“And how would you rate any depression on a scale of one to ten?”
My eyes drift toward her diploma. Master’s of Nursing. University of Southern Alabama. Nice. Then downwards, stacks of books on psychiatric drugs, medication interactions, psychotherapy for nurse practitioners. 1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8 of them neatly on display.
I’m sitting in a mildly uncomfortable chair across from her as she clicks and types away on the computer resting upon the bulky desk between us.
My gaze lifts toward her. The sunken stone that has been sitting in my stomach for months is spotlighted in a way that makes me want to pull my legs inward.
The water around it is clear, with minimal bubbles. I can no longer count on two hands the number of times I’ve been asked the same questions. Still, there’s comfort in knowing what to expect.
I hand over the clipboard with the form I have been circling numbers on.
“Here you go, the good ‘ol PHQ-9…”
Silence.
I continue.
“…I’d say probably about a 7 or 8.”
She makes the sort of grimace practiced enough to arrive instantly.
“Hmm…well that’s no good,” she brightly replies, continuing to ask the routine questions about my anxiety, appetite, sleep…the list goes on.
I stare at the soft yellow ceiling.
It’s kind of late in the day but it is still so early.
I respond to her in a halfhearted monotone and grab a lollipop on my way out. At least my tongue can also be blue.
Love is not a performance. There is no certain script to follow, no right line you can say. There are less rules than you think when it comes to the world and the people in it.
Romance is the dance one may wish to do, and difficult for the ones with double left feet.
With love like yours already, is it even worth it to seek out romance? What's the difference if it's all just two hearts loving each other?
You taught me what love is.
Though being myself seems like walking outside exposed, talking to you feels like being given at least a blanket to wrap myself in, still vulnerable, but safer than before.
When I notice and love the things you do that I feel make me unworthy of love, it rewires my brain ever so slightly. You make me feel less alone in who I am and my own life experiences.
Every flap of joy and squeal of laughter makes a little kid who didn't feel loved feel a little more okay to be themself.
And even if I have tears streaming down my face, you remind me there's no need to apologize for the way I feel, and you jokingly yell at me for over-apologizing for being human or myself loudly.
You remind me to take care of myself even when I don't feel like I deserve care. I feel more comfortable and confident in a stressful situation with you around.
I sit and listen to your unbound ramblings and it does feel like a symphony in my head to know you are so happy, making me want to join in with you and learn about all of these amazing things you tell me about. What a wonderful human. You deserve this.
It's difficult to put all of what I feel into words because it's almost entirely new and it's hard not to say anything and not worry it will sound strange or like too strong of feelings for friendship.
Maybe I deserve this too? That doesn't feel true yet, but like a skittish animal, I slowly approach towards your outstretched hand.
I’ve only been myself in a room alone with the doors shut, the curtains drawn, and the lights off.
Vulnerability feels like nakedness, like I’m still changing — you burst in and violated me in the process, even though I sort of wanted you to. It is better than facing your frustration from not being let in. You would barge in anyway, best to let you in on my own reluctant accord. If I took my time, I would take too much and any interest would be lost. Love has an expiration date. I would curdle, and be thrown out with the milk.
Maybe it’s best to get comfortable with being violated. Maybe I just need to start feeling comfortable with exposing myself. No, not the surface level oversharing bullshit…ACTUALLY showing who I am.
I’m afraid it’s a void. I’m afraid it’s incomplete. I’m afraid that what is complete is off-putting, obnoxious, and annoying. My brain swells from pain thinking about it all.
How could a person love a thing still in-progress? What if the outcome is not what they expected? How can I not be seen as a project filed at the back of the drawer, given up on many times, and forgotten for multiple years?
But it really shouldn’t be up to others to finish this project. I was the one assigned to complete it, not them. Still, each artist leaves their signature in permanent marker where they started molding. Am I an amalgamation of all of the people I ever loved or of the people who loved trying to shape me? Are they the same? Are they different?
How do you see the beauty in all of this? What beauty even is there to see when what’s seen isn’t reflective of who’s there? How would I even accept that it’s beautiful in the first place? It doesn’t feel like it is.
I’m exhausted and paralyzed. What the fuck do I do?
