I can smell him. I lay here where he once was and he's in my skin. He's always in my skin. Wrapped in our sheets, I half close my eyes to the darkness and I let my body fool my mind into believing he's still here. My mind is aware of the trick but I consider letting myself fall. In the heart of the lie, I feel him next to me. My arms wrap his waist and I press my nose gently into the thick hair that falls lazily across his cheek. Out in the cold of the truth, it's been four days since he left.
...
"Just be with me", I hear myself say. "Choose me." And I feel weak. I know he can't and I know he won't but I say it, and though I hate myself for the words, for the truth, they were always going to spill out. It was just a question of when.
As he stands in front of me, finally grasping the courage to be a coward, it seems I've decided now was that time. The words that had been dormant on my tongue for months slip from me, with necessity, because his words, the one's we both knew were waiting, rush from him: "I can't do this anymore."
The future had always taken his breath from him, I knew, but now it was crushing him. The day where he would have to choose was so close she was now practically in the room with us. Jealousy, sadness, bitterness, possession...I felt it all outside, but in here, when it was just us, I barely thought of her. She had the title, the ring, the public recognition, but to me, she never had him. I had his body. I had his truth. I had the flicker in his eyes when he would let himself feel happiness. I had his real smile he gave only to me. He was mine. I shared him, I knew, but in every real way, in having the parts that mattered, I knew I had him...until the day came that I would have none of him. Now even when we were alone, we never really were. The guilt was so deep, and 'one day' was so near to this day that even once the flat door shut, the noise, their faces, their shame, couldn't be contained behind it. Sneakily, cruelly, they had crept in unseen. They were in him.
He looks at me.
...
I lean into him and I can feel his heat against me. His little breaths as he feels me, as I give him everything I have. He writhes under my weight, softly. His dark lips part and he waits for me, as if he's grasping our air with a need for me. My hips move for him, slowly, deeply. I kiss his neck and I burn as he moans through me. I could taste him forever. He looks at me. I have him.
...
"It's...for the best." The tremble in his voice betrays him.
I let out a laugh, incredulous that he thinks there's still a point to this lie. As if there ever was. His dark eyes cloud and he brings his shoulders inward as if unable to share the space between us, as if I am now something he fears. He drags his gaze from mine and I see him slipping from me. He's back behind the wall he's built, away from me, where he's alone but safe. Staring down at his hands as if he'll crumble if he remembers I'm watching, he hardens, resolute in the lie. I feel nothing but anger that he has done this.
I just want to hold him.
He looks at me. I've lost him.
...
The first signs of daylight creep through the blinds and I pull the sheets over me. In these brief moments, half in dreams, half in life, I can't bear the cold and in desperation grasp for the warmth I crave. I choose the lie. My arms stretch out and his skin sits beneath my fingers, his body stirring closer as it searches for mine. I press my mouth within a breath of his and his eyes flicker as he wakes to me. I stroke his lower back and he murmurs as I trace the dip of his spine where I placed my lips last night. He looks at me with a smile. He never left.