Resist: To Love is To Suffer

Chapter Five

After she had invited me inside, we laid facing each other in her cramped twin bed. We lost hours pouring out our life stories until the sun began to set, casting long shadows through her small bedroom window. She'd woven the most hauntingly beautiful stories of her childhood, fully immersing me in the parts of her life she so rarely got to share. I learned about her first love, and the subsequent heartbreak. I learned about the friendships gained and lost, the betrayals she'd felt, the harm she'd caused. I learned her favorite colors and seasons, the shops she would visit if she could afford them, the material things she couldn't live without. I would have been content to listen to her throughout the night if she'd let me, but it was getting late.

The last light faded through the window and the room quickly fell into darkness. She leaned back to reach her nightstand, turning on a lamp whose frilly white shade diffused the room in a soft golden glow. She turned back toward me and settled against her pillow. I couldn't take my eyes off her and that sweet, sad smile.

"You're staring," her voice carried a hint of uncomfortable laughter.

"I am."

I hadn't expected her to invite me in, to open up about her demons the way I had dumped on her about mine. I wanted to believe she saw past it, that she saw something redeemable in me, but more likely that she was just as desperate for a connection as I was. No reasonable person would willingly follow me on this fucked up path, and she was far more reasonable than I was.

"Why is that?"

"Because I can." I couldn't find the words to describe it, but staring at her felt right, like we'd been tethered in past lives, like we were the same. It felt like looking in a mirror and recognizing the face, even though you'd never seen it before. It felt ancient and terrifying and powerful, like a curse meant to destroy me. "Because I want to remember what you look like."

She brought a hand to cup my jaw, rubbing her thumb across the coarse stubble I still had yet to take care of, and I leaned into her comforting touch. I shut my eyes, focused solely on the warmth of her hand and the sound of her voice, just barely above a whisper, "I already miss you and you're still here. Is that normal?"

"I don't think anything about this is normal. But that doesn't make it bad."

She sat on the edge of the bed with her back toward me and exhaled a heavy sigh, the weight of the world carried out on her breath. "I don't know what I want to do, about any of this. I don't know if I can see you again until I figure it out..."

I climbed off the bed and turned toward the door. I should leave. I should give her time to think uninfluenced by this swarming, all-encompassing, overbearing something between us. But the second I did, I knew the illusion would shatter and I would be cast back into the depths of the hellhole I'd barely started to climb out of.

"...but I don't want to say goodbye yet."

"Se anche tu vedi la stessa luna, non siamo così lontani." The bed creaked as she turned toward me, but I couldn't look back at her. I'd lose the resolve to leave if I did.

"What does it mean?"

"I'll tell you next time."