The Nothing...

(Disclaimer: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.  Sometimes a girl just needs to get her fiction on!)

It’s quiet now.  This is the time of night where the streets are all but abandoned.  Everyone is asleep, but me.  The only sound I can hear is your deep breathing interrupted with a tiny snore as you switch from breathing out to breathing in.  It’s cute.  It’s not what’s keeping me awake.  I’m not awake because it’s noisy out side.  I’m awake because it’s noisy inside.  I cannot quiet my head.  While my body yearns to go in to rest mode, my mind just won’t quit.

It races while my heart beats heavy with the thought that soon I will have to give in and sleep.  Then this moment will be over.  But I want it to last for as long as possible.  I am aware of all five senses and what they are currently experiencing.  As I change my focus from what I’m hearing to what I’m seeing, I realize I’d rather be deaf than blind at this moment. 

There you are.  Next to me.  There is a slight smile on your face and I can’t help but wonder if I put it there.  I try to ignore the next thought that tugs at the back of my mind.  I only lose my smile for a half moment before I succeed. 

The blanket is not completely pulled up around you.  Even though it’s chilly outside, it’s warm here in bed.   My concentration is momentarily broken as you sleepily change positions.  Now you are on your side and your back is to me.  I have an incredible urge to wrap my arm around you and pull myself in close, but I bite my lip and hold my arm in place instead.

This is all I ask for, I tell myself.  I want a man, this man?, to lay beside me at night, like this, like you are.  You are at your most vulnerable while you sleep, and I can’t help but take advantage of that.  I know when morning comes things will change.  The harsh truth of reality will rise with the sun and I will have to give this all up.  I will have to admit that this moment I am creating is mine alone.  You do not share this moment with me.  Even though it is you I speak of.

I roll over and face the wall, away from you.  I scoot back just slightly so that we are close enough to feel the electricity buzzing between us.  Perhaps it is imagined.  Or maybe not.  I stare at the wall, your wall, and realize I have no idea when, or if, I will see this wall again.  The thought furrows my brow so much so that I realize my face has tensed and I release it, and relax.  There’s no reason to get upset.  I am here now.  That is enough.

It will have to be.

I wish I could remember more of the night than just a drunken blur.  Limbs moving about.  Hair sticking to foreheads.  Arms hitting the walls, on accident.  Clothes hitting the floor, on purpose.  Whatever it was we were searching for, we found it.  We found it for a moment with each other.  But moments are fleeting and mornings come.  Just as sure as the sun will rise, this moment will end and be gone. 

Telling myself this is more than what it is will only hurt me, and I know it.  Telling myself this is more than with it is will only hurt me, and you know it.

Just as I am shifting over to my back again I believe I have wakened you.  But your eyes don’t open.  The bed is not big, so it doesn’t take long for your arm to find me.  And it doesn’t take long for me to shorten the length between us.  It takes even less time for me to lose myself.

One side of my brain wants to know why.  Why is it so natural for you to reach for me in your sleep?  Am I someone else to you right now?  The other side of my brain just wants me to shut up.  These sides of my brain have been in constant battle with each other since you fell asleep and that is why I lay awake.

I sync my breathing to yours.  As your chest rises and falls, mine does too.  The hair on my arms stand up, electrified.  They know my body has found a counterpart.  A negative ion to my positive one.  Every nerve in my body is shooting off right now.  Electric impulses I can’t control.  I don’t want to.  This doesn’t happen every day.

I feel safe.  Though I’m not sure what’s out there to get me.  Bad thoughts?  Jealous feelings?  Self-deprecating behavior?  All of the above?  Probably.  But not right now.  Right now I am safe in my pretend world of, it’s all going to be okay… 

Breathing in slow and deep I catch a hint of cologne.  No, deodorant.  You do not wear cologne.  It’s musky mixed with your sweat.  I breathe in really deep and your scent fills my nose.  It’s weird to me how calming the smell of a man is to my senses.  As if you could bottle safety and security and sell it in stores. 

Lightly I glide my fingers up and down your arm.  Your skin is clammy as the sweat evaporates in to the cold air.  Your arms are soft but they are also strong.  I slide my index finger around your bicep and picture it doing hard work.  I am impressed.  It appears much larger when it’s wrapped around me than hanging at your side. 

I do not remember what my next thought is because just as quick as the thought comes, I am awakened. 

Sun is streaming through the windows when I open my eyes.  You roll over with a coldness I do not remember being there earlier.  But there is casualness to your morning demeanor that validates my right to be here.  I am torn between feeling like a stranger and feeling like you want me here. 

I watch you as you walk around and pick up your scattered clothing.  I wonder if you are replaying scenes of how those clothes made it to the floor in the first place, the way I am as I watch you.  I realize you have not looked at me since you left the bed and I can feel my face start to frown.  But just as my lips are about to turn down you grab my sock and look up at me.  

