Requiem for a Dream

The problem with being the door, is that after people cross through, they're off, and I'm still here.

I try to convince myself that I'm projecting, that I'm letting my imagination get away with me, that I'm hormonal or emotional. And while these things might be true, they don't stop me from also being completely right. I might not get the "why" at that very moment, but I'm really good at the what, even from different zip codes.

A few months ago, I found something. It was in rough shape, but part of my talent has always been being handed a dead stick in a pot and breathing life into a thriving plant. I coaxed it, nurtured it, I saw our timeline together grow long and beautiful. And then something came up. I thought I was being irrationally jealous, that the narrative in my head was paranoia and that I should really just get over it because everything was fine.
People who want to be right all the time should try it.

And now it's gone. Not completely, not yet. I'll have it for a few more months, until another gardener moves in, and then I'll get to see my plant less and less, because whatever assurances, I'll always be the one who did a thing that they didn't, and they'll never feel quite at ease around me. I'll be able to visit my plant when other people are around, but really, that will be it for a while.

There's a fork in that timeline, one way, they sprout, and for seven years tend the garden until it doesn't work anymore. That has a fork, one the other gardener feels that the new sprout, and my new sprout will secure our positions enough to feel comfortable. I'm not sure what Future Me will do with that, because Present Me's heart feels ripped out in that spot. You see, in my original timeline, I was the one with that sprout. I'd even named the wee thing. The other fork simply wanders farther and farther away from my path until I can't even hear their sprout chattering anymore.
The other way, they don't sprout, and the garden becomes too difficult to work in about a year and a half. At that time, there's a small possibility I'll get my plant back. More likely, my plant will feel that its roots have been too long out of the garden, it'll see that I have a sprout of my own and set out to find another patch of earth. Future Me will have to see what happens when we get there.

Either way, what I had is gone now, and the only thing left to do is clear my presence from that patch of earth I'd come to call home and step aside like a lady.