The Con Man

He watched her as she stood chatting away. A part of him was involved in the conversation but he knew he was actually watching her every move. It had been a fortnight since he had seen her.
He watched as her face fell but noticed that she recovered fast. Faster than he would have expected and he was surprised and proud at the same time. She had improved in the days that they has spent apart. He watched her eyes closely. They remained cold and untouched even as she laughed. The twinkle that used to stay in her eyes didn't show at all and the smile on her face wiped out the second the moment was over.

She was no longer the bubbly thing he had fallen for. His alienation from her had hardened her. She had said they were important. Could things have changed in just so long? Something had happened. What was it, or worse 'who' was it? He was afraid he knew.

He considered asking but decided against it. His body and facial reactions showed none of what he was thinking. He was a pro after all. She still had much to learn. But in the process of becoming like him he was losing the beautiful thing she was, without the hard exterior. She had said she trusted him, had that changed too?
He could see her face going soft just for a second as she looked at him and he knew she wasn't completely dead yet. He still had a chance. Their eyes locked for a moment so brief no one else noticed but all the unsaid was passed between them. He had missed her more than he could have imagined possible but she knew just as he did that he couldn't display it. It was all a show here and he was playing a character that wasn't him, and now so was she.
He had dragged her right into the centre of the crap that he did, the only person he trusted more than his own self, the woman who had taught him to breath, to relax, to live in a way that was so refreshing he had fallen in love with it. The same woman now stood before him as a replication of himself. One just as hard as stone and cold as ice.
She stood in between people she couldn't stand and laughed like she cared, like she actually gave a damn!
The equation had all changed and he knew now as he watched those once innocent eyes that it would never be the same again. The run was over. Hypocrisy and mistrust was in the air. He wasn't the only one to blame. He hadn't alone played the game, he knew she was aware of that but he had hurt her all the same and she had trusted them.
He was a man who had never cared for others, never cared if people loved or hated him, how did this one woman change all that? Why now as he watched her calculated expression did his heart ache? Why even when she poked at him in a 'friendly' way he felt the pain that she actually meant to incur? Was he guilty? Is this how it felt?
Was he a con man hopelessly in love with the one woman he had never actually managed to con? The one who had seen right through him, the one who had actually trusted the human he was, actually cared for the crap that he was. He felt the guilt, felt lowly and dirty.
The woman had become a robot because she finally learnt he wasn't worth her trust. And that fact pierced at him. Why? It wasn't the love or the care that mattered what had mattered the most was that she had understood. From the moment they shared one conversation she read him like a book. He would never accept but he knew.
He knew there was just one soul in the world who knew him. And there she stood in front of him now so distant even though he could touch her if he extended his hand. He had lost her before he even had her.

He heard his own laugh and it sounded alien. Suddenly everything seemed alien. The trees, the breeze, the chatter, the cars going by, even the face that looked at him now with that cold smile and he suddenly felt what he was pushing away all this while. The thought that scared him so much. He realized what it was. He was alone.

A con man always ended alone, it was elementary. But the small hope he had had from his pathetic existence was now shot dead. Because the woman who now stood in front of him was exactly what he was.

She was saying goodbye and turned to leave symbolic of what he felt. When she looked at him, she let the mask drop, just for a second and that was the last time he saw the woman that he had fallen for. The woman who was now leaving him all alone. The woman who he had lost.

The fire he saw in her eyes matched the one in his heart. He ached as he watched her go.

And that's when he felt it, the final regret. The one that drove him to write the one thing on that piece of paper when he got home and stood alone, “It has all changed”.

He thought of the face with it's mask dropped and then recalled the innocent childlike laugh, his heart soared just for a second as he remembered and then he shot himself.

He could con the world but not himself.