Doors locked. Books in place. Hands clean. Coffee set up. Windows shut. Windows locked. Blinds closed.
Doors locked. Books in place. Hands clean. Coffee set up. Windows shut. Windows locked. Blinds closed.
Doors locked. Books in place. Hands clean. Coffee set up. Windows shut. Windows locked. Blinds closed.
After my nightly ritual was done, I climbed into my once too small, but now too big bed and waited for sleep to take over my mind and stop the endless stream of obsessive thoughts.
Typically these were based around my compulsions and whether or not everything in it’s place, properly done, felt right, and ready for the next day. However, ever since that day they were filled with her. Was she ok? Was she safe? Was she locking her doors and making sure the lights were off? Was she leaving them on? Was she leaving them on for me to come? Was she happy?
I finally was blessed with the peaceful blanket of sleep, my only escape from my disorder that I had been able to find. Except for her, my neverending subconscious reminded me of the loss that haunted my every second, playing through my head like a scene from a movie that you just can’t shake.
When morning light broke through the thick curtains, coating me from the outside world, my mind awoke and went running off through it’s field of compulsive thoughts. Are the doors still locked? Are my keys in place? Is the coffee-to-creamer-to-sugar ratio exact? Did the way I poured the coffee feel right? And the latest thought that had creeped it’s way into my ritual,had she called?
The answer to all those questions was yes, except for how I poured my coffee (it didn’t feel right this morning) and obviously she hadn’t called. She never called. Even when she was still the thing that woke me up in the mornings and was apart of every step of my life, she didn’t call.
She was still a part of every step of my life. I just wasn’t apart of hers.
“Calling is so impersonal,” her perfect bowline curved mouth spoke. “Just go talk to the person. Why call them if you can drive to their house or to their work or wherever they are are speak to them in person?” I could listen to her speak until the sun burned out.
“What if you just need to tell someone to pick milk up from the store once they already are there?” I prompted her. I could care less about milk from the store, I just wanted to see the way her eyes squinted when she thought about her words, the way she chose every word as if she were choosing a lifelong commitment, and most importantly to hear the only thing that stopped me from my thinking about if everything around was perfectly aligned and in order, her voice.
“Go get the milk yourself,” she finally replied, a wide smile covering the face that appeared everywhere I looked. I was a lucky bastard for that.
I finally dragged my seemingly lifeless body to work, almost forgetting to open and close the front door 5 times exactly to make sure it closed and locked properly. She was distracting me. My disorder was slipping away as my thoughts became filled with missing her. She was pushing my rituals to the wayside as I became obsessively worried about her wellbeing. Even when she wasn’t beside me to let her inner sun blaze a light on my darkened soul, she still was able to expel the compulsions from my mind. I missed her. I missed her. I missed her. I wanted her. I wanted her. I wanted her. I needed her. I needed her. I needed her. Before her, my life was as perfectly timed and controlled to the second. Nothing was out of place, nothing was dirty, nothing was wrong.
Then she came in like a hurricane to my own personal island. She spread a new light around me and wrapped me in the warmth of her smile. She stopped walking while I avoided the cracks in the sidewalk. She didn’t mind that I would have to ask her the same question at least 3 times if it didn’t feel right the first time I said it. My ticks brought a gleam to her face.
“No,” she whispered in her voice that sounded like coming home. My back ignited with the warmth that happens whenever we made contact as she soothingly rubbed me. “You are a book with some tears and a scratch or two, but you are still able to be read and enjoyed and beloved. You’re a novel and I’m in love with every word that fills your ripped pages.”
That was the first time she told me she loved me in the twisted paradox of words she spoke in.
After she became tired of my story and of having to decipher the words that were in the book of my mind, she began to just say a short “love you” before scurrying out the door in the mornings.
She wouldn’t wait for me to respond 9 times to get it perfect.
