Armor

“Hello?”
No answer but the hollow echo of her words.
She tucked just her head into the large, stone room and, leaving most of her body in the hallway, said again,

“Helllloooo?”
But the cold, moist stones gave back only their dampened repeat, as though she was at the bottom of a wishing well, yelling up at the bright sky above.
She slowly inched into the room, looking around at the walls, ceiling, floor.
Cold, gray rock.
“It’s quite a large room,” she thought. And began to look around a bit more.
“I’ve never been here before. In fact, it never occurred to me that I might be here.”

The figure in the middle of the room caught her eye. In fact, it wasn’t a figure at all, but a wooden armor stand. Roughly 6 feet tall, it stood heavily, solidly, and weightily. She walked slowly up to it, trying to understand why she felt so compelled to touch the iron armor hanging from pegs. Chain mail hood and hauberk hung from the rack, as well as helm, breastplate, greaves, and gauntlets. It all looked so damn heavy. And of course, there was the Sword of Righteousness.

“I’ve never been here before,” she thought again and took the chain hood from the armor stand. Sliding it over her head she felt a disconnection. As if she had lost something…or maybe it was just out of reach? Huh. Next came the hauberk… Now that was heavy. But it slid over her head and settled on her shoulders like it had been made for her. And it covered her heart. Something dulled there. Something maybe didn’t hurt quite as much as it had before. Greaves and breastplate and gauntlets joined the rest, leaving only the helm. The helm wasn’t quite so heavy, but it was… awkward. She wouldn’t be able to see very well. The visor only had a slit for her eyes.
That was the problem with being the Knight In Shining Armor.
Univision.
Blinding, one-directional short-sightedness.

“I’ve never had to be the Knight before,” she said. “But I can do it this time. He’s frightened. And I’m bringing more fear and chaos into his life than he knows how to deal with. I can make it all go away and he can go back to his life.”

But do you know the nice thing about being the Knight? All that armor and that purpose and that sacrifice mentality… makes everything hurt a little bit less. In a way, it’s the coward’s way out. It’s a lot easier to slip that blade between your ribs when you know you’re doing it for someone else. You can even smile while you’re doing it. Because you’re doing it for someone else, someone you love deeply. You can do about anything for someone like that.

I would have stayed with this for years, my Blue.
Seeing you when I could.
Talking to you.
Loving you.

But I’m not what you need.
I’m more and less than what you need. I’m not there.
You need someone there.
But not someone like me.
You need something more superficial, simple, something that won’t put you in this kind of balagan again. Don’t go looking for that Great Love again. This should have taught you something.

But if you do. Find someone. I hope you’ll let me know. I’ll try very hard to be happy for you. I want to know you're happy. I love you, Blue. You made sure of that in Jerusalem. And I let you in. God help me but I did. Those beautiful blue eyes will haunt me for the rest of my days. I’ll always love you.

But I’m letting you go.
You don’t have the strength to do it.
And it’s wrecking your marriage, maybe other parts of your life.
I can’t have that.
But know that you’ve forever changed me.
Opened my eyes and closed my heart to all others.
And I will think of you every day for the rest of my life.

God I don't want to do this.