One day, you’ll meet a guy who can smell the want you wear on your wrists like perfume.
He’ll talk to you under the guise that he noticed you from across the bar. He’ll tell you he likes the way your hair glows despite the dim lights, the way you look up at him through your eyelashes. You’ll drink it all in, loving the way his hand feels on the small of your back, wondering what his voice sounds like in the morning.
Later, when you’re talking beneath the sheets - soft voices and softer skin - he’ll say your eyes remind him of the sun setting on an autumn day, that your lips remind him of the roses his mother used to grow in the garden when he was a child.
You crave his touch for days, weeks. You feel intoxicated every time your phone lights up with his name; you feel drained every time he pulls on his jeans and walks out the door. You try not to notice how he changes the subject when you ask what he loves, what he fears, what he feels.
A year from now, you’ll laugh when you think about how he knew how you liked when he kissed the inside of your thighs, but couldn’t name your favorite movie. How he only showed up when the sun had set and he could see your silhouette from the moon that shone through the window in your bedroom. How he wouldn’t answer for days, only to show up with a beer and an apologetic smile and a kiss to the inside of your wrist when you wandered into the bar.
He’s the one that leaves, he’s always the one that leaves and you wish every single day that you had that option but you don’t. The boy has become an addiction, has thrummed through your veins every day since you met him. Leaving isn’t a possibility, was never a possibility. You’ll smile when he tells you how his girlfriend’s laugh sounds like wind chimes, how she loves Sixteen Candles and has a funny little freckle that sits between her breasts. You hope he doesn’t notice that the glass of wine hasn’t left your lips for more than a second since the conversation has started, hope he doesn’t notice how your voice trembles when you tell him you’re happy for him.
You comply with the boys from the coffee shops, bars, libraries around town. You can see it in their eyes that your smile isn’t convincing when you laugh at their jokes, but their mouths are warm and their sheets remind you of him. You hear the whispers, you know where they’re coming from. Damaged, he says. Sad, broken, torn. You choke on the truth; the rest swallow it like water.
It’s been 236 days, 14 hours, 12 minutes and 6 seconds since you last spoke to him. You’ve stopped letting the shower run until the water is cold. Your hands are no longer jittery, your affinity for vodka has run dry. You’re not whole, but you are well on your way. The warmth has begun to spread back into your bones, and you smile often. You remember when you could count how many times your smile saw the light of day on one hand.
Your hair still glows, you’ve grown to like your eyes and your lips remind you of gerberas, because you won’t let him stuff you into a cliché. When you see him in the bar, your eyes don’t flicker with panic. You shake out your hair and the bounce in your step isn’t a masquerade, it’s genuine. When you feel the ghost of his touch on your wrist, you shake away the feeling and smile as you tell the bartender, “Whiskey, please.”
412 days, 22 hours, 16 minutes and 18 seconds since you’ve last spoke to him, and you are whole. There is a boy that loves Harry Potter, who dreams of owning a house on the beach and who is (secretly) afraid of bees. You are whole.
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