Ugh

My room smells like you. I was FINE until you let me get my guard down. I was aching, but I kept my walls up because I knew there was no chance. I was moving past it, as I do.

But then you put your arms around me. And kissed my fucking forehead. You say it's you. But that can't be true. Because you talked to me, and you're still not interested. You opened up. Told me you weren't sure about God. We talked deeply. And then you left. Without a glance.

So what now?! Now we just go back to being friends. Better friends? Do I want to be your close friend? I don't know. I know I won't stop you. But it's going to hurt me. A lot. Because I still feel hope.

It's softer, this hurt. Because I saw it coming this time. Even as he was holding me, I was thinking of Robbie and the hurt I had to bear from my time in his arms. I don't know if this will be better or worse. Better because he and I did not go as far, worse because it felt so real. Better because he will not drop my friendship to the earth as though it means nothing, worse because I will have to keep seeing him, keep pretending that all is fine, that I just want to be friends.

It smells like you in here. I miss being in your arms. I miss things that didn't even happen. It's not a missing so much as a longing. Pain from what is not there. Who knew that emptiness could hurt more than anything else? The not-having is worse than having something undesirable. It's the hard, uncompromising emptiness that makes me pull my legs to my center and bruise myself with my own embrace. Trying to hold myself together around the big, expanding ball of empty air in my core.

What happens when the empty gets bigger? When it starts to consume me? I keep telling myself that this is the last time. That every time I get hurt by a boy is the LAST time. And every time I go back on my word. I allow myself to get pulled down under the covers so that I am blinded again by the dream of HAVING, of my empty being filled. It's such an intoxicating thought for one who has only known the nothing.

The nothing space hurts like a beating. Like a part of me has been ripped away anew every time I am re-reminded of it.

The short of it is that you hurt me after I swore to myself I would never be hurt again. And I can't even forget about it. Can't even relax into the bed and sleep. Because the room smells like you. And I can't escape it.