They’re creatively clever—annoying but with round edges. They make you laugh and snap their head around to immediately look at you. They’ve seen you cry. They’ve stayed there for both, you’re not sure why. You’re shocked when they notice what you hope everyone else doesn’t.
You are 99% sure of unrequited feelings, but get caught up in the moment anyway. Your eyes soften, seeing the outline of someone’s humanity, though still having a half-knitted concept of them in your brain, searching constantly for more yarn, yearning to know all parts of them.
There’s a pit in your stomach from seeing their eyes glisten, lighting up with enthusiasm, and then flickering down towards what they’re focused on once they remember they’re being perceived a little too clearly, yet still somehow so blurry.
You know you’re doomed once you begin painting pictures, identifying moments that make you wish you could take photos with your brain. When the shadow of the blinds make their skin glow and their hair lie tousled with just the right amount of perfection.
You are stuck analyzing their mannerisms, studying them like they’re a famous piece of art, writing down your interpretations and important information you learn in your dark green book with the brown spine. You must not forget. You wish this book would never run out of pages and that they’d never run out of stories and musings about what they love. You want to sit in the stories they tell and visit their imagination whenever you can.
You begin randomly pointing small things they do, for some reason. You can’t really understand why it’s nice to watch. Taking them all in because you love them in some way. Trying to shove down your Oscar-worthy script and enjoy the warmth of a person who makes you laugh. Attempting to find one specific reason not to smile when your gaze falls upon them.
You’re happy with what you get, and it’s sad, truly. You’re happy you see them happy. You’re happy to trace them visually, cataloging in your mind moments not to forget. A pang in your chest wants more, but pangs are just feelings. You still have a good time in your brain, and ensure to show it on your face somehow. Surely a disclosure would send everything tumbling down. This is better than nothing and simultaneously more warmth and appreciation for than I could ever ask for.
Undeniably — and unfortunately — you feel you are in love. The question is, what kind of love do you feel? It’s the kind artists waste paint over, saying they regret it, but feeling the painful gratefulness of good practice anyway.
You’re limerent again.
It’s back, murkier than it’s ever been, like sludge you have to wade through until you finally find the prize. It shimmers in the sunlight as you excitedly wave it around. You bring it back down to eye level. You then realize: this reservoir is full of fool’s gold.
Grief digs its nails into your shoulder. It cranes its head to directly whisper into your ear, reminding you that you only have so much time.
You are battling the landmine of interacting with another human. You were produced defectively and assembled by someone with a resistance to following directions, even with the most thorough manual. You say things that don’t match the level of intimacy you’ve built. Like it’s the weather, you mention things that make a random person widen their eyes and shift uncomfortably.
Press your tongue to the roof of your mouth. Make sure your teeth aren’t touching. Loosen, loosen! You are noticeably tense. Agh, REACT! Wow! Big reaction, funny reaction! Now smile. Now frown…
You’re aware of the absurdity of it all.
You’re aware of how tender the feeling is,
How clumsy the body and mind are…
How human you are.
Anticipated mourning is not pathetic,
This is a cost of love.
…Maybe this isn’t love, though.
I wish I knew how to be normal.
I wish I could send you a hundred separate letters apologizing for making things weird and unknowingly forcing upon you a weight too heavy for you to carry. For staring at you like I am already mentally planning your funeral. I wish I was not a master puppeteer of this body that elicits an uncanny valley effect in interactions.
TW: childhood abuse, severe mental health struggles, contemplation of suicide, mentions of violence
Never being yourself grows a complicated kind of grief like a bad weed you can’t seem to fully rid yourself of, even when it seems to be gone.
Not being allowed to be yourself eats and vomits back out its carcass.
Not having a life that’s particularly glorious, but does it really have to be?
Of putting your family before selfhood.
Of growing up repeatedly being called selfish for existing.
Of falling for any slight glimmer of kindness as hope that maybe forever won’t be this suffocating.
Of rotting in your own stench because the body you know is not a body you adore, it is only functioning so as to keep you alive.
The physical jolt to vomit or hide every time someone acknowledges your existence, especially in the incorrect way, yet being trapped in it nonetheless with a countdown until it’s finally over.
It’s feeling like a child still, and having it yell inside of me…as corny as that sounds.
