ph: Arturo Oliva Pedroza
I woke up in the grey of a London morning beside you, a stranger who was wrapping himself around me like we’d been lovers for years. Your face intruding mine, stubble on my cheek, forcing me to breath in the booze-spiked air you exhaled soundlessly. I flipped from panic to calm as my body got used to you quickly, the prickles growing kinder on my cheek, your weight becoming reassuring.
I left your house to go to work, earlier than I needed to. I didn’t want you to wake up and become of this world again. I didn’t want you to feel the shame of your unguarded sleep with a stranger, I wanted to leave you in a liminal state, half unconscious, half purring awake.
I slipped out of your bed, your arms resisted for a second then let me go. You offered to let me out, I smiled. You wrapped yourself in the big white cover that had held up both, a sleepy face with a docile smile, doing up my dress, leading me to the elevator, hugging me in it and enveloping me back into the covers.
Ice cold air hit me as we reached the corridor, you seemed awake for the first time that morning. The mood was on the brink of shifting so I kissed you and ran away.
We didn’t meet for two weeks but we messaged every day. For each flirty or filthy message there was a soft and questioning, one you asked about my family, my Christmas, my life. Sometimes you left two kisses, sometimes a small one, sometimes none.
New Year came and you asked me to spend it with you. It was a mistake but I said yes. I waited at the bar for you, so nervous I felt sick, and watched you from afar. You looked confused, looking for a girl you’d only dated once. So I waved. You came over, we drank, you asked me questions, you touched my knee, my shoulder, my face, and I fell for you.
We moved on into the night, from swanky bar to bar until their formal limits could no longer house our erratic desires. You told me you wanted fireworks so we ran through the streets of London to the bridges, me barefoot, then on your back, with five minutes until midnight. We kissed under the explosions, you held my hand, I had never been happier.
We woke up together the next day, in a hotel, with sore heads. You looked as beautiful but there was a change and we watched trash TV in relative silence. We reassured each other about the fun that was had, but neither seemed convinced. We skipped brunch and went our separate ways, to two different train stations on the same block.
You didn’t message, I tried not to cry. You wrote three days later, hoping my week was OK. I got excited and sent you too much love for one message, a written invite to dinner, a tacit invite to love me. You never replied.
And yet I loved you, for two weeks, or two meetings. I loved you in my own psychotic way. With no more than one night to mourn you, exorcising you from my heart with tears and tunes, tomorrow I start again.
