in the middle of the day and smile, knowing that you were waiting for me to come get you after a long and tedious day. You spent a lot of time at the public library. "I don’t go there to read," you told me once. "I count the number of books and pages and calculate how many trees were needed to fill it. I look at the people who walk in and out and count how many of those came in to use the free Internet and how many actually came in to read." It was endearing. You could entertain yourself so easily. You didn’t need me or anyone else, but you still wanted to be with me. That's what made me feel like what we had was a good thing that in spite of everything you wanted, not needed, to see me at the end of the day.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

Do you remember the day I came home from work you told me that we were invited to dinner at your parents' house? You rolled your eyes but I was excited to finally meet them and feeling proud. I made sure to have the right flowers for your mother and the expensive wine to impress your father. I wanted to make a good impression on them, but you just told me I didn’t need to worry about it. I put on my best look, the one I only wear to work events and when I'm invited to spend the day at the boss' country club. You laughed and put on your favorite dress, the one you wore in my apartment whenever the cold outside made you upset. The one your mother hates because you got a thrift shop and the edges are fraying. I didn’t say anything because I knew this was your way of getting back at them, for what, I still can’t figure out. I wanted to take a cab so you wouldn’t be cold, but you insisted on walking the thirty blocks from my midtown loft to your parents' Upper East Side apartment before it got dark—I thought I had helped you in some way because you no longer feared a night walk. Little did I know that changing you would never be something beneficial to either one of us.

            Dinner was great that night, in spite of everything you have against your parents. They were so wonderfully inviting and your mom cooked your favorite dish. I could tell that you didn’t want to be having a good time; you wanted an excuse to never have dinner with them again.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            I called the police. I told them everything. I told them how long you've been missing and that I thought you were coming back. I told them your phone is off, and no, I don’t think anyone would have any reason to hurt you. I told them I called your parents, which as I promised myself I did before calling the police and that I called my mom and that you are at neither of their houses. I told them you don’t have many friends in the city but you might have some in Boston, I never really knew because you never really told me. I checked the public library, which is where you usually are and you're not there either. I told them I'm scared something happened to you or that you got lost and can't find your way back, like you sometimes do. I told them that usually, when that happens, you call me to come pick you up, but maybe your phone ran out of battery and you don’t remember my number or something worse happened to you. I sent them pictures of you and described in perfect detail the striped black and white pants, the yellow shirt and orange pea coat you were wearing when you stormed off. I told them we didn’t fight, that I asked you to marry me. They said they will come by later and take some things, ask more questions, but that for now the information they had was enough. So now I just go back to sitting and waiting and counting the number of times the faucet drips.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            I know you didn’t want to admit it at the time—some bullshit about fear of commitment—but things were going so great for us after you moved in. We had shared space but we also had plenty of time apart to ensure we both remained sane. You had the apartment to yourself all day and I got to come home to your expectant eyes. I was doing great at work and you were working on a new research project. I couldn’t have pictured a better life. You wrote thirty-seven pages in five days and you organized my suits based on thread count. Your quirk kept becoming more and more apparent and I loved it and then one day I decided to ask you to marry me. I went out, bought a ring, and hid it underneath my socks. I knew you would never look in the sock drawer because you hate the way I insist on matching them. I wanted to ask you in the perfect way. I planned to take us back to that sidewalk where we first met. Then I changed my mind and decided you would like it if I turned it into a game, making you count the steps and the minutes to where I would be waiting. Finally I decided that nothing was nicer than a simple proposal and so I was going to cook you dinner and ask you, in our apartment, in our living room.

            But I remember you waking up too early for me and going out for a walk the Saturday after I bought the ring. When you came back, there was a look of alarm on your face. I was sitting on the bed still in my boxers, my hair sticking up on my right side where my face had been touching the pillow, reading the newspaper, "I'm late," you said. I looked at you and asked you what you were late for. "No, Tom, I'm late. As in I think I'm pregnant late," you said. "It's been forty five days since my last period and I usually get it every twenty eight days, at 3:12 PM on the dot."

            I couldn’t tell whether you were excited or scared. I honestly couldn’t tell whether I was excited or scared, but I took your hand and smiled, "We're having a baby!"

That's not what you wanted to hear.