All it wants is to swipe all of the items off of a table, break some glass, spill glitter all over the floor without feeling the need to flinch, color on the walls, and scream while covering its ears in a corner as it faces a wall. It hears its heartbeat too loud in its ears and begins to whack its head repeatedly, surrounded in an empty room by darkness.
A crack of light shining through the door and wishing that it would close.
Screaming and pleading for it to just close.
A child who wishes that they were terminally ill or blessed with some sort of accident to nearly wipe them out, but also make someone finally love them without a condition.
With attention.
With genuine care.
Maybe then the pain would all be worth something. Maybe then they would feel worth something.
A child who seizes up at the thought of being treated gently, of being treated with an ounce of affection, and wondering how it will be used as leverage against them later.
A child who is whatever and whoever they need to be.
A “really good kid.”
A child that does not make mistakes and whose lips are zipped shut so the soap can’t enter.
A child who immediately unbuckles from the car, runs away, makes an attempt to hide, and pleads with their father not to hurt them when they’ve done wrong.
A child who fixes things — no, not things — people when they are sad or broken.
A child who is there when you need them, because what other purpose do they have in living if not for that?
A child who achieves to feel any sense of worth living, though already tremendously small.
A child who studies others and matches them perfectly, who scours teen magazines for a semblance of direction on how to be liked.
A quiet child, who was always seated near the loud ones.
A child who adamantly tries to hold in their hands the things unlovable to others on this earth and make them never feel the way they do.
It’s a teenager who learned that the only way to survive is to strategically share their life.
To overachieve to the point of genuine sickness.
To hit hospitalization-levels of anxiety and depression while screaming and crying for someone to kill them, trying to bang their head against the wall hard enough to split it open in two, but be unable to afford it.
To plan until they’re out.
To dissociate while being lectured or shouted at for the umpteenth time.
To attempt to shield themself from it by replying with verbal aggressions.
To sit and listen to how much of a hell it is to be their caretaker because they always make their mother cry, they just hate her, and she will never be good enough for them.
To befriend others in unlikely pairings: those whose external mess matches their internal mess.
To overshare to build trust that’s been broken over a fear that was never their fault.
To overshare and hold everything inside so trust is never broken in the first place.
To walk a tightrope of interaction with poor balance.
To try to fill the void of a soft, caring presence with partner after partner, no matter how much they take advantage of them and regardless of the legality of the age difference in the relationship.
To cry silently in their bed at 2 A.M. because if they are too loud, they will embarrass the neighbors and disturb the family.
To fight tooth and nail to make it through the school day on 3 hours of sleep and an egregious amount of caffeine.
To maladaptively daydream about moving to a big city, making lots of money, and becoming a well-known figure across the nation.
Who are they if not seen in some way?
Their mother always said they always needed the attention and approval of others.
To keep the hair and outfits only their mother wanted for them.
To remain a shell of a human being, like a hollow trophy for their parents to pose with.
Someone who is not the embodiment of a person who can be loved, but of a manufactured item to show off until its batteries need to be replaced or its screws become too loose.
To perform as characters to achieve faux belonging.
To just survive somehow in the process even while flirting with the idea of jumping from an easily opening second floor window of a hotel for hours.
It’s feeling a swelling galaxy inside and when you’re finally brave enough to show it you begin to choke up with tears while you’re looked at sideways.
It is gifting your happiness to others so they may feel the warmth you disallow yourself.
It’s wrapping yourself in warmth at all times to compensate for the cold loneliness that’s safer than those who desire to be close to them.
It is the overwhelm every emotion brings.
Bursts of energy that ring like church bells and feels like warm sunlight crawling like tiny ants tickling you all over your body.
You can’t help but to giddily clap, sing, cheer, screech, and dance.
Even in the privacy of living alone, you still feel the need to immediately snap back into composure and spout out a quick sorry…
Nobody’s listening, but you never know who might be. So you stay prepared.
It’s the push-pull relationship of hating the parents who textbook-case abused you despite knowing better, but “did their best” so you still feel like you owe them the world, even when you have to compose yourself before you step foot in their house. You end up cosplaying as a therapist for hours, otherwise your ability to live is yanked away from you like a carrot on a stick.