When our eyes meet I am fully aware that all my clothes are on the floor and that you are dressed.  Then you smile.  And I exhale.  You tell me to stay and sleep, that I don’t need to go.  I can’t decide if this is protocol, or if you actually mean it.  I choose to believe you mean it. 

Of course I cannot stay.  And I will not.

You leave the room and soon I hear the sounds of coffee making.  I wish you would offer me a cup.  Instead I pick up my clothes and gingerly put them back on.  The act of putting on clothes means I am one step closer to being out the door and on my way…if ever to return.  My sock is on the floor where you dropped it when you realized it wasn’t yours.  I pick it up and put it on wishing I could leave it there and go back to bed.

I grab my coat and put my arms through the holes.  I stop and take a look around.  Your room looks completely different in the daylight.  All I have are memories of dark corners.  Stacks of things unknown causing us to trip as we undressed.  I remember hearing sounds like maybe a glass getting knocked over.  I look for that glass now, but cannot find it.  Maybe I was mistaken. 

I turn to look at the bed I just left.  I have a compulsion to make it.  No.  That would be weird, I tell myself.  Where is that other sock?  I can’t find it.  It looks like every other sock in this room and I don’t want to take the time to rifle through your dirty laundry.  Now that would be weird, I say out loud.  Sounds of you getting ready for the day drift in to the room.

Looking at the clock, I realize I have no idea how long it’s been since you left.  Am I taking too long?  I quickly grab my purse and dig for my mirror.  I straighten my hair, powder my nose, and put on some lip gloss.  I give up on the sock and shove my foot in to my shoe.  I shouldn’t be here any longer.  I do not want to overstay my welcome.  I do not even know if my stay was welcome…

Yelling goodbye was awkward.  I am not sure if I should have walked to the kitchen and administered a proper good bye, or not.  So instead I pretend like nothing happened.  I pretend that it is 2 o’clock in the afternoon and not the morning after.  I’m pretty sure you don’t even see me as I leave so I curse under my breath that I took the time to fix myself up.

As my feet hit the pavement outside I am thankful I took the time to fix myself up.  Even though I just left your bed, these people have been awake for hours.  They are showered and getting on with their day.  I am wearing the clothes I had on last night as well as some dark under eye circles.  I have on my new coat but my bra has been shoved in to my purse. 

This would be the quintessential walk of shame if I thought I had anything to be ashamed of.  As it turns out, I am pretty proud of myself right now.  I told myself you were what I wanted and I got it.  I convinced myself that I was worthy of having and that you’d fall prey to my advances. 

My head is held high as I pass a couple taking a lazy weekend walk down the busy city street.  As they pass by I can’t help but turn around and watch them walk away.  They are happy.  It is very clear how they feel about each other.  I’d go so far as to call it crystal.  I look down at my purse which is filled to the brim with my undergarments.  Aside from feeling thankful for the day I decided to buy a big purse, I also feel hurt as my heart sinks.

This is what I have been reduced to in the harsh light of the morning.  I am not allowed to yell to the world how happy I am right now.  Which is good.  Because I’m not allowed to be happy.  I cannot let myself take this beyond what it is.  I can only look in to the world of happiness.  I cannot open the door and walk in. 

The view from the inside is now only a memory.  I am only allowed to see this night again from behind the window panes of my memory.  I do not know if I will ever again know what it sounds like to hear you breathe.  Watch you sleep.  Feel you reach for me, beyond the confines of my mind.  It was like time stopped.  Like we hit the pause button to the real world and stopped all the doubts and the fears from invading the night.

This, right now, is what I knew would come.  I knew with the morning would come these same doubts.  These same fears.  I ask, out loud, why I put myself through this.  I don’t know why I allow myself to get to that point.  It always ends up here, at this point.  No matter how much I try to tell myself it won’t happen this time, it always does. 

Sometimes I feel like I have a hole inside me.  I call it The Nothing.  Because like The Nothing, it eats away at all that is good until nothing remains.  You stop that feeling.  When I’m with you I am not afraid of the nothing.  But when I leave you, I am reminded that I have nothing.  Nothing.  I do not know if I fill a void in your life.  I believe that if I did, I would not be walking, and wondering, and fighting the nothing. 

I turn and stop now and stare up at your window before getting in to my car.  I cover my hand over my eyes to block the sun.  The same sun that stole my night.  It hit the pause button again and restarted the real world.  This is where I am now.  I imagine you don’t even realize I have left.  But I will be okay as you pour your coffee in to the mismatched mug you pulled out of the sink, dirty from yesterday’s cup of coffee.  I can’t see you, but I hope that you are smiling.  And I hope I put it there.