Leaving people is easy, at least that’s the way I’ve always found it. It’s the staying that’s hard, the learning to live alongside someone, all their idiosyncrasies piling up next to yours and blocking all the doors. You begin to feel like a hoarder, who knew this fight would be resurrected seven times, but there it was—always balancing precariously on top of the fridge. Who knew that the things that came so easily would be what puts your teeth on edge. You couldn’t know. No one could.
After awhile you can read him like a book. And you’ll keep reading through the rough patches—the parts where the plot seems to go nowhere, where character development is thin—just to see what happens next… find out how it ends.
Love is this slimy thing that you get used to. A stickiness so comfortable it becomes ingrained, something embarrassing that you exude and can’t control. A bodily function. You start to sweat love.
Especially on nights like this when the humidity marries the air to your skin and nothing you say manages to come out right, and nothing you do has the intended effect. You sweat love like the bottle you keep drinking from long after he goes to bed.
Each drop of condensation a promise.
Each swallow a hope.
Tomorrow I will be better.
———-
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I loved this so much, I posted it on my tumblr. As a girl whose instinct is to flee, I very much appreciate the sentiment of learning how to stay.
Love this.