It’s when your grandmother thanks you for being “such a good girl,” and tells you to “continue making her so proud,” you feel the impulse to nod at salute.
This is a duty. This is an honor. This does not come without a hereditary war to fight. You are performing up to standard. Do not lose the fight.
Anytime you are met with intimacy, you feel like a lit bomb, feeling the sizzling string course through your body at the same time as all of the nervous sweat and difficulty breathing. At any moment, they will realize you are about to explode and run away.
Or worse, they’ll stay and leave soon after.
You wonder if you will ever truly bond with others over something that isn’t a complaint or a mask. If someone will stay after the explosion to help you collect the rubble because they want to, not because they feel like they have to.
If to be loved is to be known, then I have never been loved. I am even a stranger to myself.
But I am not fit to be loved, I am fit to love endlessly.
I am fit to watch couples gaze longingly into each other’s eyes, hands to the side, palms down on the bench, fingertips nearly touching, just for one to scoot just slightly closer as they automatically overlap.
I am fit to gush at a romantic comedy on Valentine’s Day with ice cream and shovel my face with chocolate only from my parents.
I am fit to hold an infant and let tears escape my eyes at how precious they are and loop in the back of my mind this will never be mine but I will always love it like it is.
To want to devour the family dogs in love and attention — equally, of course, so as one doesn’t feel left out.
To watch young boys race down the field and smile at knowing the fun in friendly competition.
To pick things up because I know it will make others smile.
It’s willingly putting myself at risk for then people I love because their lives are inherently worth more than mine to me.
Maybe my limit for being loved and living has run dry. I am about five years past my expiration date, and every day I continue to mold further, slowly decomposing.
However, though, I continue to chase love, only ever falling deepest for the best of the chases, and the high that never lasts of a honeymoon phase.
Do you want love, or do you want someone to see you as someone else they think they can love and be there for you despite ungodly levels of neuroticism? Your biggest and best performance yet, every single time. Each running for about four months at a time. No matter how much you try to resist it, you still keep holding auditions so you can still keep selling tickets.
If it were just you up there, you would freeze, maybe even huddle yourself into a ball of sorts.
A knife held back by a string would stare back at you from the opposite side of the theatre. With a single slice, the string would loudly be cut, releasing the object from its grasp. You have three seconds before the knife would fly from the back of the room and pierce right through your heart, ending you in an instant.
You died how you lived:
Performing.
The people would stand and cheer, some would wipe tears. Raving reviews would be all over the news, and people would discuss how profound it was for weeks.
I remember you told me all I ate was junk and processed foods. I was simply trying to survive through a busy schedule and disability, and you asked me if I was ever going to grow up and start cooking. Even as my stomach growls, I look at my packaged meals and then I look away.
Remember? It’s not good enough.
I stare at my living room table and see our intense card game in-progress still, and next to it an empty box from your new work boots you had gotten. I remember all of the laughs, the competitive joy, and conversations that made me think maybe love was safe for a moment.
Your shampoo and soap are still in the shower. You told me you never felt like you had a home anywhere. All I wanted was for you to feel like you had a place to go. A place where you were welcomed and belonged.
Your sweatshirts are still next to me in bed from being used as pajamas and comfort items.
Is that wrong?
Is this all wrong?
Are my feelings wrong?
Why haven’t you asked for anything back?
I’m holding onto you by a thread of pain, my vein cutting off your circulation as you try to wriggle away to retreat and protect your own self.
I don’t want to hide your stuff in my closet! I don’t want to feel this pain that something I did wasn’t enough even though that’s not true! I don’t want to confront the pain that the love I need isn’t enough for what you need right now, even as it literally bleeds out of me and makes me ill! Even as my world falls apart, I don’t want to put it away! I want it to stay there—as if I could freeze time before roughly 8:45PM on Wednesday, April 9th when you asked for a pause. If I will it, maybe it will happen. I’m exhausted trying to, and I know I can’t.
I can’t give up though! Giving up on this means giving up on you and I wouldn’t want someone to give up on me so I CAN’T give up on you, I just can’t! Do you hope I’ll leave first? Do you even want me to stay? This paralyzes me. I haven’t slept well since that night and I just want to lie down in bed.
