This Won't Work

Thinking About Him

"All these tattoos in my skin they turn you on
Lotta smoking, drinking, that's the shit I'm on"

- The Weeknd

Her skin brushed against his as she stepped into the house. Her skin touched his. The same skin his hands had caressed, had gripped, had held.

Just that ignited a spark inside of him. A spark that Elana probably didn't feel. Couldn't feel. Because she simply kept walking.

How desperate was he?

He decided to act as if she wasn't the only thing crossing his mind. He ignored her as she slipped into the hallway leading to her room. He ignored the way not a word left her lips and how much that hurt him.

It didn't hurt him.

Or at least, it shouldn't.

It felt like so long since he'd seen this house. Since he'd lived in it.

But it didn't feel the same as it had two weeks prior. It didn't feel like he could be comfortable, like he could relax. Because his shoulders were tense and his jaw was clenched.

Is this what it would be like now? Their new-found feelings developing into discomfort and unsolved frustrations? Would the air always hold this tension? Would he feel her presence even when she left the room, as she did a few minutes ago?

Would she be all he thinks about? How she does not hate him?

He was letting her control the way he acted in his own home. It wasn't supposed to be that way.

So instead of falling down a spiral of delusion, he shook himself out of it. Ignoring the closed door leading to her bedroom as he made his way to his own.

He opened the door to his bedroom. The familiarity of it brings some amount of peace. Everything was in the same place he'd left it in. Untouched, intact.

The first thing he did after leaving his suitcase behind was opening the blinds. The view was comforting.

He had grown up with this view. He had played outside as a kid in this view. He laughed with his friends as a teenager in this view. And as an adult, he sometimes would go out there. He would take in this view. He would walk along this view. He would listen to his brain in this view.

He used to go out there daily, but that slowly turned into a rare event. He would much rather just look at the view, through the glass in the comfort of his own room.

He sat on his bed.

He had fucked Elana on this bed. He had kissed her on this bed. He had moaned her name on this bed.

Stop.

It was just sex. To her and to the both of them it was just sex. And now the 'just sex' ended. That was completely fine. If she wanted it to end, so be it. Her loss anyway.

But it was his loss. His loss because he couldn't even build up the courage to leave his room and risk seeing her.

What if they stepped out at the same time and made eye-contact? What if she tried to start conversation with him and he could only focus on her lips? What if her skin accidentally brushed his again?

He couldn't risk that. So for the rest of the night, he lay motionless on his bed. He stared at the ceiling for so long that it became a blank canvas for paintings his brain created.