Canyons, Draft

Should really be working, but oh well. Could probably use an edit, maybe I'll do that sometime:

He wakes up in the middle of the night and hears her breathing echoing in the darkness. There is a gap between them, a chasm two feet wide with no bottom in sight, its walls worn away by months of injured silences and suppressed glances. How did they get there, they who had it all; who had nothing but each other. He is afraid if he reaches across he will fall, and yet he can already feel himself slipping and sliding, scrabbling for purchase in the slick soil and finding none. She's there but she is gone, miles away from him even when he looks her in the eyes. And he, where is he, where does that leave him? Where does he go from there?
Years later he wakes up and hears her no longer, feels her no more. She has gone, a decision made both by and without him. The world has moved on, and what does it all mean? Beside him lies another; her and not her, and he is sliding again, the world tilting around him. He is afraid, but of what: the darkness which hides, or the light which reveals? She is screaming in her sleep beside him, "Don't let me go, don't let me down, don't say you will," but he is unable to hear. The gap is widening again, widening and deepening, and he is digging, digging his own grave inch by inch and second by second.
He tosses his covers back and walks to the kitchen; hesitates, then flips the light on. Water; cleansing, freezing the lump threatening to overwhelm him and the life he has made. He holds the glass to his forehead, focusing on that point where flesh meets glass, feeling the liquid coolness travel down his body for one long moment. He finishes the water and goes back to bed. Even before he has pulled the covers back over him, he knows that she is awake beside him, her silence accusing him in the night, her hunched shoulder blades pregnant with tears prepared to fall. This is the moment. This is their moment, the moment they have been speeding towards since he first caught sight of her that night in the bar. And here, now, in this moment, he begins to feel real once more.
"Are you awake?"
Another lie. He knows she is. But this is the only way they can communicate, the only way they have ever been able to. She knows the moment is approaching, can feel its proximity, has been seeing it on the edges of her vision for the past week and yet cannot bring herself to speak, cannot seem to remember how to move her lips, tongue and breath to form words.
"Mmmm?"
"We need to talk."
"Can't it wait till morning?"
"No, it can't."
"Fine. I'll go make some coffee, then." She sits up, grinding her palms into her eyes and sweeping her hair back, taking her time and extending the moment, hoping against hope that he will reconsider, that she can buy herself one more morning. He knows exactly what she is doing, has done it himself, but remains silent. Watching. Waiting. He owes her that much, at least: these precious minutes where they can pretend this is just another soul-baring conversation, another rung on the ladder of intimacy. She knows that he knows and hates him for it, hates his smug consideration, his indulgence. As if she needed it from him. She did, once; needed and wanted it, but that time has long since passed, unmentioned and unmourned, just one more step on their path to this place, this moment.
She walks to the kitchen and flips on the radio while her body goes through its morning ritual of making coffee, 3 hours too soon. Standing before the sink, she realizes she is standing precisely where he was minutes before, feeling the leftover warmth of his footprints which had been cooling in the night air. She wonders what she will say, if she will have the strength and if there's even a point, or if he has decided this like so many other things: alone.
He stares at the ceiling while listening to the familiar gurgle of the coffee brewing. Rehearses what he is about to say in his head. If only there were some other way. There might be, but he is afraid; afraid of what they are and what they will become. He remembers promises whispered into a pillow that he would not be contained, would not be held down like all those around him while he was growing up; promises to himself that he has kept. His whole life he has known what he was not and would not be, but suddenly he realizes that knowing that tells him nothing about what he is or will be. She comes back in, handing him a mug. He takes a sip, smiles; she never could make it exactly the way he liked it.
"Something funny?"
He closes his eyes, feeling a wave of fatigue, but he cannot succumb. He must be strong, for her. For them.
"It's nothing."
She mmms in the back of her throat, cradling her mug in both hands, determined not to make this any easier for him. Blows across the top of her coffee, watching him over the rim of the mug. Waiting for him to make the first move, as she always has. Maybe that's why they find themselves here, now. Maybe even now there is a chance to save it, to save themselves, if they can just find the right combination of dots and dashes to transmit across the oceans that have formed between them.
For a moment he is struck by her beauty, perched on the edge of the bed and staring at him through the rising steam. He never wanted to hurt her. Maybe that's why they find themselves here, now.
"I want a divorce."
By the time the sun rises he will have packed a bag and left. Tears and recriminations will come later; his main memory of the conversation will be how civil it was. Perhaps it was that very civility that doomed them from the start. All she will remember is that the moment after the words were spoken, she felt more alive than she ever had.