Tears of remembrance sear into my cheeks. Did you want me? Yes. Did I want to be treated like you treated me? No, not always. I told you that sternly, my stomach tying a thousand knots.
I cared for you gently while terrified the next morning from your response the night before, tiptoeing around, hiding the light on my phone to not startle you while my body shook, making you breakfast and waking you up softly in the way I wish you would have woken me. I moved your hair away from your face and kissed you on the forehead in the way I wish you would have done to me. I apologized, in the way you did do, but with effort and actions, not just two words that feel empty, yet so full.
I don’t know, I’m just rambling about what was and used to be. I wish that the love I gave to others, someone would give to me. I wish someone would pause an important assignment to come over and hold me. I wish someone would understand my needs, no matter how silly or small, and not press me to go without them.
Even if it was “just dating,” and, I suppose, not yet love, I felt something. Did you?
I kept going and trying to prove something. Abandoning and hurting myself consciously to the point of multiple illnesses under the guise of “That’s what you do for the people you love: you don’t give up on them.” My God, am I afraid and comforted simultaneously by the thought that I am not yet ready to give up on you and I wonder if I ever will until the break is clean and forever.
I wish I didn’t walk through a wasteland of broken pieces of every piece of me I’ve given to others with no expectation of return, with the pieces carelessly thrown back and discarded, clearly due to damage.
Before they’re rented out again (Lord knows nobody will keep them, unfortunately), I spent ages meticulously preparing them for the next person. They deserve new, they deserve put together. They deserve state-of-the-art, non-burnout functioning.
When will I finally convince my body that next person can and will be me? I barely know how to identify the broken junkyard scraps. It’s almost like the person who had it added onto it in a way, signing it so I won’t forget who it’s from. So my stomach drops every time I pick it back up.
How can I take care of these separate pieces if I don’t know where they come from? The store doesn’t even know if they have anything in stock for them. I’ve gone to just about every single one in the area and get the same answer: “Sorry kid… I don’t know what to tell ya.” A small part of me exhales with relief. I don’t know if I’m quite ready to replace yet.
Maybe these pieces keep breaking because they never fit in the first place. Maybe they were forced on in some painful way. You helped me make them, though, so how could I just drop them? If I drop them, will you ever come back? Why do I want them to be pushed back on when they’re excruciatingly painful?
God, just fucking let it go already! Just make your own parts, ones that aren’t dipped in toxins and burn to the touch. Make your own that are well-oiled, and brand new. Remember? “You do not have to be good! You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting!” Why do you keep repenting?!
I’m tempted to say, “I wish it was that easy,” and honestly, in a way, it is. However, the strong magnet that keeps your collaborated part on isn’t coming off when I shake it yet.
You’re not gone. I don’t want you gone. I blink back tears.
You’re not gone. I don’t want you gone. I blink back tears.
“Yes, we can be friends.”
I can’t feel my body but also feel all of it. I want to go home, but the only home I know is you, and I wish I had my own. I kick myself for not building one. I don’t want the you that made your part. I want the you that would be willing to come back and help me fix what’s been broken.
You have your own mechanic work to tend to right now. Not so secretly, I'm cheering you on, and sending you hope from my heart that none of your tools are lost and that the job goes smoothly. Are you hoping the same for me? Possibly not. You never deserved this fix to be so difficult and tough. But I just keep turning the wrench, wishing you were close by. Not really knowing what I'm doing, but hopeful I will figure it out as I go.
Yellow, approach with caution – slow the fuck down.
We have just buckled up and started the car, but I am already afraid that I will accidentally run through a light, and that one wrong move will send my car spinning in the icy winter air and I am going to cause a wreck in the middle of a busy intersection in the biggest city.
What if I run the yellow?
I am anxiously scanning, collecting data around me. I shouldn’t be this scared of driving. It’s only a new route, you’ll know how to get there better next time, right? The lines on the road are faded and I am not really sure where I am going, but I guess that I am safe?
Most of the time, I am trying to keep you comfortable while I am at the wheel, and trying out for the role of your personal jester.
I’m still learning how to drive.
You started training before me—and for the first time, that actually is safe and makes sense. You fill me in on some of the missed lessons, and do your best to help guide me, but you’re not the instructor. Honestly, do we really even have one?
