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20: Double Standards

thanks to lathereals for the cover above

20: Double Standards

Dear Diary,

We are polar opposites, where he is everything that my parents have warned me to stay away from, caution tape wrapped his whole entire being, yet I still spend the time trying to find the end and unravel him, under the guise that I may be the one to change him. I am naïve to believe so, because people change for themselves, not for the thoughts of another. He is far too set in his ways, twenty-three years old, already comfortable in any bad habits he possesses, and it is not for me to push my way into his life and demand for him to change.

He is also far too stubborn to take heed to anything I can possibly say to him. We are physical, and I do not mean that the only thing we have going for us is sex, because it took us five months for him not to touch my bare skin and not flinch at the indecency in it all. He is a physical reminder that I can aim higher and get my target, that we are alive, we are breathing, we are here in these moments where we like to wrap ourselves up in isolation, only the two of us, where the other world does not matter at all. I pass the time watching wind run its fingers through his hair, and then I do the same, retracing paths for journeys where the destination has yet to be made.

This has been gradual, a process where I instigated it, using the warmth between my legs and the smile on my face to get my way. "Siren," he mutters, hand wrapped tight in my curls, he likes to pull them, "you're a fucking warning sign." But I am his, for everyone else to drive past, to get caught in collisions because they have not heeded the warning I am so obviously giving them, but he is the first to have stopped and taken caution. He has treaded lightly in what I am hesitant to call a relationship, but in these moments, when I am lying on top of him, leg between his, sheets wrapped around us like in those candid shots from the movies he likes watching, it's almost like neither of us have lives to return to.

"You're still in high school," he likes to remind me, on the bad days, the dips between the peaks. When he is feeling particularly resentful he will remind me of other obligations which I have had to agree to. His sober thoughts become his drunken words, and in the aftermath, he may tell me that it "doesn't matter" but I know that the only things drunk people say are the words they have been too scared to say before the beer goggles tainted their vision. "You're so fucking innocent."

I am not innocent for much longer, I beg him to understand that I want this, so so so much, that he is not grooming me or manipulating me, but he is still wrestling with this truth. He has friends with siblings my age, siblings he loves like his own, and that is why he is a wreck of emotions at all hours of the day. His left hand cups my cheek, cold thumb under my eye, and we are staring at each other, and I like to imagine that this is it. This is that moment I have heard people talk about so often, my Mom gushing to Tracey Andrews that this is how she felt when she first laid her eyes on Dad.

I have said I Love You three times in six months, whispered moments of euphoria seconds after stars have exploded behind closed eyelids, face pushed against his neck. For so long now, we have managed to keep this as only a physical release for the both of us, where two bodies can come together in mutual agreement that we know each other the best. But I am unsure of whether the same can be said right now, because I am always trying to find excuses to cross paths with him, my palms become sweaty and I am not myself when I first lay my eyes on him in public. There is something surreal about the two of us seeing one another out amongst others, when we are not locked up in here, forced to keep this a secret. The possibility is torture right in front of our faces, where we could grasp it and wave it around in everyone's faces, but he is so unwilling to do so, worried about what may be said behind his back.