Samantha − 13 December, 2006

"Do you think about me, Josh?"

"Oh, sure. I think about you all the time." I play coy like it's a national sport. To be sarcastic is to avoid vulnerability, which is to avoid pain. Some people learned math in high school, I learned how to protect myself.

"You know what I mean."

"I do, Samantha. I do think about you."

She sat quietly for a long time. "I think about you too, Josh."

As her roommate slept her fitful sleep just a handful of feet away, Samantha and I sat together in her own bed, my arms crossed over her chest as she leaned into me in the darkness. I held her closer than I really had any right to, but at the moment such trivialities were beyond me. Everything was beyond me. Everything but the feel of her skin and the smell of her hair. I didn't know it at the time, but while my heart pounded its nervous rhythm and my skin tingled, all while hoping she wouldn't notice, there was blossoming the most powerful love I had ever felt in my life. It would be something real, something that took own its own life. It would hit me like a fucking truck, but would leave me far less capable of standing on my own two feet in the end.

"Are you okay?"

I was pulled from my musings by the quiet insistence of her voice. I took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm fine. Why?"

"Your heart is beating really hard."

Shit.

"Ah. Sorry."

She laughed, then sat up and turned to face me. Even in the dim light coming through her thin curtains her eyes, two sapphirine gems, glittering and imploring, found mine. I put her face in my hands and she held them there. She brought her face mercilessly close to mine, and for one exhilarating second her lips lighted upon my own. My breath quickened and involuntarily I pushed forward. She pulled back, apologizing. “I would hate myself, you know.”

“I know.”

“I love Robbie.”

“I know.”

I rose from the bed then and stretched, feeling the euphoria leaving my body as quickly as it had come, leaving in its stead a throbbing sense of rejection. I could still feel her lips. She looked up at me almost painfully, her head tilted slightly back. She asked me what I was doing.

“I should probably be going,” I said, and before I knew what had happened, our mouths and bodies were intertwined. My hands explored her body, and she arched her back at my touch. I lost myself for a time, and after a few moments I struggled to part my lips from hers.

“I should really go.”

I kissed her.

“Yeah, you should.”

She kissed me.

Finally, we broke apart. We lay there for the longest time, panting and delirious. When I had collected myself a bit, it was then that I could hear her quiet sobs coming from the other side of the bed. The high I had felt just moments before had ebbed, leaving me with a dull unexplainable pain.

“I’m so sorry, Samantha.”

She wiped her eyes, and put on a strong face. “No, it was my fault.”

I let her cry, and knew that things would never be easy for me again.

Posted on January 31, 2007. and has been viewed 745 times.

Comments:

vision024 (January 31, 2007. 07:17pm)

most of the time body, heart, and mind are at war

Oblivious (January 31, 2007. 08:38pm)

A stubborn lesson to learn, I've found.

vision024 (January 31, 2007. 08:42pm)

I keep hitting the brick wall with this one till my knuckles bleed. Making the same mistakes over and over again, perhaps they are not mistakes but battles to shape our identity.

Oblivious (January 31, 2007. 08:45pm)

That's the way I look at it. Without a little pain we can't exist. It's what defines us, I think.

vision024 (January 31, 2007. 09:49pm)

if one is brave enough to love, they have the guts to face the pain