            You shook your head. "I don’t think I'm ready for a baby," you said as your eyes began to shine under a thin film of tears. "I can deal with two people, but I don’t think I can deal with three." I remembered that you hated the number three. That you don’t trust anything that came in packs of three and you thought trios were always a bad idea, no matter what the trio did. I didn’t know how to make it better, because I kept thinking that if we ever are to become a family, at some point, there will be three of us. You crawled into bed next to me, making yourself very small at my side and you cried.

I guess the proposal was going to have to wait.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I’m sorry I haven’t been the man you thought I was lately, I know I didn’t want to see it at first but I pretended things had really gone back to normal after you went through the abortion. Soon I realized something did change after that day. It didn’t come out until a couple weeks after it happened when we were walking hand in hand in Central Park. It was a beautifully sunny day and families were everywhere. It was the first time in months that a light jacket was enough. You had taken your shoes off and were counting the number of times you stepped on a rock. When you got to fifty-four, you stopped and sat down. I pulled the blanket out of my backpack and spread the contents of our picnic in front of you. You smiled behind your sunglasses and started picking at the grapes. It was a perfect day to be enjoying the sun, but the longer we sat on that patch of grass, the quieter you grew. I asked you if you were ok but you kept reassuring me that there was nothing wrong and that you were OK. You watched the children run around and seemed absorbed in their laughter. I wanted to be able to read your mind, but you just sat there in silence for two hours.

            The walk home was even more uncomfortable. I could tell you were suppressing tears but it didn’t make any sense to me. "Let's talk, tell me what's going on," I said when we crossed the door. You took your shoes off and said, "I'm going to take a bath."  As soon as I heard the water running, I also heard your sobbing. You came out of the bathroom hours later, still unwilling to tell me what was wrong. You started spending a lot more time in bed or on the couch. You began spending more and more time at your parents' house, going through pictures of you as a little kid.

            You stopped counting. You no longer counted the hours or minutes that passed between the moment I kissed you goodbye in the morning and the sound of my keys on the lock. You hated the dripping faucet; you hated the branches tapping our window at night. All the small things that made you smile before began upsetting you and nothing I did, nothing I said, made it better.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            The truth is, when you told me you were pregnant a couple months ago I thought my dreams of a big family were finally coming true. I remember being devastated when, two days after the announcement, you told me you wanted to get an abortion. It caught me off guard, not because I'm against it, but because there was this life that we had created together, hopefully the first of other lives we would create together, and you wanted it gone. You told me not to take it personally, but I did. Very much so. It felt like you were throwing our entire relationship in my face. "Babies are so permanent," you told me, to which I answered, "It's the life we create together that's permanent not the baby itself." You laughed at me, telling me I wasn’t making any sense, that of course I could think about having a child because I wasn’t the one whose body was going to change and who would have to put my life on hold for this child.

            "What life are you putting on hold?" I asked.

            "What are you saying, Tom?"

            "I love you, but you spend your day playing with numbers. You don’t even have a job!" I regretted saying that as soon as it came out. It was a double slap, I not only threw your OCD in your face, but I also reminded you that you were having a hard time finding another job.

            I knew trouble was coming when your eyes filled with tears and your entire face turned red as you sat across the table from me. Your bottom lip quivering, you put your head down and I watched the tears splash into your soup. I reached across the table to touch you, to say I was sorry but you just pulled away.

            "I — I really didn't mean to. I'm sorry." It was all I could muster. I was ashamed of myself. You looked up at me from behind wet eyelashes. "I'm in this for the long haul. If this is what you want right now, then this is what we'll do. We will have other opportunities." You nodded and sniffled before pushing your chair back and locking yourself in our room.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

             I still mean everything I said that night. In spite of you leaving me like this and making me worry. Regardless of all the things you screamed at me and all the mean comments I made about your life. I'm in it for the long haul. We can build on top of ruins. We can keep going. We'll move somewhere new, I'll get a new job, you'll find a new hobby. Just come home so I can show you how serious I am about this.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

            I remember that after you agreed to go on that first date with me, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking up nice restaurants I could take you to that would impress but not intimidate you. Places that weren't more than ten blocks away from your apartment in any direction. I found a little place that I thought you might like, it wasn’t too fancy and it wasn't too big. Intimate yet casual, perfect for a first date. I tried to play it cool, wearing the first thing I found in my closet and hoping you would like it. You were still living with your parents, or I should say, you had just moved back in with your parents. That night I didn’t go up to the apartment to meet them, but you told me that I was exactly the type of person they always dreamed you would end up with. You said that our date was proof enough to them that all those years of private schooling paid off.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

