momebie | This is entirely autobiographical. Except for the parts that aren't.

It's two am and he’s snoring, making it impossible for her to sleep. Usually she would elbow him in the ribs or push at his shoulders until he rolled over onto his side, but tonight it doesn’t feel like the thing to do. It might be the last time she gets a chance to be kept awake by his snoring. So she lays in the half darkness and rehearses the things she wants to say to him. Eventually.

It's not that she doesn't love him—though sometimes she worries that she doesn't love him enough or in the right way—it's that she does and she doesn't know how to handle it. She doesn't know how to balance her affection for the moment with her lust for the future and she doesn't want to end up hurting him when she figures it out. Because she's ready to leave this place, so very ready, and she knows that he might never be ready for that. He's terrified she's going to leave him behind. So is she. For months, without knowing it, she's been counting down the days until she has to let him go.

Up until now, being with him has been easy. Like breathing, as people say. They've been in this relationship more than a third of their lives. They've lived together and apart. They've argued and laughed. They've had a lot of sex and none at all. None of it has taken effort until now.

She rolls onto her stomach and hugs the pillow to her chest. It's not just the warm body she's afraid of losing. She knows that there are something like seven billion people in the world and another warm body won't be that hard to find. No, what she's afraid of losing is the history. She's afraid he'll feel he's wasted all the time he's spent with her. She can't think of anything worse than being someone else's regret.

It's starting to interfere with everything.

When he comes down to see her she can't help but think of the money he'd save by not driving that four hundred miles.

When his niece addresses her as 'Aunt' she can't help but think of how she'll create a hole in many lives, not just his, when she leaves.

When they're sitting quietly across from each other at a restaurant because there's nothing else to say, she can't help but think of the arguments and the tears that pushing the subject will cause.

When he tells her he loves she hears 'stay with me'.

When she tells him she loves him she's saying 'but I can't'.

She can't be everything he needs her to be without first being herself. She can no longer be herself in this place.

There's a refrain in her mind from some song she's only heard once or twice. You love me but you don't know who I am, so let me go.... She doesn't know which one of them it applies to more.

On her side now, she's watching his shoulder move as he breathes deeply in his sleep. He's stopped snoring and is whuffling quietly and irregularly. In the dim light from the sleeping, back lit, black computer screen his hair and skin look like they've been sprayed with silver paint. The ceiling fan's whir fills in the spaces between them and she shivers against the caress, despite being warm. His room is always too warm. He's always too warm, and she loves him for it. She loves him so god damned much that sometimes she feels like she might burst. Even at this moment, when she's really nothing more than a leaking water balloon, slowly deflating as she drifts into sleep.

Their combined silence is deafening. The pressure only intensifies as they hurtle toward the outer reaches of the future. It gives her constant headaches as a reminder that she must make a choice. And love or promise, something has to give. She probably will burst. Eventually.

This entry was written for Topic 4: The Elephant In the Room at