Yours Truly ❁ n.k.h

• chapter five •

Most days I can hold it together - today was not one of them.

I walked into Judgment Day Ink surely like I've seen better days. Though to be fair, the past week hasn't been my best.

My hair is dry, I've been wearing the same clothes for days, I have cuts everywhere, and my mental fucking sucks. I can't do anything without nearly launching into a fit of anxiety.

I tried to ignore the texts from Dinah, I did. But she hit me where it hurt, the one person I didn't want to be dragged into all of this.

Angel was the only person who mattered to me more than Dinah. Having to leave her behind left me cynical. Numb.

Some moments I can forget, almost like if I live in my head long enough, I never left. I could still see her. I could still hold her. I could feel the warmth her smile gave me. The way every time she spoke to me it made me feel like the sun was choosing me to shine on again and again, and was burning through me. A burn that didn't scar.

A love that didn't hurt.

I look back now and think that maybe I've never known a love that doesn't hurt. A love that doesn't strip you to your core and expose you to the world. Because when you love, you can't hide. No matter how dishonest you think you're being, someone sees you. And to be seen, the act of truly being seen, my mom has always said is the greatest act of bravery.

It was the second best advice to my best friend, Xochitl, who believed that love felt like the definition of insanity. Like you were pushed together with all of these people by the universe just to do the same thing over and over again in hopes of different results. To kiss them, love them, fuck them. To uphold routines you used to love with the last and a new one that you'll grow to adore. To hope that this next person you tell it all to won't be the one that leaves, even if you know it's likely. Even if you know you're too fucked up to love.

Even after eight years with Dinah, I know for a fact I'm too fucked up to love. A love like that stays out of obligation. It stays because the separation hurts too much, to live in a world where the person you were tethered to was no longer by your side just doesn't feel real. So you do everything you can to not create that reality. You leave the lights on to sleep because they don't like the dark, even if you'd prefer sleeping with no light. You don't bring up the subjects that you really want to talk about or at least address because every time you do, it doesn't end well. You tell yourself every argument, every stance you don't see eye to eye, and every night that you go to sleep angry is worth it. Just for that one moment of happiness. Just to hold onto that feeling of waking up the next day and having someone choose to be there, no matter what they're doing it for, be it obligation or true genuine love.

But loving someone like Dinah wasn't hard. Love is many things. It's miserable and life changing and inescapable, but with the right person, it doesn't feel hard.

I remember looking into her eyes and not knowing what that feeling meant. The one where the dust settles and tunnel vision finds you, and all you see is them. That feeling of woah.

A lot of people like to call it love at first sight, but I don't believe in that.

I've never loved someone that I didn't know first.

But I found her so... pretty. I was drawn to her. And even though she didn't have anything but grown out oily brown roots, a pair of glasses with a scrape on the left lens, and a really standoffish disposition, I could point her out in any room.