Hector's Bwabu

"Bwabu."

Hector tried deep breaths, he remembered reading somewhere that they helped with stress. The laptop beamed at him, almost mockingly, like it was challenging him to write something and exocise his frustration. It was about a year. About three hundred and sixty five days. About twelve months since he last saw her. About eleven months since she dumped him as abruptly as abrupt can be. About ten months since she told him she was seeing someone else.

The laptop was still beaming at him. He had only managed "Bwabu" so far, a name that had morphed from "Baby", a name that had stuck since both seemed to like it. Hector cracked his knuckles. His writing was limited to short stories and opinionated essays. He was a complete stranger to the art of expressing emotional scars. He had always dismissed it as "unmanly".

For the first time in as long as he could remember, he had no idea what to start with. His recent attempts to normalise things between the two of them had been grand failures. She was too busy. She said things probably meant to soothe him, but made no attempt to sound genuine. She had moved on. Hector thought he had too.

"I can't begin to describe how angry and hurt I was (and still am) at what you did." Hector knew he had to write something, anything. "But what bothers me the most is not knowing why you ended things the way you did. I don't believe any of the reasons you fed me. There was something else that made you leave. Something you didn't tell me. We had a normal conversation the previous night and you called the next day telling me you didn't want to be a part of this anymore."

Hector hoped he was not doing her an injustice, he was only recounting events as he remembered them. "There were plenty of things that happened when you said you were returning home that I knew you were hiding from me. I don't even know if it really was home that you were going back to. I remember hugging you and wondering how terrible it would be if it was the last time I hugged you. I also remember telling myself not to be paranoid. I don't tell myself stuff like that anymore."

The words stopped again. For the second time in as long as he could remember, his ability to generate words died on him. He reached for the bottle and poured himself another one. Hector was not an alcoholic. He just liked to sleep with a bottle of water next to his bed.