Oh.
He’s not here for what I want him to be here for. He’s here to tell me the opposite.
Toproveto me the opposite.
Which is when I realize that I was wrong. He doesn’t look like me.
He looks much,muchworse.
Because not only is henotdealing with our break up, he’snotdealing with the truth as well. The truth that he inevitably and irrevocably loves me.
So all my exhaustion washes away.
My own heartbreak set aside in favor of his crisis.
“My parents,” I whisper as my heart begins to beat for the first time all day, picking up speed with every second that passes. “They are… They’re downstairs.”
It’s not his usual time to come over.
Usually, he comes when my parents are deep in their slumber, dead to the world, oblivious to what their daughter is doing in her bedroom. And even though it’s nighttime now — I don’t know where the time went but I can see the moon through my window — they’re well and awake, busy downstairs.
“I know,” he says, his lips barely moving.
“Okay,” I say.
Wondering what I’m doing.
I haven’t forgotten what happened last time.
How two years ago on a night much like this, he’d come over and everything went to hell.
But the thing is that everythinghadto go to hell for things to fall into place. Everything had to fall apart and break into pieces so we could be remade.
So we could be here today, he and I.
So sick in love but also at war.
Me in my pink nightie much like yesterday, looking like love incarnate. And him, dressed in black, again much like yesterday, looking like summer and hate.
So maybe this time it’ll work too.
So by the end of this, everything will fall into place as well.
I take a step toward him and it’s as if something inside of him has broken loose.
Some bond, some chain, and he’s free.
To breathe, his chest moving on a large wave.
And to pounce, his arms snapping around me in a death grip.
We’re kissing each other then.
Which is how all things start with us, with a kiss. With our mouths devouring each other, our tongues licking and lapping, our teeth smacking, our fingers pulling at each other’s bodies.
Soon, he’s picking me up off the floor and throwing me on my bed.
Next he’s kneeling on the mattress, a very masculine and dominating creature on my very feminine and submissive bed. Propped up on my elbows, my thighs limp and open, I watch him snag the back of his dark t-shirt and take it off, revealing his muscled torso.