Time, only Time - Part 5

He held his breath on the phone until he heard the feminine voice on the other end say in an exhausted voice: “Don’t you think it might be pretty inconvenient to call at 2 am? It’d better be really important”
He knew she did not mean what she was saying but she just had to say it for how he knew her all over the years. In a normal conversation this would have been a pleasant joke, but right now he was too far from anything pleasant or any joke. With a sudden burst into panting words rushed out of his mouth: “The songs I have started to listen to were just the beginning. This is only getting worse. I haven’t seen her about 20 days already…”
“Have you talked to each other?” she interrupted.
“Well, yes, of course. Are you out of your mind? But that’s not the point.” he tried to get back to his speech, panting harder. “I see, so?” she said in a clearly unsatisfied tone. “This is just getting worse. I am sick again, just don’t tell me to go see the doctor, for this time I know what it is about and you know that the doctor can’t treat this one…” he was saying, clearly as fast as his numb tongue in his dried mouth could pronounce words.
“Only she can as you are making your point.” she interrupted again. This was the price he had to pay for calling her late, he knew pretty well and he could put up with it. “I haven’t come to the worst yet”, he went on, “I can’t sleep. I toss and turn in my bed all night long and the very few moments when I do manage to fall asleep I have only nightmares… I need help, this is really driving me mad… well, you see… a couple of hours ago I dreamt I had betrayed her.”
“Now that’s new.” she said.
“What is this supposed to mean? I do not think she’d even care. I mean, how can I betray someone to whom I have no commitments made? I can‘t take it anymore, I had to talk.” although he knew he was getting incoherent he went on. “need help, serious help. Am I not supposed to be too old for this? Too stupid? Concentrated on just making my way out of this hell I have lived all these years?”
“Maybe that’s what you should really do. Maybe you need that more than her, maybe she is just awakening your conscious… “ she tried to sound casual, he thought. She knew very well this was not right, she knew he could not quit, she knew he had to stick with the job to finally accomplish what he had tried to achieve all through these years. She knew how important this was to him. She was the one person who could know. She was the only one who did understand. She was trying to relieve him by ignoring the importance of all what mattered and she was no good pretender. Damn was he thinking fast, he thought before interrupting.
“I want her. I would do anything to make sure I’d have her. I’d give anything up. This is serious. Once I could have her, I’d need nothing more. She IS the dream I‘ve always looked for.” he said to leave her no more room beating about the bush.
“Anything?” she asked, more investigating than skeptically.
“Anything.” he replied, already knowing that he was about to pretty soon regret his thoughtless response. “Swimming?” she asked, without bothering to make any sentence out of it. The plain word on its own sounded much stronger, he thought. It hit him quite like a lightning ball. So this was it, it was about how high a prize he was ready to pay for something he was not going to have after all. She had made her point, it was all about what you were about to lose, to give, to sacrifice. It had never been about what you were about to gain, to win. He had indeed lived his life as in the middle of a battlefield and every idiot should understand after some minutes of thinking that there was nothing to gain or to win on a battlefield. It was all about what you would lose in order not to lose what was of greater importance.
Thinking about the answer to give her he felt desperate. A new sort of grief grew in his red eyes. The silence was unbearable for the following seconds; unbearable for both of them, for they both had lived with this bitter truth through their lives and knew very well what it meant.
“Even that.” he whispered as clear as no cry could sound. For a split of a second he believed to have heard her sniff.
“Drive up to her place,” she suggested with a voice which allowed no doubts, “leave her no more alibis to ignore how strong you feel about her. You’re right, no doctor will help you this time. I drop in at your place in the evening to be by your side should you be lying in bed.”
They both hung up with no more words, he knew how stunned his face was about to look at the moment; so he just avoided the mirror on his way to crush in his bed.