D E S I R E

|| N a t a s h a R o m a n o f f ||

"We're going out today," I said to you.

I know you hate when I make decisions like this. You absolutely hate them. Though, you would never say that to my face. You would always pretend that these ideas were the best, going out and trying, trying so hard to be normal.

When we just weren't. You weren't.

But I guess love makes people do things they're not comfortable with, or don't want to do in general.

Yet I pushed you, and pushed, and pushed. I just wanted us to be normal.

I wanted to go on dates with you like normal people instead of in secret, and I wanted kiss you anywhere outside our bedroom or our apartment. I just wanted to show off my girlfriend and you just wanted to lie low. No, you wanted to hide.

Maybe that's why you couldn't take it anymore, because that day ended up being a disaster as well. Like all the others previously.

It was no surprise that we fought more than we kissed. It was no surprise that every time I touched you, you slowly recoiled. You were falling out of love with me.

Slowly, every time you leaned in to whisper in my ear, I pulled away, and the times you walked into a room, I started to pretend you weren't there. I was falling out of love with you Natasha.

It was awful, when we finally sat down and talked it out. Neither of us cried because, we didn't care anymore, what we once were, was over now. You were falling for someone else, and so was I. You were falling for someone more like you, and I was falling for someone more normal.

I said to you, "I'll always love you, Natasha," not sure if I meant it, but saying it, in the lull of silence felt right.

I remember that you smiled sadly, and gripped my hands, "Don't say that," you whispered, because you knew me better than I knew myself. You knew I wasn't sure about what I said.

You brought my hands up to your lips and kissed my knuckles, a habit of yours. One that used to give me butterflies, but now I felt rocks settling in my stomach.

"You and I," you began, "were doomed from the start, don't you agree?"

I hated it when you did that. You always said things would have never worked out in the first place about everything that goes wrong. You didn't believe that, because back then, when I looked into your eyes, you thought nothing could go wrong about this. You just had to feel like you knew. Like you were right.

"No," I said, because I disagreed.

You frowned, you knew by my tone that this was going to lead into another fight. You didn't want to. I didn't either, but I was angry, I was angry at the fact that you said the years we spent together, was all for nothing. The love I once felt for you was wasted. No, you were wrong and I know you were.

I ripped my hands from yours and stood from my seat, while you sighed and combed your fingers through your hair.

"I think I should go," you said.

I didn't say anything.

You stood from the couch in my apartment. That used to be ours until you took all your things and put it at his place.

You waited beside the couch, staring at the sewn fabric. The same couch I used to pour my desire into you.

I think you though of that too.

You ran your fingers over the seams, then quickly moved it away. "You need a new couch," you said, "this one is old," was your excuse.

"Her and I plan to get a new one," I said, not saying her name for reasons I don't know. To spare you maybe?

You glanced at me, little emotion behind your eyes. The more I looked at you Natasha, I knew you weren't upset I mentioned her, like I wasn't upset you started living with him.

You were happy I moved on. I think I was happy you did as well.

We stared at each other, the last box of your things sitting beside the last box of her things she hadn't gotten around to unpacking. Your name on yours, while she wrote on her box, in harsh scribbles, bathroom supplies.

I liked that she wrote simple things like that. You were always complex, Natasha, I think I got tired of trying to solve you. I got tired of trying to figure out what was inside.

You finally turned away from me and reached down to pick up your things, while I went for the door. As I grabbed the doorknob, I turned to see you shifting around inside the box.

I made sure to grab everything, and you knew I would, so I wondered what you were searching for.

You did it for a while, and I realized that you were stalling.

You wanted to say something to me, something that would at least leave us to be friends.

I didn't want that. The box was you, Natasha, everything that you were and ever would become to me was in that box, and I was getting rid of it. Even silly things like wine glasses carefully wrapped up in bubble-wrap just because you bought them. Even the living room rug because you used to walk on it barefoot. It was going to be hard getting rid of all of you, but I had to, and whatever you were going to say at this point, would only cause me to come crawling back to you. I can't do that.

I reached over and brushed my fingers over your wrist, forcing you to look up at me.

"You have to leave," I said.

Your gorgeous eyes searched my face before your brows knitted together, "I don't want you to hate me, I still want us to be friends."

I shook my head as I slowly pulled you to stand out of my apartment, out of my life.

"Natasha, I'm angry with you, I don't hate you. But we can't be friends, I can't start over."

"It wouldn't be like starting over, would it?"

It was then I realized, maybe you don't know me as well as I thought you did. Because you always thought you were right, and I was wrong. Even when I knew I was right. I was about this. If you left anything, I'd still have something to hold onto you with. Being friends, would mean starting over from where we began.

Maybe I did still love you.

Maybe you still did too.

"Yes," I said. "It would."

From that moment on, I never saw or heard from you, Natasha, and thankfully, I found myself being free from you. I think you understood why we couldn't be friends, why it had to end like this, and go back to being strangers and stay strangers.

If we had stayed friends, we would be doomed to repeat. We are worse than star-crossed lovers, we're forever doomed not to be and not to try.