GAGE

51// n o t r i g h t n o w

He's right beneath me.

My ground is his ceiling. Literally.

And I'm up here saying that I miss him.

I'm pathetic.

But I'm tired. Not just sleepy, but mentally and physically exhausted of everything else. I don't know how many times we're going to play this game over and fucking over again. Somehow I just always end back up here.

It hurts and I'm over it.

Most of it is my fault. Why am I like this...

Look at me, he brought me here to talk and I'm up here.

I wonder if he feels like this... If he misses me like I miss him.

Maybe.

I just wish that everything was the way it was, you know? Not like it was perfect or anything, but sure as hell a lot better than it is now.

It never was perfect. My life was never perfect. Something always has to go wrong which is why I don't put myself in these types of situations to get hurt and then end up like this, like I am now.

Hurt, sad, confused.

I just want to go back to when he'd call me baby, or when he'd kiss my forehead and pull me into his chest for a while after he'd been gone.

I remember when I first realized I loved him. I think I always knew, but I just didn't really come to that conclusion yet.

I was sitting in his lap, on his bed and my legs were by his sides. He gazed at me with a straight face and the only emotion I could detect was in his eyes.

His eyes were light and his pupils were larger than usual. The tiny glimpse of adolescence left in him was in his eyes right in that moment.

The corners of his ruby lips were turned downward so I leaned in and pressed a kiss into either side.

I could see a small smile forming which only made me smile.

I couldn't help but giggle when he rolled his eyes and tried to look away from me, but I took his face in my hand and turned it toward me.

His face flushed for the first time that I had seen and his smile was larger than before. I then planted a kiss on my favorite part of his cheek— the squishiest part— which he knew was my favorite place to kiss.

When I had pulled back, his tongue was between his teeth as he grinned and tried to push me away from him because I was laughing at him.

I also liked kissing his eye—weird, I know—but everytime I'd do it he'd scrunch up his face and act like he hated it which I knew wasn't the case.

At that moment I knew that what I was feeling was something special and something that should be celebrated, not pushed away or ignored.

Love should be embraced, and I didn't get the chance to do that or experience it the way I should've.

I wish I did.

But that was then.

The first time he said I love you was not how it should've been. I had imagined it being one of the times we were laying on his bed, his head on my bare chest, and my fingers in his hair.