One You're Leaving Now

Friday 9th April 2004

"Go home Sharon."

Those three words were all I got. All I got for taking my one unstable existence and turning it upside down and inside out for the sake of something I was made to believe might really have been love, something that meant something - something that was supposed to last. But the one undecipherable look I received from his beautiful, beautiful eyes, brimming with tears I knew would never fall while I might be there to watch, was the one thing, the only thing to let me know that it wasn't going to last.

I thought I knew him. I know I was wrong. It's been mere days since I was made to sit in Dot's kitchen and listen to Dennis' confessions of murder. I shook and I was terrified. But never of him, more of what had been forced upon him, and yet he tells me now that that one burden was in fact, me. I believed he loved me. I believed it sincerely enough to bring together as much strength as I might need to take his hand and remove ourselves from the equation of the family I'd wanted so much to know and have. He made me believe that the two of us as lovers could be better than that.

And yet, today, he stood in front of me on the street and sent me home like a child, crushing me with the simplicity of those three words. He kept a distance between us, unable to bring himself to touch me, and yet it felt as though he had one hand around my throat, stealing my breath in the most uncomfortable of ways, not like with his kisses. Because with every moment passing by, meaning the rising lump in my throat became bigger, I was being forced to realise I would never know his kisses again. And so, with his other hand, he cased my heart in his fist, holding on tighter and tighter until every fragile piece from every other heartbreak I've suffered shattered like it never has before.

Because he meant it. I could see it. I couldn't move, my legs all at once too weak beneath me to carry me. I was paralyzed, stood there as I felt my own tears burn, praying he might say he didn't mean it, to pull me into a hug, kiss my hair and tell me we'd be OK. But he didn't and just to look at him, I knew he wouldn't. Because as he looked back at me, I saw nothing in his face that reminded me of the Dennis I had fallen so in love with. I don't understand where he went. Was he ever true? 

It's amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all.

So walk away I did. But I didn't go home. There was nowhere to go without him. There was no home, and for as long as my father feeds off my misery, the jubilation at knowing he stole Dennis from my love, perhaps for the sake of his own place in my affections, there will not be again. I walked. And walked. Knowing the same scenes, the streets and the shops, and hating it. Hating that I can never escape it all, even if I'm on the other side of the world. I thought it was love for the place. And yet, how did that ever happen? I was miserable growing up here. Nostalgia must be a bloody powerful thing. Look what it's cost me.

I would have gone, I would. Why wouldn't Dennis believe me? Doesn't he know... doesn't he believe how much I love him... how much he made me love him? I can't be alone with this, not here. It's been here forever. Every face, every crumbling home, the falsified, warring families held within. It's all always been here and it's no consolation. I see that now. But I'm too late because as ever, I am alone. And I don't know how it happen - how the Hell I let it.

But maybe it wasn't me. Maybe. No bloody maybe about it is there? I might be many things, many unrepeatable things but I'm not... oh God, yes I am. I'm a fool. An absolute fuckin' idiot! I should have known Dennis wasn't... strong enough. He said he wanted me, but he doesn't, does he? Or I wouldn't be trying to escape the world alone. Because he'd still be my world. But I've held fast, even over these last couple of days, I knew I wouldn't be able to bear letting Dennis go. So, how has Dad managed to do it? How has he wrenched us apart like this? How can Dennis be so naive as to believe in Dad?

Is he really still such a broken little boy, he'll do anything for his dad's approval? If so, then, God, I'll never understand because... so long ago Dennis made it obvious he didn't want me for a sister. He must have known Dad could never have accepted us any other way. He said he did, but he said we were worth it, that we'd make it. Make it where, to what? Because there's nothing. And I feel like it's all my fault because since Dad told me about Dennis & Jack Dalton, defiance has made me cling on harder to this love than it seems Dennis can bear. But I didn't think he wanted to let me go.

It's unnerving
How just one move puts me by myself
And there you go, just trusting someone else
Now I know I put us both through Hell
I'm not saying there wasn't anything wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me

Maybe we might never have worked. Maybe all my reservations and doubts from the beginning had some valid place in all this mess. But I learnt to ignore them, when once they were so strong. I let them go because Dennis... he seemed so damn sure. He was infectious like that. It was like he was gonna hold me together. Except, I've just fallen apart. When... when did he let me fall? Why? Why did he? What did I do wrong? Why can I not be enough for him?

