cami

Some say a year changes you a lot. I’d have agreed with that a year ago ; I guess I’ve changed. What they fail to mention is that a year, as short as it may be, isn’t the shortest timespan for one to go through a complete revamping of self. Well, revamping may be too big a word, at least for me, for my situation. Let’s say I was altered. Not by you, though. Not by our… Relationship. By me. I knew you were special, knew you were worth it. That’s why I haven’t stopped trying even if I do doubt, often, that you may think I never even started in the first place. I didn’t see you and have this big epiphany like in the movies where everything turned a little brighter, a little whiter, wind knocking the air out of my lungs, with my eyes incapable of blinking in case you’d vanish during the split second I did. I just became your friend, and you became mine, and one day I realised I liked making you laugh a little more than I did anyone else. You look super cute when you laugh ; cute nose scrunching, cute wrinkles at the corners of your eyes to contrast with the childishness of your loud Ha-ha-ha. But I digress. 

It took two months for me to decide to build myself anew. As a stronger person, one capable of bearing the crushing and terrifying weight of caring for you. It took you two more to break me.

You never meant to make me cry, I don’t think, though you looked very proud of it when you finally noticed. When I first caught on with my attraction to you, I remembered bribes of conversations I’d heard about you ; all popular and charming, but never not single. So I thought you would make me cry the most obvious way possible, the way seemingly everyone had tried to warn me about when I was still stubborn enough to maintain that you and I just had great chemistry, that it wasn’t like that. You would have used me because I would have let you, and I wouldn’t have been mad at you, only at myself for being stupid enough to think I could be one of these people who are so good at the whole “no strings attached” thing. To be fair, I’m terrible at the whole “many strings attached” thing as well.

It was terrifying to let you in so I never did. For four months, that was. Until one afternoon I started talking, because you’d asked: “Why do you always say it like that?” When I told you I cared about you. And it’s stupid, really. It’s such an ugly, anti-climactic sentence ; “I care about you,” whether or not you add some sort of “so much” or a “you know?” at the end. And I felt my heart crack, like cold glass submerged in hot water, when I looked into your eyes and realised you weren’t as amused as you tried to suggest. It’s funny now I think about it, you’re the seemingly cold-hearted motherfucker who’s actually looking for the one, and I’m everyone’s beam of sun who can’t seem to find it in me to love someone. It's probably a subconscious thing, like if I hold off on saying it, it'll make it not real. Cause I don’t mind caring, it’s what I do best. But good God do I loathe loving. 

So I told you I was afraid, was a little too honest when I said I hated feeling so strongly, that it made me angry. You asked why again, and I shrugged. It was probably the rightest time there could ever be to unpack everything, finally set myself free and fall from this tower I’ve been locking myself in for years and been building up higher and higher, so far from the ground without expecting you to ever be waiting at the bottom of it with your arms open. But now it’s so high ; so, so, so high and if I were to jump I’d hurt you so much. There’s so much height, so much velocity, so much more weight as you get closer. You can’t just do that to someone. I know about it all too well.  

It was silent for a little after that, and the weight in my chest felt way too heavy when you took my hand in yours. You weren’t supposed to try to understand. You were supposed to get pissed off, to get up from the sofa and sigh, say something like “You keep bringing this onto yourself”. You weren’t – aren’t– supposed to be nice to me. I hate it, it makes me angry. Because it makes me want to keep you close, to let you settle in the gaping hole in my chest and make a little nest for yourself there, but there is never a time when I feel I need to push you away more. It’s sad, it’s violent, my whole body rejects it. I don’t want your touch, I don’t want your love, I don’t want your sweet, sweet eyes beaming and saying I’m here, because I don’t want you here –or I do, but I can’t. At least I don’t think so. 

It was silent up until I said something along the lines of “I’m not ready.” And again, I waited for you to get up, for the feeling of your fingers holding mine to be nothing but a phantom. Waited for “When will you ever be?” For my front door to slam, or something dramatic like that. Instead, there was more silence. Then, your hand at the side of my neck, gentle, thumb on my cheek. I closed my eyes, afraid of finding yours – more precisely of yours finding mine and the pitiful chaos behind them. I almost squirmed, feeling your hair tickle my forehead before yours pressed against it. 

“It’s okay,” you said. 

And then you kissed me. So sweetly, so carefully. A mere press of your lips at the top of mine, not expecting me to kiss back, not as a way to ask me for permission to kiss me again. You just kissed me. 

“We have so much time ahead of us.” 

It was at this precise moment I figured out that maybe I didn’t need to jump from my stupid tower of ice into your arms ; maybe I needed to let you climb up a little, meet you halfway. And so I cried, because it was terrifying how easy it was but how grueling it felt. But you were there to hold me, even as you laughed at me and puffed your chest against mine and lifted your chin proudly before resting it at the top of my head, joking that you didn’t know you had such a way with words.