I don’t know what pushed me to say those words.

               The beer in my hand? Your unabashed offer to take me to your apartment? That look in your eyes? That little laugh? That smile? There’s too many and too little things that could be signs. Am I reading this right? Am I imagining things?

               I want you so bad and that scares me.

I had thought that my feelings for Yann had been strong, all consuming. I did ruin his relationship, didn’t I? Played the master puppeteer, tugging the strings to lead the characters in the story. But in the end, I was the puppet. A puppet to my own feelings. My own loneliness. I was ambitious, thinking Yann would fall in my arms once Emma was out of the picture.

               But I was stupid. Naïve. And I lost one of my best friends. And sometimes, I feel like I’m slowly losing Yann too. All of it my own doing.

               But then you came along.

               I had slowly realized that I never really did want Yann like that, didn’t love him the way I had thought. Your sudden entrance in my life only made it clearer.

               You scare me. You scare me because I’m standing at edge. Looking right at the bottom, and I know I’ll take that step. I’ll take that step and I don’t know if you’ll be down there to catch me. Or I’m going to be consumed by the waves and dragged under.

               And yet I still said them. I stared at your drawing. The little raccoon sitting there alone in that expanse of white, scared, lonely, and I could just see his limbs shaking as it stared at whoever trapped him in that corner.

I’m getting better at drawing myself.

               You’re braver than me. Offering that tidbit of yourself without me asking for it. You’re showing yourself to me. Shedding a bit of that mask.

               And I take that step, because you took it first.