One, Two, Three

Nineteen

Today is my birthday, and I am nineteen. I made it through all these years, most of them occupied by thoughts of wanting to die.
I made it through fifteen, when I was pressured into sex for the first time, with a boy who disappeared for ten months after I let him touch me to shut him up. He messaged me those ten months later on Facebook, telling me he missed me.

I told him off.

I made it through my first love, and my first heartbreak, where everything seemed so painful and real. Breathing felt like my lungs had turned to broken glass, my throat in shreds from crying. But everyday got better and eventually I learned to breathe as easy as the wind blew.

And then I met you.
Or rather, I met you again- in the summer of my eighteenth year. We joined a mutual friend of ours on an outing and were glad to see each other after so many months apart. We met again later, just the two of us, and I showed you churros for the first time. In the evening we ate paletas, then talked in your car.

And then, you kissed me.
It had been two years since anyone had ever wanted to kiss me, at least that I know of, and your lips were so smooth and gentle. You kissed my neck, and my ear, and my lips over and over. I thought maybe we would date.
We ended up as friends with benefits.
At first, I had no problems with it. You didn't scare me like the other men in my life did, and you listened when I spoke up. I kept telling myself that having something like this was just as natural as wanting to date.
It was only when you told me you were..."taking care" of another that it started to change.
It was through a phone call that you told me, and you seemed so proud.

I felt disgusted. Did you only see us as bodies to be satisfied?
I told you later that I couldnt continue  doing what we were doing, but didnt tell you why: I felt that you were using me.
You told me later, without my confessing this, that you didn't want me to feel that you had used me. When I asked what else it could be, you said you just wanted me to feel better.

Through sex? What the hell else was I supposed to feel? Anything beyond a committed relationship is use, that's what I was taught. And I believe it to this day. I dont look down on those who do it, but I can't. I can't be apart of it.
You, though...you could.

After I called things of the first time, you respected me and wanted to go back to friends. You told me you didn't want to stop talking because of what had happened between us.
But back then, and even now, I dont know how to be friends with someone I've been so intimate with.
I don't know how to be friends with a person I slept with, or kissed, or held so close to my chest I could feel their heart beating on my own.

I don't know how to do that.

A childhood friend of mine saw from a mile away that this had to end, or it would be bad. But I didnt listen.
I want so badly to be with you.

When we met again as friends, the chemistry was still there. So we picked up what we put down and went from there. You wanted to date, but I wasnt ready; you're kindness scared me. It scared me so badly that i had second thoughts and stopped it a second time before, and right then I knew I was using you to feel cared for. You took me for evening drives, and let me cry on your shoulder. You held my hand, kissed my face, and wrapped your arms around me whenever I cried. You held my ha D and kissed it while you drove like I was yours, and you teased me like it was only something you would do
You hugged me from behind and pulled me in from the front. You taught me about cars and music and called me every work break you had.

You pushed the hair out of my face so gently it felt like you loved me.
But you didn't. You never did.
I was just a girl to you, and while blue bird tells me that's not true, that you really cared for me and still do, it feels like a lie.
Because if you cared so much, why would you keep letting me give so much while knowing I wanted to be yours?
You told me it was because you didnt want a commitment, that your life still needed some sorting out. And I understand how important that is, but...why couldnt you just tell me earlier so I would know to just stop?

If you can't decide or are unsure of commitment, then let go. It's not worth the pain or the guilt of realizing nothing will change.

Today I ended it. I called you on my cell at midnight, in tears and in pain. Isaid that I couldn't do this anymore.
You asked if I was sure, and it filled me with so much hope that something might change that I though you would fight for...whatever it was we had. That you would fight for me.
But there was nothing to ever fight for, was there?

Tomorrow, I will end all of it. What we were, and the possibility of what we might have. Of what we might have become. After all what's the point? I don't know how to go back to something platonic after letting you in so deep it was like you became apart of me.

I'm not sure if there's anything for us to even go back to: and that terrifies me to the point of stolen breath.
I don't want to lose you; I don't want you to be apart of my painful history of men. But where else do I put you?
Where else would you go? I don't want to let go of you, I'm too scared of what will happen when I do.

I don't want you to disappear.