You’ve told me that you mostly practiced on bumpy roads. Ones filled with potholes that blew out tire after tire and dirt roads that made your entire car shake as you drove down them. Passed bored cops that chased you down with tickets. Never giving you grace for learning. But who ever does?
…Will they chase us?
My mind spins as you share some of the deepest parts of you.
I am so fucking jealous of Atlas right now.
I want to be here with you. I want to be here for you. I want to carry this hurt with you, so similar to mine, unfortunately greater in intensity, though my soul feels small and I am trying not to let it consume me. My brain fires on all cylinders. You reject every attempt I make to care for you except just listening.
I want to kiss you.
I want to listen,
I really want to listen.
Shut the fuck up and just listen!
Tick tock, tick tock, the clock screams during the silence we share while staring at each other.
I lean into you. You…don’t move?
Fuck, have I broken the speed limit? Maybe I should’ve stayed in my lane instead of veering into the left lane. At this point, it feels like I am toying with fate. Like I’m taunting,
“Crash into me!
Crash into me!
You can’t hurt me, I’ve crashed so many times before!
At least, then, I could feel some comfort in familiarity.”
“I’m so sorry I don’t know, is this okay? I–”
“It’s okay, sometimes with physical touch I just need some more time to help it feel more natural and less forced.”
What do you mean ”less forced?”
Am I forcing it?
Breathe in. Breathe out.
How much more time?
“Well, I have to get going. It’s late and we both have work in the morning so…”
You ask if you can give me a hug and you let go first.
“Please drive safe.”
I shut the door and I immediately collapsed onto my carpeted floor, feeling it to ground myself.
What just happened?
I have never shared, dissociated, and laughed so much.
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
Yeah, I think so. I think…
Yes. Yes, I think I did…Didn’t I?
I feel like I need a nap. That was…long. Not in a bad way, just exhausting. My heart feels physically heavy. My limbs are thousand pound weights, and I’m no strongman. My breaths are deep and hungry, as if I were holding them this entire time.
I do like you.
I am afraid that you think I am idealizing you because there is so much I like about you that you do not like about yourself.
I am afraid that I am friendzoned after this and that there was no interest at all.
We discuss sexual topics and interests, but you say you are just assessing compatibility and drawing boundaries.
I tell you that I think consent is attractive, and you said you think sometimes it ruins the mood, but without it, my GPS will run me into a ditch! I’ll get lost along the way somehow, I don’t know these roads like you do yet, and I don’t trust myself without directions.
Even with verbal comfort and confirmation of your feelings, my heart still wonders because of the lack of physical, tangible reciprocation.
You told me you were attracted to me, you told me you thought I was cute, but you didn’t really do much about it but tell me.
You’re asking me to drive blindfolded, when I don’t even know my brake from my gas pedal.
Were you lying to make me feel okay?
Are you being serious?
How do I know for sure?
There is no possible way to answer for sure right now, and I think that may be an itch I’m not able to scratch until I see you again.
I want to go to bed. Maybe I’m just tired. 14 hours is a long time driving, but I wouldn’t say that it was a bad time at all with you. This friendship is supposed to be important for relationships, yeah? I mean, at least it says that in the manual…I think? I don’t know, it’s stuck in the glove compartment somewhere, out of reach, like how it feels keeping someone like you around.
Tears of uncertainty on my windshield are wiped away by the small hands you found adorable. I am deeply, achingly afraid of road tripping with you and you asking me a half hour or four in to turn around and take you home. It is your right, though, and I cannot hold you hostage in the backseat.
As a directionally challenged speed demon, I have catastrophically crashed my own car many, many times, safe to say my insurance is high. Sometimes driving gives me anxiety. I guess thanks for sitting in the passenger seat, helping with the emergency brake?
Maybe I should just stop driving for a while.
Just…sit.
Engine off.
Head on the wheel.
You’re parked.
You’re safe.
No more whipping around corners.
No more road signs in a language you’re unable to understand.
No more other drivers on the road, slamming on their horns at you as you frantically find your way home.
For now.
You’re safe, for now. Until the next red light, or maybe… no light at all.
