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You've done this a hundred times, a thousand times. The dark harbour, walking with no destination, only him and you, a cigarette each, looking at the ocean.
You missed this, him and you together. You always breathe more easily when he's around, even though the air feels colder, stings your lungs in a way it never manages when you are alone. But you like who you are around him. Calm, quiet, just the cold air between you and the world.
It almost feels normal. It almost feels like it used to. Easy, safe, complicated in all the right ways. Him next to you and you openly looking at his face when he talks.
"She's pregnant," he says and for a moment you feel nothing. The air remains cold around you, the water still dark and slow. You still look at him. Then something sinks. It's not surprise you feel, not really. It was bound to happen.
"Congratulations," you say. "I'm happy for you."
You are. You want to be. Because you are a good friend. A good partner. That's who you've always been.
When you close your apartment door behind you that night, the pain in your chest feels like death. You can't put it into words. You are so good with words usually, but all you can think is that you miss him. You miss him. You miss him and you lost him. And you did this to yourself.
You don't like his girlfriend and she doesn't like you. It's childish, you know deep down, but you can't stop your hackles from rising when she's around. She doesn't know him the way you do. She doesn't treat him well. They are just two broken people trying to make each other fit.
The irony is not lost on you. You push it down.
"It's not like you want me," he says when you tell him he has other options. It's not fair. You don't say anything. There is nothing you could say.
He is all you want. He makes it all bearable. The late nights and the cold weather and the past you don't talk about and the future you don't think about. The cosy vacuum of knowing that he wants you and that you want him and that you don't have to make any decision at all. That there is just you and him. Forever.
He listens to you. That's the first thing you think about, time and time again. You voice a thought and he listens. You think silently and he asks you to share.
You can't bear it though. He is too much. And you are so brittle, beneath it all. Once he calls you one of the good ones, offhandedly, and it never leaves your head after. Every single time you look at him in the dark, close enough to simply lean over, you remember that comment and you look away. You think of the way he rages at drunks and addicts on the streets, only to show up at work with sunken eyes and smelling of chewing gum. You think about that one disagreement you had, out by the waterfront, where he raged at you, then stopped talking like he so often does. He clamped up, then turned and simply left you standing there, alone. He took the car. You walked back to the precinct.
He apologised later, but you didn't forget. The air was too cold, out by the water, and the way was very long.
There is one night, a lapse of judgement. On your couch, his arms around you, your legs tangled, his chuckle in your ear. Warm and easy. It feels so right and safe and you haven't had this in so long. And he wants you. He sees you.
You ask him to leave. And he does.
His twins look the way children do. Way too small, way too vulnerable. Not yet the drugged up monsters you deal with at work. And he loves them so dearly. Your conversations change. He doesn't stay out long anymore, he doesn't look at you with longing anymore. The first time he claps you on the shoulder instead of giving you a hug, the confusion you feel turns into anger you can't swallow quick enough for him not to notice. You can tell that he sees it. His eyes are sharp. Yet he doesn't mention it.
It's a boundary, you tell yourself. He is entitled to boundaries. He has a family now, a real one. Not a colleague who doesn't want to sleep with him. Because that's what you are. You are someone he loved and you led him on and on and never gave him what he needed.
You are a coward. What even were your reasons? That he is troubled? Who isn't in this world?
"I miss you," you confess to him, quiet so you don't wake the twins, quiet so his girlfriend doesn't hear.
His eyes aren't sad anymore. No regret, no longing.
"I miss you too."
You hate it. You hate that you are miserable and that he is not. You hate that he moved on from you. You hate that he didn't wait for you. You thought you had time. You trusted him to stay.
You hate yourself for hating him instead of loving how happy he is. You hate yourself for being exactly the same thing you have always been. But more than anything, you hate how stupid it all makes you feel.
And you move on. You do. You can take what you are given, you always do. You chose this, after all. You chose to keep him at arm's length. You chose to wait, like you always do. Someone liked you and you chose to be picky. Now look where it led you.
There are no more late night walks. He shows up at work less and less. "There's more than work," he tells you, giving you that look. That look that makes your skin crawl with anger. 'I know what it's like to have more than my single minded loyalty to a city who doesn't care about me. Of course you don't understand, Kim. I pity you. I pity you. I pity you.'
He talks about transferring, living closer to her parents, so someone can help take care of the kids. You understand that this would be your cue to offer help, but you stay silent. A boundary, you think bitterly.
You'll stay in touch when he transfers, you both say. But you are so bad at lying to each other.
He gets shot on a Wednesday. You were trained for situations like this one, so you crouch down, push on his chest where blood rattles with every breath he takes. You tell him to stay calm, to look at you, to stay awake. He listens.
His eyes are on yours as he drowns in his own blood.
And then he's gone. There is no transfer and there are no more late night walks and you sit with grief that belongs to the mother of his children, grief that belongs to the kids that will grow up without their father. And when you cry, you are so sure that you are dying too, lungs seizing with the pain of air that will never sting again the way it should.
She doesn't even get a widow's pension. They weren't married.
You get a week of leave. And when you come back to work, you learn that the loneliness of his absence is worse than the loneliness of his distance.
When they give you his unfinished case files, as is custom, it doesn't mean shit. Nothing does.
You keep working. What else is there to do. You don't ask for a new partner.
You can't be sad. You were expecting this. Of course you were. You are RCM. Officers die all the time. Nothing to dwell on.
You are a professional, after all.