Chapter 12: Options

I remember, how I was sitting in the kitchen again. It was late and this time there was no book in front of me on the table, but a cup of coffee. It didn't really have any effect on me, but I had learnt to love its bittersweet taste. One could argue, that love means to love it from the start, that growing to love something was the same thing as forgetting about what you don't love about it, but I don't see it in that way. Because for I had felt our connection from the start, I am not sure, if you feel the same way. I think you grew to see that connection. And how can I doubt something so wonderful?

I heard your naked feet on the cold ground and soon found you in the doorway. Your body covered by your grey bathrobe. Good, because too much of your skin would probably be far too much for my tempted eyes. We slowly found us back, and even when it sometimes felt somehow sluggish, short steps, no matter how long they took, were still better than no movement at all.

"What you're drinking coffee for?" you asked slightly amused and a smile sneaked onto my lips.

"I like the taste of it," I answered. And there it was. Your smile. I had won it back, and it took me over, and it felt like I would grow with it. To full extend of myself. Because you make me great and you make me be the best me I can be.

You sat down opposite to me. No peanut butter sandwich, no Scotch. And I wondered, if you didn't want to repeat our routine, or if you just didn't need any of it, because I alone was enough for you for the night. Perhaps I was scared. I don't know, if I was more scared of you maybe not wanting to be Us anymore, or of me not being able to be enough for you. Perhaps I am, in fact, not enough. But perhaps I am still all you need. Perhaps that fear made me stand up and pour you a glass. You took it, and perhaps I was happy you still wanted what I had to give, even when it was just a tiny, meaningless gesture. I watched you drink, your hands, how they held the glass, as if they hadn't ever done anything else, your eyes, how they closed, as if you were only able to unfold the full potential of its taste like that, your throat and its swallowing movements, the skin so raw and covered in stubble, and still in its movements so soft and beautiful, and your coated lips, after you put down the glass, and your tongue, how it slid over them.

"Are we good?" I had to ask, as I found something in your eyes that shook me out of my daydream.

"Well…," you answered hesitantly and stared at your hands, which clenched the glass like the proverbial sheet anchor, "… not entirely. But mostly."

I wanted to say something. Something that would make it all right again, something that would make you forget about it, so you could forgive me. Something that would make us Us again. Us, who are sitting around in the kitchen by night without any worries and drink Scotch and eat peanut butter sandwiches and make fun of everyone, who's not us. But there didn't come a single word to my mind that could do that. And so I decided to just sit here, without sandwich, without Scotch in my hand, only coffee, and only half of you inside our togethership. As if you had one foot in and one foot out, just to make sure.

"The only way out of this labyrinth of suffering is to forgive."

(John Green, "Looking for Alaska")

"You know," you started anew after a while, "there's something I need to know"

"And what's that?"

You paused for a moment, as if to just now still think about it yourself what exactly it was. And then you asked, "How long?", and I had only a foggy idea what you were referring to.

"What you mean?"

"For how long have you been following us… me?" you wanted to know, and for a minute I thought about presenting the entire truth to you. Honesty as the solid basis of our new We, just as stable as your bunker around us. But I couldn't give you what you wanted. Not yet. You weren't ready yet to learn about it all, to understand the whole big meaning of my actions. So I clouded that truth as good as I could, because lie to you I could not.

"I followed you this one time," I answered and avoided knowingly the "only" in it. It wasn't lied, I had really followed you this one time. Just not only this one time. I knew you're smart, but not clever enough to see through this simple case of semantic. Maybe even too loyal, too trusting, too bound to doubt me.

"Okay," you just said and I could literally feel you let it go. And it didn't only free your shoulders from the invisible burden, but mine also.

Sometimes I regret to not tell you everything. And sometimes it feels like the dark I keep you in would swallow me, like a monster that makes one out of me, too. But whenever I doubt myself and my actions, I remember I do all this for you, and that I can't be a monster, while you improve me and make me be the best me I can be. And sometimes improvement hurts, like a needle, which makes imaginary stitches that patch cracks in our soul. Because life is cruel, no matter where you live it and with whom.

"As much as life can suck, it always beats the alternative."

(John Green, "Papertowns")