Dysphoria

04

This is how you fall in love.
He looks at you sideways from across the table and you feel something in your stomach that doesn't make you want to cry. He laughs too hard at your jokes and you laugh too hard at his. He learns sign language so you will look at him and you have a real smile when you do.
It is one o'clock in the morning when he looks you in the eyes and asks you for something more than friendship and a saved seat in math lecture. You look at him straight on and wonder if he will ever give you bruises. Your heart is beating so loud you do not hear your brain telling you yes.
The weeks after are a whirlwind and for the first time in your life you feel like happy could be more than an idea. He takes you to a bench in the psychology garden for your first kiss and think about how nice it is to have a place. To have somewhere you belong. He tells you all his secrets and you find yourself sharing yours. He was bullied in the seventh grade and is worried about disappointing his parents. You never thought yourself special and you are worried abut disappointing yourself. He tells you he trusts you and you think you trust him too. Things are good.
Relationships are hard. There is a brunette in your friend group that you are afraid of. He laughs with her and you think about how girls like her get guys like him. But he kisses you and tells you he has never been so sure about anyone. He has never been more sure of anyone. He is sure about you. You let yourself believe. You let yourself believe he is telling you the truth.
Thursday afternoons are spent tangled in your bedsheets and between laughter and collarbone kisses, you congratulate yourself because you finally have this. You are finally happy. Saturday nights are spent with you wrapped up in his arms and you wake up in the morning, and he is still there. He whispers that it's nice waking up with someone next to you. He says it's nice not to be alone and you think so too. He holds you for hours and says he needs to leave but doesn't.
The weeks fly by and you can't remember a time when you are not smiling. He helps your room mate with her physics homework and your suitemates smile when they comment on what a good guy he is. You smile proudly and think about how lucky you are. It is late at night when you tell him this. He looks at the ceiling and he rubs your shoulder while holding you close to his chest. His voice gets quiet as he says how afraid he is of you leaving him. He tells you you are everything he has ever needed and he is worried that one day you will wake up and know he is not enough. You shake your head in disbelief and press your lips to his. You tell him he is everything. He smiles, and for a moment, you are both silent. For the first time, it's comfortable instead of awkward. You both lie there and you think this is it. This is trust. This is honesty. This is falling in love.
When your friend tells you he is so empty he wants to disappear, you turn to his arms for comfort and he holds you but turns his face away. You apologize for being a burden and he tells you you are never going to be. He tells you he wants you to open up to him. He wants you to confide in him, he wants you to trust him. And you think yourself lucky and you promise him you will. You do.
And then it happens.
You are falling in love when it happens.
You are starting to trust when it happens.
But then, you always are.
You don't know when it happens or even what it is, all you is one minute he is standing with you, saying you are everything and stealing kisses in the stairwell, and the next, he is screaming at you in front of your suite mates, and telling you he felt nothing.
He is saying you meant nothing
He is calling this a mistake
He is calling you a mistake.
And all you can think is that you are broken
All you can feel is that you are shattered
And you always will be.
He is trying to explain himself to make himself feel better and all you know is you don't know anything.
All you can say is you never knew him at all
You feel like you are watching someone shatter because there is no way that the boy who held you in the psychology garden is the same one that is destroying your heart and not even blinking.
He is speaking but you cannot hear him
The sound of your heart breaking is too loud.
You are stuttering and sobbing but you do not care. He has seen you at your best and now he has seen you at your worst.
He pauses a moment and lets you catch your breath. It is the last time he ever does.
When you are finally quiet again, his voice takes a kind of calm you dont recognize and he reminds you of the promise you made to him all those weeks ago. He reminds you that you swore that if he ever left, you would be fine. You do not look at him.
Your mind is racing a mile a minute as you realize that he expects you to keep your promise even if he is not keeping any of his.
You feel yourself shaking and you can't think straight. He is sitting up straight and asking if you are okay, he is looking for a sign that everything he is doing is okay but you know (and you hope he knows) it's not.
And then you aren't there
You are eight weeks ago in a psychology garden and he is saying he is so nervous his hands are shaking
You are seven weeks ago in a dorm room on a bed with white sheets and he is telling you things he's never said out loud
You are five weeks ago stealing kisses in stairwells and study lounges
You are four weeks ago writing notes he carries close to his heart
You are three weeks ago, agreeing to trust him
You are 24 hours ago, sharing secrets over Starbucks and falling in love.
And then you are right here and you are thinking of all the moments you are never going to forget and your hands and body and soul cannot keep still.
He reaches out to touch you and all you know is that you don't know him.
You back away quickly and try not to think about the hurt look in his eyes. You try to remember you don't know him.
The void in your chest widens as you say that you think he should go. You move quickly back into your dorm room and collapse into your room mate's arms. You release a sound you have never heard yourself make before and as your body is wracked by your sobbing, you know what it is.
It is the sound of you falling apart.
This is how you fall apart.
You give someone the opportunity to fill the void in your chest and they choose to make it bigger instead.
You walk around campus and cant find a place you were not together.
You feel your heart closing up again and you hate it.
You laugh more but mean it less and thrive on the looks the gives you in math lecture.
Every time he speaks, your heart is ripped out of your chest again
This is falling apart
Believing you had a shot at happy and finding out it was just a shot.
This is falling apart.
Expecting different and getting more of the same.