I met him on the brim of my first semester of university. I looked at him from afar as he approached me in that music hall, rose-tinted glasses shielding his eyes and bleached hair hiding dark roots. He greeted me nervously, shifted on his feet, his voice an awkward murmur in the crowd of music students shooting glances in our direction. His eyes were the warmest shade of brown. I tried not to be creepy but ended up drowning in them anyway.
We went out to eat. He bored me with small talk, and I embarrassed him with my youthful exuberance and lack of verbal filter. We had the most insignificant of age gaps at 5 years, but it loomed overhead as an approaching storm front we were too blind to apprehend. I radiated desperation and thirst and he possessed the water to fill me.
The apartment had a cozy level of filth to it that I found reassuring and alarming at the same time, clothes on the floor and a bong cast aside on a bookshelf of music. We took to one side of the stained couch and stared at each other before our bodies clashed and his tongue made its way down my throat.
We didn’t speak as I stripped him down and traveled down his trail of stomach hair with shaking fingers. We didn’t have sex, but after he dropped me off at my class, it was the only thing I wanted. I sniffed the musk on my fingers for an hour, getting high off the sweat and fantasizing until the smell faded and my mind cleared.
The next day came and brought more of him with it. We walked in the door and immediately changed into our birthday suits on his tiny, twin bed. We still didn’t have sex. I became obsessive, barraging his phone with messages and over analyzing every detail, every shroud of doubt I had about his loyalty to me. After three days, I had melted into a puddle of desperation with my body open and mouth agape for him. He spun me around his fingers and avoided all mention of romance as if the topic of love was more taboo than that of sex.
When I finally loosened myself up, when he caressed me in the darkness of his room, I fell into him. Waves of it pulsed in me, feeling safe in the arms of this man who cared little for my feelings and too much for the pressure he was applying between my hips.
I snuck off with him and felt dangerous lying to my mother. Months went by, and I showered him with gifts. My wallet ached and my stomach felt empty with confusion and vague answers. I brought up the possibility of a relationship for several months before he succumbed. He never told me he loved me, instead retreating within himself, a turtle receding into its hard shell, only to be beckoned out with food.
My obsession with him stole most of my focus. My friends worried for me, my mother worried for me, but he did not. He took me into his mouth and chewed as slowly as he could, making sure all my bones were broken and my blood was drained. We fought. He pulled away. After a week of being his boyfriend, I was asked to give him space. I was asked to leave him alone. I never asked anything of him. I called his phone after two weeks of radio silence and left my resignation from his life in the form of a recorded message.