Do you even want to get back into the car?
I sigh. Just a breath. Just a moment.
My phone buzzes.
“Same time next week?”
You’re safe!
Oh my god, you’re safe!
Thank fucking God.
The keys are in my hand once again. I slide back into the driver’s seat, stained with horrible memories. Same weight. Same cracked leather seats. Same old car smell— an inheritance from my parents, barely held together. Just like me.
I am on my way, arms shaking as I drive, unfamiliar territory, not sure where I am going. Usually I’m a wreck when I drive long distances, but I’m sure I’ll be brave enough to get to you.
I picked you up and we joked in the car. You showed me the way by heart. After all, you love parks.
We find the nearest picnic table and set up, acknowledging how impressed we are with the people-watching we have done, finding two people practicing some sort of knife fight.
“I love parks,” you remind me.
The sandwich you made is the best I’ve ever tasted because I’m eating it looking at you. A train passes by and you swing around in excitement, rattling off about how you’ve seen this one before and that there’s something about trains that just make you really happy. I smile. You ask if I am laughing at you.
I am falling for you face first. It’s simultaneously a moderately terrifying yet comforting feeling. I dissociate for a moment and breathe the world back into me. I don’t want to miss this.
We start down the trail, the one I’ve travelled less. The berries on the trees are red. I hope to god I am not missing anything. I stop for a second, hearing the oddest noise I have heard to either come from a frog or a duck. We try to locate it together, but we are unsuccessful.
You playfully acknowledge you have not killed me yet and that should assuage my parents’ fears they had about me driving over an hour to see a stranger I met online. It’s getting late, we find a bench and chat.
I sit down. You scoot away, nearly to the edge of the bench, and we watch as the sun sets slowly. We talk about our families, our past, the things that keep us alive and enjoying life.
You quickly reply to the friend you live with. I notice a Bumble notification. My heart drops.
“I’m not a cheater, and I’ve only made out with like one other person in the last two months.”
“Same.”
Trust her. Just trust her. Pray she is telling the truth. Don’t bring the notification up. This is just date one. Play it cool.
I scoot closer to you to see what you’re showing me. A few minutes after you scoot back. I scoot back. I don’t want to be too much. You notice a spider. You hate spiders. You get up and run away from it. I take a small stick and set it back on the ground.
“I told you I would take care of the spiders for you,” I said.
You replied, sarcastically, “Oh wow how could I ever repay you?”
“You could be a slut and hold my hand if you want.”
I felt the need to make the first move. I could see the cool front you put up from the momentary cracks, nervous glances you would give me, and if you would be good at anything, since neither of us really thought we would get this far in life and don’t know what we’re doing, they should hire you in construction from how quickly you build yourself back up.
My attempt was feeble. I loosely grabbed your hand and ran my finger back and forth across the top of your knuckle. You reciprocated stronger, though your face confusingly stayed the same. We broke away after you pulled out your phone to show me something. You told me about how you tried to give yourself a haircut that morning because you needed one and were having a bad hair day. This made things worse, so it was a “hat day.” You refused to show it to me. I didn’t push any further.
As we bonded more over oddly sitting in chairs, I explained to you what proprioception was. You told me that was another good word and pulled out your phone to show me that you’ve been adding to my list of favorite words and even downloaded an app where you get a new one everyday. Throughout our time together, we must have thought up of at least four new ones to add to it.
Eventually, you told me that you’re afraid of commitment. I felt a pang in my chest. Oh god. I asked why. You told me that the idea that you have to spend forever with just one person is scary.
“Fair enough. I feel the same. At the moment, I have painfully learned that things and people come and go. They’re here for a reason and then they may leave. I’ve been disappointed so many times that I’ve just adopted a ‘fuck it we ball attitude’ and just try to enjoy things while they last.”
“Wow, geez, I wasn’t expecting a therapy session. Dang that honestly does make me feel kind of better.”
We talked longer, still at our little bench, and you told me how when you were a teen you used to sneak out of the house. It was easy to get out of, hard to get back into. When your brain was berating you and you were at your lowest your senior year, you would put your headphones in and walk through the park at night. Was it the smartest thing you could have done? No. Did I do the same thing the same year? Oddly, yes. We seem to connect over oddly specific shared experiences.
