Save Me

I wake up to emptiness beside me, the curtains floating in the breeze coming through the open window. I sit up, cover my face with my hands and take a deep breath. He warned me about these nights. So naïve, I swore I could handle it. I practically begged him to believe me. I saw the look in his eyes – he was skeptical, but he loved me. I saw that too. I knew I loved him and not the exciting mystery of his dual existence. If I didn’t, would it ache this much while he was away?

I reached back for his pillow and pressed my face into the soft cotton. If others knew this smell, his smell, they would recognize right away who he was when he swept them off their feet and carried them to safety. I inhaled deeply, then rested the side of my face there, staring out the open window, the gaping hole in this moment. It was bad enough he jumped out windows. I gasped every time I witnessed. He didn’t like it any more than I did.

I’d known he was a tortured soul from the beginning; it wasn’t hard to detect. Even in those days when I had no clue who he really was, his masked secret displayed on the cover page of the newspaper tucked beneath my arm, I always sensed the subtle battles he fought. At first I harbored pity, but somehow greater powers thought that curiosity served as a more efficient sentiment. Soon we were dating and it’s beyond me how we ended up at the bridge that nasty, rainy night. Beyond me why, when his duplicity was so well kept in the dark, he let me in.

I never thought to ask why he told me, though I had always pondered. He is human, after all, and we humans have needs, like the need for support and love and balance. He understood this mission he’d been given somehow, though no one ever said he had to be okay with it. There were days he hated what he was and it took every last ounce of will I had left not to egg him on and say, “That’s right, baby. Forget them.” Who? Everyone. All the innocent people who needed protecting.

He was very clear that our marriage would be of great burden to me. He would benefit more than I ever would. I can’t say he never warned me. But I was a woman of my word and I promised that I would wait. I was always waiting.

A sharp breeze shot through the room. I shivered and buried myself beneath the covers. I wished I could close the window, but it would make it that much harder for him to return unnoticed. It’s not like we lived in a isolated little home in the country – we lived on the seventh floor of an apartment complex dead center of the city. He was making plans to move to the top floor somewhere so he would have easy access to a roof. He was always making plans. Sometimes I was a part of them. Usually not.

Why? I sometimes asked myself. How? How did I land this life? It was ironic because all night long, he would be out there saving people. Saving them from assaults and murders and stopping burglars and robberies, aiding the police in any way he could and then disappearing into the night. Here I was, wrapped safely in the soft covers of our bed, yet I needed saving. I needed to be saved from the lonely nights and the constant worrying. I couldn’t read a newspaper anymore, just for the sheer fact that I would discover what he’d been involved in the night before. The more I knew, the more ruined I became. It was enough just to know who he was. Not enough, too much. And the injuries! You could drop me in any hospital and I could stitch the best of them. The blood, the broken bones, the cuts and scrapes and bruises.

The floorboard beneath our window creaked. He kept things there. It was also how I knew he’d come home. I rolled over to face him. “Did I wake you?” he asked, ripping his mask off and unzipping his suit. Black. I was so tired of black. Perhaps I always wore brighter colors to offer some balance in life.

I shook my head. “I’ve been awake.”

His green eyes frowned. If he prayed for anything, it was for me to glide through our marriage without worry and with plenty of sleep. A pool of moonlight poured over his body as he climbed back into bed. There were new bruises. They hadn’t been there four hours earlier when we made love. I used to say things, but it got old. There were always new bruises. I’d become accustomed to this.

I bent my elbow and rested my head against my forearm so we were eye to eye. His eyelids drooped and soon his breathing evened out. We’d do this again soon. For all I knew, it could be two minutes, two hours, eight hours… his entire life was on call.

I rolled onto my back and took a deep breath. At least he was comforted by my presence.

He could save just about anyone, but he couldn’t save me.