Your parents just called. They said that the police are looking everywhere. That they've put up your picture and they have gone to the places where I said you might be. They're tracking your cell phone; they're tracking your credit cards. They keep reassuring your parents that they will find you. I don’t know if it's because I've watched too many cop shows, or that I know you too well, but I thought police officers were never supposed to make promises they didn’t know if they could keep. I feel like it's a bad omen that they have so much faith in finding you. It makes me realize how little everyone else knows you. I know that if you don’t want to be found, you won’t be found. I know that you can outsmart almost everyone, except your dad, and that you'll think about maybe changing your name or changing your look if you really want to disappear.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

 There is something I never told you, after the first time we met, I made it to my mom's house late and she was on edge, pacing the kitchen. "You're twenty-seven minutes late young man," she said, still seeing me as the child I stopped being long ago. "What on earth could have kept your mother worried for twenty-seven minutes?" I kissed her on the cheek and told her all about you. I told her how out of place you were when I first saw you and how for the first time in my life I didn’t want to go back to work. I wanted to follow you everywhere. "I don't know Ma, I don’t even know this woman, and here I am blabbing on and on about her." I told her I was late because the only way you would give me your number was if I spent the rest of my day with you and played your game. My mother beamed. "When are we going to meet this lovely lady?" she asked. I told her to hold her horses, that I wasn’t even sure I was going to see you again, but she didn’t care, "She's the one for you," she said. "I know it. You have that look in your eyes, the same look your father had when he met me." We both turned to look at the last remnant of my father in the house — the picture that hung over the fireplace like a shrine.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

It’s funny to think that all it took was one awkward first conversation to break the ice between us given that we are so different. I remember spending the night of our first date laughing and telling each other stories about our parents and our childhoods. I told you about my meager existence in a house of seven children and about being the only one not to move away—and the only one with a real job. I told you how nervous I had been the day after I’d met you. You told me about being the only child at your parents' stiff dinner parties and how everyone expected you take over your father's business but it was the last thing you wanted to do. I remember you admitting to me how lost you had been the day I met you, that you had spent so much time away from the city you could no longer figure out where everything was. We stayed at the restaurant until closing, when we were kindly asked to pay the bill and leave. I walked you back to your place as it was beginning to rain. When we were standing in front of your front door you asked, "Why didn’t you do it?"

            "Why didn’t I do what?"

            "Why didn’t you take my hand?" There was a twinkle in your eyes and I should have known that you were perceptive enough to count the number of times I almost grabbed your hand as we were walking back. I turned to look at you, to look down at you. Your dainty nose barely reached my chin, but as you looked up at me and I placed my hand on your cheek, you didn’t feel so far away anymore.

            "There are five freckles on your face and three colors in your eyes," you said without breaking eye contact. "Your tie is three quarters off center and one of your shoelaces is untied."

            I smiled because I loved your counting. I still do, even when you spend more time counting the things I do wrong rather than the times I tell you I love you.

            That night I kissed you as the droplets of water hit our heads and shoulders. I promised to call you the next day; this time you told me I better. I walked home in a trance and confused and somewhat pleased. It was a new feeling for me.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

This isn't the first time you left, so I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Remember those two days you left some weeks ago and wouldn’t pick up your phone? Remember how when you returned things were better? You started waking up early to have breakfast with me again and you went back to looking at me as if you loved me. Do you remember how you promised never to scare me like that again? You said you would never leave me without telling me where you went, you said you would call next time you needed space. Why haven't you called yet? It's been a little over a week and there is still no sign of you. I'm scared and I'm lonely. Your parents are worried, my mom has slept in the apartment the last four nights and no one knows a thing. Just come home, we can all help you.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I was worried sick when you disappeared for those two days but I knew you would come back — at least I hoped you would — and when you did, you were your old self again. You were singing in the shower and you stopped taking your birth control. Something inside of me clicked and I thought I understood why you had been so upset. I started toying with the idea of asking you to marry me again. I started planning, I wanted it to be big and special and I was sure you would say yes. You still never told me exactly what had happened and why you had been so upset, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t think there was a need to dwell on the past and I was sure we could get back to where we had been.

