sweatpants

1/16/24

sometime on or around the 24th of may 2022, as we were just beginning to fall in love, i told you i thought we should keep things where they were, and that i didn't want to risk ruining our friendship. you knew how i'd prayed my whole life for one thing: a best friend. i'd finally got it in you, and i didn't want to risk messing that up. you reassured me, telling me that we'd always be friends at the very least. you toyed with my love for my old favorite artist, telling me that you wanted not to break my heart, but instead to give it a break. i smiled.

sometimes i wish i could go back and say no, stand my ground. say that feelings change and time passes and that times change and feelings pass. sometimes i wish i could go back and stop everything before it started. i wonder how different things would be, how different i would be, how different we would be. but you would have convinced me anyway, just like you did. or maybe i didn’t need much convincing in the first place.

i've never experienced loving someone so deeply. even before i loved you the way i love you now, i knew that i loved you in a way that i'd never loved anybody else. fierce, protective, deep. i wonder now if it was all to my detriment, but i know it doesn't matter. it's a waste of time to wonder if it was a waste of love. love that i gave to you is mine to keep, even if i can't get it back anymore. especially when i can't get it back anymore. i hold onto the love you gave me with a vice grip. similar to our half-playful tug of war for your clothes that you've since asked for back, time tries to pull it out of my closed fist but i hold on tight, nails digging into my palms. i gave you your clothes back today, including what became my favorite pair of sweatpants, folded and placed in a nice pile on your bed. i have even less of you now.

when i talk about you to people that don’t know you, i pause for a second. ex? best friend? roommate? god, are we just roommates now? can i even call you my best friend now, the way things stand? we used to talk freely and about everything, but now you watch your words. your stories eerily lack people, times, and places, every person involved all of a sudden nameless and settings nondescript. you’re careful now, so you don’t break my heart again. it’s pointless, really. all of the things i come up with in my head about your possible new lover or who you may be in bed with or if someone else is burning you a CD with a spoken word intro are worse than anything you could tell me. i drown my rumination in cheap alcohol and pretend that it’s the only reason i’m in your room, in your bed, willing you to want me again. i pretend it’s only the liquor, i pretend i don't know that you know i'm pretending, i pretend i don’t care that you don’t care. i should take up acting.

i think the silliest part of it all is just how desperately i crave your comfort and how absolutely useless it is at the same time. amongst other things, i told you how i wanted to crawl out of my skin because you’re the only one who’s ever touched it. to that, you didn’t say anything. i don’t know what i expected you to say. what could you have said? instead, you said “i’m sorry.” you told me that you still love and care about me, and that i’m your best friend. it was supposed to be reassuring, but it only made me feel worse. suddenly, the best friend title that i'd craved so deeply in my childhood was a label that was undesirable and painful to me as an adult. you wrapped your arms around me as i cried. it was a nice gesture, but useless. the kind of love necessary to heal my heart no longer existed.

somehow i’m supposed to see you as a friend when i can still feel your fingerprints on my bones. i hate how much that means to me, how special it is for me to have been touched by the one i love, by you, because it’s really not that special at all. i’m one of many. still, you are the first and only one thus far. i take no pride in being unable to give myself freely; i wish i could be more like you. i wish i could move on too, unharmed and unaffected, maybe or maybe not keeping somebody else’s bed warm. instead, i’m freezing. i wonder what the temperature is like in the future. in the past that i can’t seem to leave, i'm the coldest i've ever been. i half-tease you about taking someone to bed in hopes you'll confirm or deny as my stomach ties itself in a knot. i know every time that the there's a fifty-fifty chance of your response destroying me all over again, but it gives me some semblance of control. at least this time i can break my own heart.

i’ve always felt my feelings more than i could express them, a trait that was definitely a factor in the end. i still can’t put into words everything i feel for and about you, if you ever wanted to know or cared to ask. maybe one day, i’ll learn to stop my heart from swelling up into my throat, blocking any and all words. it’ll still be too late, but i’ll be better for it. maybe one day i’ll wake up and realize i forgot your phone number, or the way your parents’ house smells. maybe one day i’ll wake up and all the heartache will be nothing but a blip in the timeline, and i’ll invite you over (to a living space we no longer share) for drinks, and i can laugh about the way i cried until six in the morning, as if it's nothing more than a silly childhood story. maybe one day my forgiveness will be genuine and warm and there will be no space in my body to hold pain and sadness and resentment and i will be where you are now. of course, this is the best case scenario. you believe we'll be fine eventually. of course you do. i borrow your optimism anyway.

you know me as well as i know myself, sometimes better. you could answer every question about me if asked by a stranger, and i you. you know my brother. i know your sisters. we met after school when i was thirteen and you were fifteen and we bonded at the bus stop. i’ve seen you at your worst. you’ve seen me at mine. you made me go to the hospital. you were the only person aside from my parents to call me while i was there. nobody’s ever hugged me as tightly as you did the night that i came home. we’ve always been far from perfect together, friends or otherwise, but i would’ve done anything for you. i would still do anything for you. every day we need each other less than the teenagers we met each other as, but i would still do anything for you.

you were my best friend.

i would have preferred anyone else in the world to have broken my heart.

anyway, i fed the cats already. oh, and we’re out of bagels.