illicit affairs | jalex

epilogue - i'm setting off, but not without my muse

Waves. Salt air. Sunlight. 

Those were the first things I preceived as soon as I woke up, giving way to my eyes to the elegantly decorated bedroom. A few rays of sunshine were leaking through the curtains, announcing that the sun was soon to be at its highest point of the day. A warm summer breeze announced its presence, entering through the thin window gaps and sending a shiver down my bare back. 

I started to reincorporate on the bed, being stopped and pulled down again by a dead weight grip around my waist. I sighed, and in the limited space I had to move around, I turned to my side to find a bundle of blonde hairs spread across the pillowcase, a face covered by white sheets, only revealing a pair of chocolate eyes covered by two restless eyelids and eyelashes falling down a pair of pale pink cheeks. 

I smiled lazily at the scene, observing the half naked body beside me move up and down, letting out soft snores. The scene emanated nothing but peace, the silence was only interrupted by the water crashing the beach rocks, a last look to my side was the only thing I needed before drifting back to sleep at ease. I reached out my hand to caress his messy hair, being followed by a small flinch coming from him, but not enough for his eyes to open completely. 

—Come back to sleep –Alex said in a deep, lazy voice, without opening his lips too much to talk. The grip around my waist was tightened as he moved closer.

—Hey, sleeping beauty –I teased in the same lazy tone, giggling.

Two years and a couple months ago, Alex showed up unexpected at my birthday party, the same party that started with him monologuing, and ended with us deciding the easiest way we could find peace was fogiving and cleaning the slate. The same party where we made our ways into each other's lives, determined to get to know the people we had became and take things slow for the sake of a fresh new start. We started haging out in groups and rarely interacting online because of our music. I was resigned to the fact that we were going to become the casual friends who only ever talk in big group events and limit to text or call not more than twice a week, and to be quite fair, I was okay with it. 

It wasn't until, at the events we ran into each other, we let the time pass us by, talking and drinking until there was no one left in the room. It wasn't untill the weekly text or call became a daily text and call. Some nights when he was on tour, I even found myself going to bed while still being on facetime with him. If we happened to be in the same city, there was no thinking twice before meeting, independently of whatever we planned, the common interest was spending as much time as possible together. It felt like not needing anybody else around to feel comfortable with each other's presence happened over night, when in reality there were many barriers we weren't ready to tear down, many moments of tension we never thought through before jumping into second chances. And still, with every up and down, every inconvenience, every dirty secret we learned and kept in the process, I couldn't think of the first thing I would change.

Alex was the first to make the move, during a weekend I flew to Baltimore, and the first weekend I slept at his place. The same night I got there, I expected it to be nothing but a couple of friends talking, drinking and potentially ending up working on something productive like many other times. And I kept that mindset, even when a pizza and beer dinner turned out to be a whole love declaration dinner, even when he swore he was sober, but my brain was too used to us joking around about what we used to be back in the day. It took me months to process that Alex and I were friends again, that the things we said to each other when we were together might as well stay in the past. I thought it would take me longer to realize that, in the end, those are the kind of things that don't belong in the past.

Maybe there is one thing I regret, and that is not realizing that same night that Alex was the type of person you meet once in twenty lifetimes. The kind of person that becomes your comfort even without you meaning to. The kind of down to earth person, admirably hard-working, but who's willing to put everything on pause for the people he cares about. The kind of person who doesn't need to be explained what he did wrong, before he's getting ready to fix it. The kind of person who's decided to work on himself, just so years later he can stand in front of you, and pronounce the words "I am in love with you" without it being wrong. I regret making myself, and him, wait on an answer I was sure of, but was too much of a coward to exteriorize.