            I planned the proposal down to the last bit. I went out and bought wine and lobster. I called your mom and told her about my plans and that she had to keep you occupied for the day, so I could cook and clean and make everything ready for you. She cried when I told her, that’s how happy she was. My mom thought it would have been more romantic if I had just driven you to a chapel and told you we were getting married, no warning, but if we're being honest, you and I both know my mom has had her fair share of issues with love. You walked in at eight PM on the dot, you had a dopey, happy look on your face and I knew you'd had a good day. I could tell you were surprised by the set-up in the apartment, but you walked towards the dinner table, pretending you hadn't seen the fresh roses or smelled the sweet scent of lava cake. Dinner was great, but it grew more and more awkward. When we were done, you said, "I think we need to talk about what happened." I agreed, once it was all out in the open, then we could really move on and get married.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

I ran back to the apartment after the first time I met you, this one right here, when it was still only mine and the faucet didn’t drip and the bed didn’t feel empty without you and the apartment was mostly clean. I thought about you the entire time, the way your voice sounded a little whiny and you skipped down the street inciting disapproving looks from the businessmen and smiles from the old ladies. You commanded attention as if this world was your stage. I thought about your socks not matching in the most obvious way, and I thought about my own socks, folded in identical pairs in my drawer.

My mom loves you; she always thought you were the perfect person to relax me.  That first day I met you was the best and worst day of my life. I didn’t know it at the time, but you were eventually going to leave me stranded, grasping at the edges and searching for an answer on this couch. You were too carefree and you never understood what it meant to need someone else. You probably don’t miss me the same way I'm missing you. But it doesn’t matter. I forgive you. I swear I do.

            Drip. Drip. Drip.

Remember the lobster dinner I made for you? I remember that you spent a long time explaining to me how much having the abortion had affected you. How all of a sudden you couldn’t remember why you'd had it and then you couldn’t understand why you'd even needed to have it. You said you went from being angry with yourself to being angry with me for not trying to convince you otherwise and that a part of you was still really upset. You told me how understanding your mom was and how much she had helped in your healing process. You said that you had spent a lot of time thinking about what you wanted in life and where you wanted to go from here. You reached out across the table, you gave me a sad smile, but you caressed my hand and squeezed my fingers, "I think—"

            "Marry me." I couldn’t wait anymore.

            You shook your head and asked me to let you finish. I said I would but also that I had known for the last two months that I wanted to marry you and I couldn’t wait anymore, "Marry me, please," I repeated.

            "Tom, you don’t understand do you?"

            I nodded. I told you that I did, I understood how much harder everything had been for you but that I was there for you now and forever.

            You got up from the chair and started pacing the length of the table "Please sit down,” I said.

            "This—this is what I feared," you said, your tone of voice growing progressively louder and harsher. "I knew nothing good would come of this but I went through with it. I kept going because you made me happy, but there is a reason I've been single for so long."

            I got up to hug you. You pushed me away. "Stop it Tom, just stop it. Can’t you see I'm trying to tell you how I feel and you just keep drowning me in your love." You were crying and I was still confused as to how we had gotten to this point.

            "I didn’t think drowning in love was such a bad thing," I said, my head hanging lower than it has ever hung.

            "It's not, I just, I'm confused about what to do," you said, moving towards me. You reached out to touch my face. Your fingers made me shiver and I pulled you in to an embrace. This time you let me.

            "Marry me," I whispered in your ear. You pulled back, grabbed your coat and walked away.

***

            “Hello? Babe is that you?”

I hear a muffled sound.

            “Yes, this is he,” it’s the police.

I think they might have found you. “Yes I’m sitting down. Oh—OK, I—I understand.” I listen quietly. I listen without moving because I wonder if I stay still long enough I can pretend time isn’t passing and everything they’re telling me about you isn’t real. I feel numb and stupid; maybe if I had come after you, you would be sitting at home with me right now.

            “Thank you for calling.” I put the phone down and bury my head in my hands. They gave me numbers I could call, told me I shouldn’t be alone right now. I think about calling my mom or my old boss. I think about asking for my old job back, the one I lost three weeks ago after a week and a half had passed of me not showing up at the office because I was too scared to move.

            I take a deep breath and finally let out all the tears of fear and sadness and regret that I have accumulated over the last weeks. You're gone and there is nothing I can do. I think of everything I could have done, everything I should have done, and get angry with myself for being so careless with you. You won’t be here to count the years with me, or the number of times the clock ticks while I stare into your eyes. You won’t be here to tell me to stop snoring and to calculate how many different routes and how long each will take us to get from our apartment to our favorite restaurant, the one where we had our first date.

            Drip.

            Sixty million fifty-five thousand, and eighty-four drips before the faucet finally stopped dripping.