oh, anna [-hs]

call out my name

64.

I've never been the weird stranger crying at the airport before.

We've all seen plenty of them. They always look disheveled, tired. Crying in an airport while you wait for your flight is an entirely different walk of shame.

I'm not sure what to do with my hands, what to do with my body. For a while I scroll my phone, but then it dies and I'm too lazy to pull out my charger. Now I'm hunched over in my seat, arms crossed, hot tears streaming down my face. I don't know how to stop them. I don't know how to calm myself down.

I keep asking myself why. I know that's a stupid question. The answers are easy to find.

Something shifted in our relationship in Hibbing. I finally realized just how far he was willing to violate my boundaries, just how little he trusted my knowledge of my own trauma. It's apparent in the little things: his push for therapy, the motorcycle shit in Mexico, the anniversary dinner, taking me to London. It wasn't until Hibbing that it became really clear to me, he has a limited respect for my understanding of my grief.

It wasn't all bad, and I know that. I can think of times when he was really good, when he cared and listened in the right way. After he found out about the cooking thing, he stopped making me food. He was always there after an anxiety attack or nightmare. He started mimicking how I held him to help him fall asleep, using my own techniques on me. He is the most empathetic person I know. He sits in your pain with you, feels it for himself to show you that you aren't alone. I also realize that I'm not perfect. A lot of problems in our relationship stemmed from my own insecurities.

But none of that makes it okay for him to sleep with someone else.

I think he realized that night in Duluth that he had failed me. After that, everything was different, fabricated. Somehow, an artificial love filled the cracks from the chasm we ripped open. And those cracks grew deeper, and the plastic dripped farther into our hearts. Until we both were able to justify what we did to each other, even if it was just for a moment.

And Harry's always had a soft spot for Louis. I've known that for a while. You can tell in the way he talks about the old days. He still loves him, he might always love him.

Of course I've felt jealous of Louis at times. That's a perfectly natural way to feel, I think. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm ashamed that I didn't see this coming. I'm embarrassed that I had no idea, that the thought didn't once cross my mind. I thought he was guilty about Kate and Emma, or maybe about the stupid album. We spent two and a half weeks in Japan, and I never once thought that he had cheated on me.

But like I said, asking myself why is a stupid question. It's obvious why. We were broken after he pushed to see my parents, and he was feeling nostalgic and lonely. He went back to what he knew, because he was confident it would make him feel safe, supported, comfortable, everything I was supposed to give him. He wanted certainty.

I know why he did it.

I just can't stop thinking about September. About sitting on the beach behind his house, watching the sunset as the candles sputtered, poking out from the tops of old wine bottles. 

That night, he looked me in the eye and told me that love was commitment. It was a decision. It was a reassurance. The next morning he held me, and while I stared at the ocean, he promised he wanted to wait. He promised that he was entirely mine.

Like an idiot, I believed him. I believed he was right. I thought I was broken and he was the only answer. Despite the alarms, my reservations, in the end I let my guard down and allowed him in. I convinced myself that my way of navigating relationships was wrong, and he was right, that I needed him.