I lie in bed. Beside me my partner lies, fast asleep. I ought to do the same, but all I can do is pretend to. Sleep flees from me. My thoughts are preoccupied with the man beside me.
I know I'm damned.
For God's sake - I'm in love.
I'm in love with my partner.
How could I've been so blind for all that time?
I feel him close to me and I want him even closer. I hear his voice and I want to hear him call my name. I look into his eyes and I want to see them responding to mine. I want to hold him and never let him go.
And I know what we have to do. We have to split up. Go our separate ways.
It's the best for him, and heck, it is the best for me. We can't go on like this anymore.
Yet I know we can't part. I've seen us going separate ways, and not once did anything good come of it, but hurt and pain and despair. I doubt one of us will make it for more than 6 months on his own. Maybe that's even too high a calculation.
And I don't want to see him go. I don't want to see him break. And most of all I don't want to see him fall, breathing his life out in a blink, or see the light of his eyes cease forever.
I want to see him laugh again, happy and with sparkling eyes. That's how I will always remember him: reckless, beaming with joy and lust for life.
It's been a long time since I saw him like that. Life took it away from me - from us – the result of bad decisions, bad luck and the endless try for amnesty, which probably will never come through.
So, I lie awake, thinking of him. Wanting to stop what he does to me. Wanting never to lose what he is to me. Wanting to be with him. Punch him. Keep him. Love him.
Restlessly, I turn to my side. Simultaneously my partner turns.
We come to face each other.
Our eyes meet - and then they widen in surprise when we recognize what we see ...