I understand, and can maybe even accept that we might well have fallen apart anyway. But if we'd just been able to work our course then at least this... relationship, if I can dare to call it that now it's gone, would have been our failing. But it's not "our" anything, because it's Dennis that's failed me when I never really thought he could. I was still trying to hold on, believing whole-heartedly there was something worth it between us. Maybe it was never truly supposed to be worked on. But it was Dennis that made it exist, made it real. How can he be the one to have let go?

I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me
But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see whose sorry now

If I had the words to speak to him, I would try. But while there are so many tears, there can be no words. So silence is gonna prevail, weave itself around the two of us like a noose and force the true breath of life from our bodies. I might still live, but I feel like everything within has died. My father no doubt stands victorious, having fed a vulnerable man the crullest of lies underneath the softly spoken veil of salvation. He's made my darlin' think he's wanted, but he isn't and somewhere inside, he must know that. But he just clings to it and Dad knows he will. Anything to keep him from me, me who truly wants him, was gonna give her life to making him happy.

And what makes the tears fall thicker and faster is that I truly believe I could have done. So many times, so damn often, I have doubted it, but I think I could. It's the only shred of self belief that remains inside and now I have no use for it. But what am I supposed to do with it? Bury it? Pretend it was never there? Since my Dad's the one with all the strategies, maybe, when I finally dare to go home, back to that cold shell of  family, knowing that Dennis is still ostracised, I should ask my dad for a strategy as to how I'm meant to call a man that's made love to me my brother.

But I have to call him something. Because whatever he thinks he needs and wants, I need him in my life. I can't just let him disappear, not now. The thought of it makes me feel ill. I'm in love with him for God's sake, he's everything, whether or not he'll take my love and return it in the way I thought he always would. He's beneath my skin now, in my system like a drug, an obsession... my love.

Leave me as a lover he might, too terrified to read the love in my eyes, but I'm Sharon Watts. I've lied my way through the pain of this life since I knew how and I've done it well. I'll keep on doing it, as long as Dennis will continue to be part of that life. Otherwise, it's just not worth living anymore.

If that's how it's gonna stand when
You know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving now

Dennis always made it sound like he was without purpose too. He made it sound like I might have been it for him. The One. Like he knew it what it meant. And maybe he didn't in words, but he still told me he loved me, through everything. He loved me with a passion his every touch proved. And now he's gonna pretend it was never there. How can he break it down, make it disappear? Because it won't for me, the every memory playing like a treacherous movie reel in my head.

Through the misery, I can be angry too. But a desolate kind of anger, the kind that can't be felt without making your chest unbearably tight and making you want to curl up and cry until you're sick. And I could do that. I probably will as long as I don't have to go back to the house tonight. Dad's probably got the bloody party banners out. And I hate him. Because he's using Dennis, when Dennis was real to me, and never will be to Dad, because he just doesn't care enough. Has he ever?

But even in his vulnerability, Dennis isn't blameless. So convinced he loved me, even with such a heavy soul, he trusted me with the truth. In the end. And I accepted it and loved him still. And what did I get in return for that? Used. Like he pleaded with me to use him on that first night. I never meant to, but I did - because of everything he was saying, making it clear he wanted.

He used me. And I'm such an involved idiot, I never realised it, til it was too late, til I was completely in love with him. Is this... Is this really all I'm worth? He was supposed to mean the things he said to me as he kissed me, as we lay together. He made me promises and made it sound like we could have the world if we just held onto each other. 

Or maybe that's me again, such a fool in this charade of love that, even as I considered myself wise to the lies that came with such an overcharged emotion that with his every word, I saw stars; never believing that anything could go wrong because he loved me, shaken this forced family to its core to love me so fiercely. I never thought he'd stop. I never thought I'd find myself without him because he didn't want me anymore. Lots of others, sure - probably all of them involving Dad - but never because Dennis wouldn't want me anymore.

It's aggravating
How you threw me on and you tore me out
How your good intentions turned to doubt
The way you needed time to sort it out
I'm not saying there wasn't anything wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let you get away from me

And now it's over. My baby's left me, thinking that our father is gonna offer him some protection from the confusion that he no doubt planted there in the first place. And it makes me angry, because Dennis should know well and understand that it's me that wants to protect him - especially from Dad. I wanna love him and I could do it enough for anyone in this world. He shouldn't need anyone else. He shouldn't want anyone else, because there's me.  

Tell me is that how it's gonna end?
When you know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
And the one you're leaving out.

But I'm not enough. I don't know why. All I know is that I love him completely, even in his pain and stupidity. I'm not like Dad, I don't wanna abuse him, deliberately hurt him. I wanna love him. Always. But it's not enough...

I'm the one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out!

The End