My back was to her, but I could tell by the quiet breathing that she was there. I could smell her. The smell that had invaded my senses. The smell that made me drunk.

"I wasn't pretending, and neither were you."

She didn't sound angry. Her voice was soft and feather light, just as always.

"I meant what I said you know, every word."

She reached out and stroked the back of my hair. I got goose bumps at her gentle touch. My stomach convulsed. I had meant every word too┘ but some how she had infected me. I was like a puppet on a string and I knew that she could make me say whatever she wanted.

She had that power.

But I knew that I was wrong.

"Look at me."

If I did I knew I would just crumble. I knew if my eyes met hers my resolve would go out of the window.

"I'm not gay."

I killed myself as I said it.

Killed her.

"I'm not like you."

As soon as the words tumbled from my mouth I hated myself for them. But I couldn't take them back now.

"Jo please look at me"

And even then I couldn't, her voice tinged with tears and I couldn't turn around. I couldn't ruin the picture that I had already committed to memory. Everything about her. Her delicate soft skin, her curves, her wavy, silk hair. Those deep blue eyes that I had lost myself in that night.

That night.

The night I had lost my senses. The night she had pressed her beautiful lips into mine and I had drowned in her. The night that we had made gentle love to each other and she had shown me how.

I'd lost myself and I didn't know how to find who I was. What I was.

She bent down, her breath tickled my ear.

"The sooner you come to terms with this the easier it will be."

I flinched away as if her words had burnt.

"You don't know the first thing about it."

I snapped it back. Said it with as much conviction as I could. As if it would make me believe it.

"Of course I don't, you're the only one to have ever felt like this, silly me for trying to understand."

If she has been angry it would have made me feel better. She didn't even slam the door when she left.

I sat there until the last particle of her perfume had evaporated and then I pressed the palms of my hands so hard into my eyes that I saw lights. Her. And then black. I counted up to ten and then back down. My ears rang and my head swam.

I'd broken my own heart.

This was what dying felt like.