It was almost 9 pm and I was getting sleepy. I asked you if I could rest my head on your shoulder.
“Absolutely!” You told me, like it shouldn’t have been a question. You laid your head onto mine. It felt like it was supposed to be that way. I asked if I could show you a quote from a play that means a lot to me. You messed with me for opening up the Google Books version of it that didn’t show me the whole thing.
“This is really important to me and I really want to find it because I thought you might like it.”
“
”
As I read the quote, I could feel in your exaggerated movements how hard the quote hit you and you say “Oh man, I feel CALLED OUT!” You let out a long sigh.
“I did too when I read it the first time. I think about it a lot and thought it would resonate. It’s getting late and my parents will kill me if I am home at too late a time, can we head back?”
We get up, legs wobbly from sitting for hours. Fireflies sprinkle our vision like little specks of gold confetti. The stars shine above us, they seem to be brighter than I remember. The air is cool, but just warm enough for close contact to extinguish the discomfort. I inhale deeply. I want to take this in.
I want to reach for your hand so badly, too, but you told me you’re not much of a physical touch person. I look around, internally giddy and awestruck. My cheeks in pain from smiling all night. Your face relaxed. You look at peace. A soft smile stretches across your face.
We get to a fork in the path. We take the wrong way you are so sure about. I tease you for it. I laugh, squint, and smile.
“Oh no, look who’s wrong sometimes!”
“Shut up!” You giggle back.
We make it back to my car.
“I should probably get you home.” I say.
“No, you should bring me home because you have to work in the morning.”
“But I don’t want to!” I whined.
“Alright then, I suppose we can stay a little longer.” You smiled again.
You sighed, looked at me for a bit, and took off your hat.
“Here’s the hair.”
“May I touch it?”
“Yeah, of course.”
You ruffle it a bit. It’s the tiniest bit shorter on the right side underneath the longest part but looks even from the top.
“I assure you it’s nowhere near as bad as you think it is.”
“It’s still a hat day.”
“Thank you for showing me.”
“Of course,” you reply, like it was even an option for me not to see it.
I lean my head back onto your chest. It feels comfier than my pillow. My jaw and cheeks feel painful from the amount of smiling I’ve done today. Surprising me, you pull me in closer and wrap an arm around my shoulder, rubbing it slowly up and down. You snuggle into me and pull me closer into you.
I look up at you and then back down a few times.
“What?” You ask. “I can tell you want to say something, what’s on your mind?” You egg me on.
I finally work up the courage. “I know you said you wanted to take things slow and you’re not really a physical touch person, but I really want to kiss you. Is it okay if I do?” I look past your eyes and out the window as I ask.
“Are you kidding me? Of course! I honestly thought you would have done this like two hours ago.”
We lean in and at the moment our lips touched I knew that I could not get enough of you. Loosening my grip and you still coming back towards me quickly made me realize the feeling was reciprocated. You knew all the places to put your soft hands while we made out.
Not much of a physical touch person, my ass. I think.
For the moment I was no longer embarrassed about the way my shoulders hunched, how much I was looking at you in the eyes, how my hair looked, or how my breath smelled. It did not matter because I could hear yours escaping your mouth as our tongues tangled in a way I never enjoyed before but could not seem to get enough of now.
We pull apart after about an hour. A long sigh escapes me.
“I don’t want to take you home, but I need to go back to mine.”
“What do you mean you can’t just kidnap me?”
“Sorry, bug.”
Your hand rests on my knee as I take you home. I interlock my fingers with yours, releasing them only to safely turn. I pull up to your friends’ house you’re staying at.
Even after the last goodbye kiss out of about ten, it was still not enough. You smiled.
“Drive safe.” “I won’t.” “Don’t get in trouble when you get home” “I will.”
With that, we parted ways. I knew I would be home past midnight, but the only thing in my head that replayed were the words, “Worth it.”
We couldn’t get each other out of our minds for the whole next day.
Maybe we were just meant to find each other so we felt less alone about it. Maybe we were meant to find each other for more. I hope so.
I guess we won’t know until we know. Because things don’t last and hearts still break. Even if it’s one date I’m thankful that it happened at all.
