At the start of the new year I made plans to better myself, just as everyone does. Instead, I made some poor decisions that I am currently suffering the consequences of. Six, almost seven months ago, I experienced some life changes. I learned what it feels like to be truly alone. I moved from home, my friends moved from home, we all started college in different towns, I lost my best friend when a two year relationship ended, and from there everything got a little hazy. Well, a lot actually. My heart got the best of me, and all common sense went out the window as I made the drive to the place where it all started.
It was sometime during the second week of January; I don't care to remember any more details than the ones which already remain in my mind unwelcome. It was early in the morning, and my mom was asleep. It was too easy: I slipped out of the house unnoticed, and made my way out of the driveway, and down the highway. My heart thumped louder than usual, and my phone was clenched tight in my sweaty shaking hand. Taylor Swift's "The Moment I Knew" hummed in the background, my best effort to calm myself, but I remained short of breath the entire 4 minute, 1.6 mile drive.
On the left, the Emmet Brick and Block building was suddenly in sight, then one...two...three...four...five... six houses down, and there it was: A little white house connected to a small garage placed in a small yard close to the road. The next thing I knew I was slipping through the garage door and following a broken man's footsteps into the basement of what used to be the place he called home.
Following this occasion were two additional evenings spent at his friend's apartment, and since then, countless others at his house, as well as my own. Though the locations varied, the feelings exchanged each time were always the same, and the same sweaty sticky feeling we both mistook for love always remained on our skin and lingered in the air afterwards.
Even tonight, just about an hour ago actually. We follow the same routine every single time. He arrives, parks his van across the street, and enters without knocking. Work shirts pool into individual heaps of blue polyester on my bedroom floor alongside similar attire covering each of our bodies. No words are exchanged, only heavy breaths, deep groans, and the occasional whimper. Afterwards, we lay together for a few short minutes, and then he mutters the same few short words, "I should go soon," and I reply, "I'll walk you down." The door swings open, and slowly latches shut. Then the rev of an old engine is drowned out by the same sobs that emit from the inside of my burning throat.
I cry. The same sad cry of deep reoccurring pain and sorrow, accompanied by feelings of self pity, hatred, and disappointment. All the result of a problem I created for myself. It's really self inflicted pain, but there's something about feeling wanted and not alone, even if it's just for a short amount of time, that makes what we're doing seem okay enough to let it continue happening. There's something about the rush of pleasure that pulses through our bodies when fierce brown eyes meet icy blue. There's something about the tingle that makes its way from head to toe when there's nothing between our beating hearts but naked salty skin. There's something about being needed by another person, and allowing yourself to become completely vulnerable to meet their needs at your own expense. There's something about all that, which feels so damn good, but there's also something about what we're doing that hurts more than anything I've ever experienced.
And I know that, because it's almost two in the morning now, and I am feeling more empty than ever. There are a few cracks in my heart, and I've been trying my best to patch them all together for quite some time. This relationship has been the band aid that i keep trying to put on every time it falls off.
But we'll keep doing this until we can't anymore. Until our shattered hearts can't be broken into pieces any smaller. And even then, we'll still find ways to piece together our mosaic broken hearts so that they can again be shattered one last time.
xoxo
-Miranda
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