#the further

He’s momentarily struck silent as I climb off of him, coming to rest a few feet away, folding my leg up between us as I turn wearily to face him.

“I don’t buy it,” he says finally. “It can’t possibly have been that many.”

“That’s the thing, it’s not. It’s not about how many. I was a disaster, I was wasted, I was barely even present. I don’t know, I can’t piece it together. It’s all just a blur. The best I’ve ever been able to do is guess.”

“Go ahead then, guess.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t fucking want to. Just drop it.”

He moves closer, his thigh brushing against my shin as he takes my hand in his, kisses the back of it.

“I just want to know you,” he murmurs, turning it over to kiss the palm.

“Bullshit. You’re rubbernecking, you’re digging for dirt.”

“I’m not,” he says, tugging at me, trying to cajole me back onto his lap but I won’t budge. “It matters to me. Where you’ve been, what’s happened to you. I won’t judge you, or think less of you. I swear to you, I won’t.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I sigh, pulling my hand away. “Sensitive Concerned Guy stopped working on me years ago, sorry to say. Just drop it.”

“Why do you get so angry with me when I try to show you I care about you, huh? Why do you always think I’m trying to work you over? I’ve never given you any reason to and you know it.”

“Everyone works everyone over. Constantly.”

“Not me. Not now, here, with you,” he says, his sincerity disarming me such that my hand hangs limply in his when he takes hold of it again. He starts playing with my fingers, wiggling them, working their joints like puppetry.

My eyes gloss over as I struggle not to cry, hating him for the way he keeps wearing down my defenses in the gentlest of ways, makes me think of an archaeologist with his brush, delicately dusting the crevices of ancient bone that he might know its true shape, that it might be exposed without bearing the marks of his excavation.

“What did they do to you, huh? What’s got you so scared?” he asks softly as tears spill over to trickle down my cheeks, tickling me there.

I shake my head no, pull my hand away, don’t say anything.

“I don’t get you, I really don’t. I want to, but I don’t. You’ll tell your deepest secrets and fears and desires to a sea of total strangers, yet you’re scared to tell me how many men you’ve slept with? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Nothing about me makes sense, it never has.”

He reaches out, his hand falling on the crown of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair as he strokes it, pushing it back over my shoulder to expose my neck when he’s done. He traces the line of my jaw, lays his fingertips on my lips, teasing the space between them.

“You know,” he starts, letting his hand fall to take hold of mine again, “your love of hyperbole serves you well when you write, but it damages you outside of it. You see everything in absolutes, everything is polar, everything is ‘never’ or ‘always’ and it’s not accurate, not at all. You’re not broken and you’re not some unknowable, nonsensical oddity. You’re just… traumatized, and terrified, and way too fucking hard on yourself.”

“Yeah, well,” I sigh, staring at his wide, rough fingers plying mine, the mere sight of them sending a thrill through me, makes me long to rewind, to intuit this turn before he took it, stuffing the words back down his throat with the skilled undulations of my tongue in his mouth.

“All I want is to know you better. That’s it, that’s all, I swear to you. So much of what I know about you comes from things you say to everyone, anyone, total strangers. I don’t just want to know you like that, I want to know you better than that. I want to know you differently than that.”

“You know I’m just gonna turn around and write about this too, so what’s the difference?”

“That’s a total strawman and you know it. I don’t care if you write about this. Knock yourself out. It has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.”

I stand up on my knees and straddle him swiftly, spreading my legs wide, pressing my crotch into his. I try to kiss him but he resists, says, “I can understand why this would be your next gambit, but it’s not happening. If you’re not gonna talk to me, then, well… I can’t do anything about that. But this? This is not gonna work.”

I groan in frustration, climb back off of him, though he tries to hold onto me, to submerge me beneath his crushing sincerity.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” I say, standing and grabbing my bag, upending it angrily at my feet when I can’t find my keys quickly enough, sending a flurry of notebooks, pens, lighters, lipsticks, God knows what else clattering to the carpet.

I crouch down, paw my keys from the pile, start to hastily shove my shit back in my bag. He stands over me, his shadow casting me into a deeper darkness in this dimly lit room, says, “You don’t have to leave, for Christ’s sake. It’s fine, I’ll let it go. Stay.”

I fight with a stubborn pair of earbuds tangled with tissues, yanking them aggressively from the strap of my bag, ignoring him.

“Please. Don’t run away.”

And the truth is, I want more than anything to stay, want more than anything to be seen in the clear, true way he says he wants to see me, but I’m too scared to trust it, too raw to bear the exposure. Running is easy. Hurts, sure, but it’s easy, it’s something I know how to do, seems the safer pain to endure.

So I stand up, run my hands roughly through my hair and give him an impassive glance, all vulnerability neatly stashed away behind my eyes as I cross my arms protectively. I look down at my breasts, cleavage rising up, spilling sumptuous over the shelf I’ve made beneath them. I make a subtle adjustment so they jiggle a little, give him a look like, ‘Last chance,’ but he doesn’t go for it, chooses instead to wrap me up in a hug, sighing into my hair.

“You make me so sad sometimes,” he murmurs into my ear.

I keep my arms folded up in between us, sigh my own beleaguered sigh, only allowing myself to fall into this feeling of safety and sweetness for a moment before pulling away.