He's perfect, but that's not what you want. You don't want the flowers and the expensively furnished apartment. You don't want everything falling into your hands. You're bored. Nothing is a challenge anymore. Before, he was. You had to fight to get him to be with only you. You had to fight to keep him at bay when you thought he was wrong. You had to fight to get him to take you seriously. And you lived for it. You wanted to prove something to him and that's what fueled you. What pushed you forward. Now, he's here and he stays and you don't have a thing to prove because he believes every word that comes out of your mouth. And he treats you like you're the most important thing in the world. You hate it. Every minute of it. You want to end it all right now. End it at the next polite or considerate thing he does. You are seriously considering this that morning when he wakes you up with a kiss on the forehead and a big, steaming mug of coffee. You imagine yourself throwing it back in his face and running out the door. You don't do that. You smile, say, "Good morning." You take the coffee graciously and watch as he walks back out of the bedroom.
There is a figure in your dreams and you know who he is and why he's there. You see his shadow all the time. Everywhere, anywhere. In your head, in reality. You can't escape it and you don't want to. It's been following you since that night that he walked away again. Only this time you weren't broken from it and neither was he. This time you were both intact and smiling and hopeful for the future. Your future together? You don't know. All you know is of all the times he has walked away from you, it has never turned out to be forever. And you're waiting for him to return. To bring chaos back. To fuck everything up again. To take away this awful perfection. You're waiting, waiting, waiting so patiently. Of course on the inside you're biting your nails so hard they bleed. On the inside you're screaming all the time. On the inside you're pacing back and forth and back again.
He left you with a number and even an address, but your fingertips are too frightened to make any sort of use out of these things. All they can do is tremble when you think about it and when they are brushing against the worn edges of that scrap of paper. And then they draw themselves back quickly like they've been burned.
You dream about him. Wild, vivid, erotic dreams. You've never had dreams like these before. Dreams that are all hands and legs and tongues and lips. Dreams that are all whispers and staggered breath. You can feel his fingers and his mouth. And you wake up sweating and moaning and the man beside you is still sound asleep. And you could swear that it was reality, that there is saliva on your skin now and knots in your hair where his fingers had pulled and twisted.
You can't say that you're completely sure why this is happening. Why he has taken a hold of you like this. You chalk it up to his eyes. No, his mouth. No. You have no idea. But you can't function properly anymore because he's always there. He's always there, but he's always gone. Not unlike his behavior when you dated. Only it's different this time. He is more than just emotionally gone. And you weren't aware that you could ache like this all the time and not collapse, but you remain standing despite this feeling in your bones.
Your boyfriend is oblivious to it. Although he does bring up the other man's name sometimes. In passing, in casual conversation. He says things like, "Talked to what's-his-face lately? The writer guy?" You frown and respond, "His name is Jess." And then with your eyes cast down, "And no, we haven't spoken since he was here."
You're taken back there to that night when he was standing behind the gate of your grandparent's estate. And you're reminded of how the bars cast shadows onto his skin and you wanted to run to him and apologize for everything. For things you didn't even know you were sorry for. For thinking you could fix him when you couldn't. For not even trying to fix him in the first place. For letting him leave.
In your temporary bedroom, you felt calm and relaxed for the first time in months, maybe a year. With him across from you, you were at ease and your shoulders fell from their perfectly postured position. Your stiff clothing suddenly felt awkward and overdone and you wanted to be in jeans and a t-shirt and socks. You wanted to be stretched out on the leather couch in his uncle's apartment with his rising and falling chest beneath you and his arms stretched out, resting a book on your stomach. You wanted his chin moving gently against the top of your head as he told you things that didn't matter. And then you wanted him to toss the book onto the floor as he turned you over and kissed you gently on the mouth. But instead you were in a bedroom in your grandparent's house, overdressed and sitting on different pieces of furniture.
Mostly what you remember about that night was feeling painfully alone once he had gone. You remember thinking that it had been so long since you'd had a friend or just someone you knew. Someone who knew you.
Now you're sleeping with a man who barely knows a thing. He could tell you that you love your mom and that you live for knowledge and that you curl your hair when you're in a bad mood. But he couldn't tell you how certain notes in certain songs kill you or how you think a sentence is a work of art or how you count branches on winter trees when you're driving somewhere. He couldn't tell you what makes your heart beat faster. He couldn't tell you what you were like before.
You wake up regretful. You wake up cold.
The figure from your dreams calls you on a Thursday night and you drop the phone on the kitchen counter when he says your name. You pull yourself together and bring it back to you ear. He's saying, "Are you happy?" (Not really.) "Why do you think that is?" (I don't know.) "You do know." (This isn't me.)
A/N: Just a little random oneshot. I hope you enjoyed it. For those of you who read Aftermath, I apologize that the next chapter is taking so long. I'm not sure where I want the story to go from here and also starting college this semester is taking up a bit of time. But hopefully that'll be up soon enough. Anyway, review away!