Music: Voltage - Skrillex
I've always thought it would be the same.
I'm not going to lie but to certain extents, a handful of decisions I've made this semester revolved around Brian. I was determined, adamant, on getting him back. Half the time, I was convinced I could.
I can't count the number of nights I've fallen asleep with heavy thoughts of him. The way he makes his way into my sleep, the only time I can shut myself up from reality only to face something darker than it.
And there he was finally. Two days shy of the end of the semester and by some divine intervention, he was right there. Right next to me.
It was like being transported back in time. We took shots of tequila, watched funny YouTube videos, made up ridiculous conversations and fell asleep together, with each other. It legitimately felt like nothing's changed. Like how everything used to be. It felt like safe familiarity. Like things always have been.
Except for it's not.
It's not the same. Everything's the same and not at the same time. He had his white hat but also a new pair of pants I had never seen him in. He had an iPhone now, not his Droid. He had on some pink Polo shirt and not the casual hoodie that I loved seeing him in.
We were there but we weren't the same. There were apprehensions, unanswered questions looming all around us, and like red flags they wave in our faces but we chose to ignore it. It wasn't easy or comfortable or natural for that matter. It was an attempt at all of the above but I knew that it would just be a failure the minute I agreed to the plan. Playing pretend seemed easier at the time.
And somehow, somewhere, something inside me died the day he turned his back on me. I've been trying to figure out what it was that I lost. Was it a piece of me that he'd taken with him? Or was it just the love that was never reciprocated in the first place?
I woke up to the sounds of his breathing. The shape of his back that I'd memorized to a point where I know exactly where his waist forms and dips. I know the exact spot where he injured his spine playing sports in high school.
I took a couple of minutes for myself and stared at the ceiling and blinked my eyes to make sure I wasn't dreaming. It's funny how something that was once so real and concrete to me, I now have to reassure myself that it's actually there. The space he needed from me made him a complete stranger.
He shifted positions and I half expected him to wrap his arms around me, out of habit. Instead he crossed them across his chest and that sinking disappointing feeling hit me. That's when I knew we were done playing pretend. Truth is, it wasn't the same because he doesn't look at me like he used to. He doesn't press light kisses against my head anymore. He didn't have his arms wide open for me to fit snugly into when I crawled into bed.
He doesn't love me anymore and I am oddly okay with that.
I was so busy trying to sort myself and my feelings out the past couple of months that I refused to even consider the fact that maybe I don't love him anymore either. I didn't want to believe that love, a bond that's shared so strongly between two people, can merely dissipate.
But it can. For some people, they wake up one morning and realize he or she wasn't in their dreams last night. For others, they see the person across the room from them and it raises no conflicting emotions.
For me, I fell asleep believing I was still in love but woke up realizing I was not.
