The Glass Between Us

They stood at the window because there was nowhere else to be.

The storm had been building for hours. The ocean moved like a living thing out there, black and furious and honest. They liked that about it. The ocean never pretended to be calm when it wasn't.

The rain hit the glass in sheets. They could feel the vibration of it against their palm where they pressed their hand flat on the cold surface. On the other side the world was breaking apart and rebuilding itself over and over. Waves smashed themselves to nothing against the rocks and then pulled back and tried again.

They used to be afraid of being alone. They used to fill every room with noise. The television. The radio. Their own voice on the phone to anyone who would pick up. They had spent so many years running from the quiet that they forgot what it sounded like.

Somewhere along the way the running stopped.

Not because they found something. Not because someone found them. They just got tired. Their legs gave out. Their voice gave out. They sat down on the kitchen floor one Tuesday evening with a glass of water and listened to the nothing that had been chasing them for years.

It caught up.

And it sat down beside them like it had been waiting the whole time. Patient. Out of breath. Relieved to finally rest.

They finished their water. The nothing stayed.

Now they stood at the window and watched the storm and there was no one behind them and no one coming and the phone was dead in the other room and it was fine. It was more than fine. The emptiness had stopped being a hole and had become a room. Quiet. Clean. Theirs.

They thought maybe this was what it felt like to stop swimming. Not to drown. Just to let the water hold you up because it was done fighting and so were you.

The storm raged. They watched it. The glass between them fogged from their breathing.

And they realized that being empty was not the same as being broken. Being empty meant there was nothing left to spill. Nothing left to lose. No one could come and take anything from a room where nothing was kept.

They had nothing and the nothing had them and they were all right together.

The ocean did not know their name. The storm did not care that they existed. And for the first time in their life that felt like a kindness.