I reach forward slowly; how you would reach cautiously to a snake – except she is not dangerous, just broken

Even as I sit here, contrite and waiting, you do not come. I wonder why I seem to hear, within every heartbeat, your footfalls on the carpet, the door creaking open. I don’t dare to look up because I know my imagination is playing tricks on me, so when you finally come to me I am shaking and have almost given up hope.

You cradle my face in your hands and my heart runs a marathon. You whisper my name. I melt into your arms, thinking all the while of how insecure I feel – and if it is really supposed to be this way. I wonder if you know that hours before, someone else called me on the phone and asked me why I am still with you. I want to tell you this to illicit a response from you – I want you to be jealous, but your lips ghost over my skin and all thought is lost.

You kiss me softly and gently and I wonder if love is supposed to be careful – so cautious – or raw and uninhibited. As though I have conjured that notion into your mind as well, you draw me closer and your touches border on brutal – fuelled, I suppose, by passion and – I hope – love.

Your eyes dance alight with something akin to fury and my heart beats faster – I am not sure if I am scared or if this is just because of passion again. I cling to you tighter, tighter, and you fill me and take from me. Why does it not feel like you are giving?

I give myself to you and arch into you; this is a ballet of submission and of giving. Your teeth against my neck and then sinking into the skin covering my clavicles, your body pressed against mine, slick fire a line between us that we cannot quite cross – is this your fault or mine?

When you’ve been satiated you lie beside me and your breathing evens to slow, soft puffs that completely contrast the ragged, desperate breaths you made earlier. Silent, I start to cry. There is a distance between us now that is almost tangible. The sheet starts to itch beneath my bare skin and I turn, afraid to wake you even as I press myself against your back. You stir in your sleep and move away, murmuring something I cannot quite hear – or do not want to hear.

Terrified by this separation, I curl into myself and start to weep, pressing a corner of the sheet into my mouth because I am afraid that you will hear. I do not want you to think I am unhappy with you. I do not know if I am.

*

“Hey,” he whispers, his voice curling into my ear like a smoke signal.

I jump at the sound, as though you have caught me red-handed, doing something I should not be even thinking of.

“Hi,” I greet anxiously, but I don’t know why – I am not expecting you to come around the door any moment. You have been gone for days. You talk to girls as easily as I would, and it seems to me that the distance between us is a bridge on fire.

“How have you been?” He asks gently, touching my arm. There is a warmth that spreads, comforting and reassuring. It makes me think of a glow that will light you up from the inside. I nod tersely, still tense. He smiles back at me, loose and casual – the kind of smile that makes me feel at ease at once. I smile back.

You come then, and I do not have to turn around to know that it is you. The way the room is suddenly charged with energy, and the way everything bristles around you – that is how I know. I do not have to speak to you, either, to know what you want.

I follow you out silently, and you take me back to my house where you take me again. I am crying the whole time, and I do not know if you are aware.

I do not feel beautiful.

You say I belong to you, but if that is supposed to make one feel warm and fuzzy – there is none of that. All I feel is insecurity, inferiority, and the beginnings of a hurt that just will not go away.

(Read the rest here.)

Jollin, the twin I never had, she's the most talented writer I know. No one else's prose makes me cry. All the time. My aim is to be like that someday.