Lost
By: Lizzie Bundick
There are times when the moon hits her just right, and she looks like a ghost. A vision that makes me shiver and gasp. I don’t move, all my attention focused on her because I’m so sure that if I blink or move she’ll vanish like a real ghost. I am grateful she’s such a deep sleeper, because I’d have to think of an excuse for watching her sleep. When she’s asleep I don’t have to worry about anything, because in those moments, she’s herself. Her face is lax, and she lets that mask fall away. She smiles often during the day, but there’s always a sarcastic tilt to it and her eyes are distant from everyone. She’s cynical, sarcastic and crass, during the day, because the world would crush her if she were anything else. But I’ve seen something else in her, because I get to see her when she’s asleep and when she’s not hiding anymore. She has this soft center of kindness and caring that she doesn’t want anyone to know about. I love her sarcasm as much as I love her heart. I wish she would show it more often, it gives me a reason to take care of her and protect her. When she’s being sarcastic there’s no reason for me to be around because she can take care of herself. I don’t want her to take care of herself, damn it, I want her to come to me. She does, actually, when she needs someone to scratch her itch. I wonder sometimes, the morning after we’ve had sex, when she’s left and hate myself for it. Does she go to anyone else? Is there another who hears her moan, whimper and beg? If there is I want him dead, but that would mean I’ve staked a claim. I can’t stake a claim to her, she’s too free. I treasure that she will share her dreams with me, dreams I know she doesn’t share with anyone else but it’s those dreams that make it impossible for me to keep her. How can you chain something that obviously needs its freedom? If I kept her, I know she’d go mad within the life I live. The social parties, all the fancy get togethers and politics. In the end she’d hate them, and hate me. If she walked away for forever I’d go mad. Maybe I’m just delaying the inevitable because I think I’m going mad as it is. I’m afraid of life with her, she’s just so different from what I want, what I thought I wanted. I had this image of a pretty little woman, who’d smile all the time and look perfect in the perfect little world I’ve encased myself in. Except I go to those parties with women like that and all the while I’m hearing her sarcastic comments about the people there. She’d take on the biggest ego in the room and pop a hole in it, unlike the woman who would be hanging on my arm. She’d be too worried about how the guest would think about her, and how she’d make me look. I don’t care about how I look to them anymore, I just want to toss that fake woman off my arm and bring her in, she’s real. So real it scares me. She knows the darkest secrets of the world and often comes to me when it gets to be too much for her. I need her to hold on to me as much as I hold on to her. Yeah, I’m mad as hell about her. I am pulled from my thoughts as the doorbell rings. I wasn’t expecting anyone tonight and my heart does a funny tumble as I see her smile in my mind. She always smiles when I open the door to her. Her eyes are always bright with desire and need. I wish I could turn her away, offer an ultimatum and say either stay forever or never come back, but those words never make it past my throat. I need her to come to me, need her to need me as much as I need her. I walk out of the kitchen, wondering if it’s her, and if it isn’t I’d turn whoever it was away. When I reach the door, though, I know it’s her. Something deep inside me roars and I open the door to that smile.
“Hey you,” She says, ducking past me into my apartment, “I didn’t know if you’d be home, but I thought I’d check.”
“I left a little early tonight,” I explain, closing the door and locking it. She won’t leave tonight, I thought, I’ll make her stay so when I wake up in the morning, she’ll be there. For once, when I want her the most, when I’m the weakest, she’ll be there and maybe I’ll get to keep her. I reach for her, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her to me. “For once I had something to come home to.”
She laughs, never taking the truth to those words seriously, just the husky desire I speak them with, “Nice to know I wouldn’t be left waiting for you.” And she kisses me, and I am truly lost.
He doesn’t know, can’t know because if he does he’ll never want to see me again. I know this because I know him. I know him better than the floosies he flaunts around at parties and I know he’ll go running away as soon as he learns I love him. I’ve probably always had a soft spot for him, but damn it he’s so different. Confident in everything he does, but he’s no afraid to ask for your opinion and he’ll listen to it. He’s gentle, funny and kind, but he’s got the best wit. He can stand up to any sarcastic barb I throw at him and damn him he can usually come up with something better. I want to lean on him because he’s so solid, so dependable, but I know he hates that and don’t. Sometimes though, my life gets to be too much and I always go running to him. He’s the only one I trust to lean on. Maybe there’s someone else who would take me on, but I don’t want anyone else. He’s all I think about when my friends drag me to bars and some idiots hitting on me. Even sometimes when I let another man kiss me or touch me, I’m thinking about him and end up pushing the guy away. My friends say I’m just a tease, but they’ve never seen me with him. I’m left trembling, begging and craving anything he’ll give me. I’ll do anything to be with him, and it drives me mad. How can one man make me want things I’ve never thought about before? A home, a minivan and a mortgage? What the hell was wrong with me? I wanted my freedom, my dreams not some thing like what I think about when I’m with him. He makes me want a family, god, I hate that, because I want as much as I want him. But I know him, he wouldn’t want to be tied down like that, he likes his life. Working late because there’s no one to go home to, and maybe not going home at all. I’ve seen him stay out for days, and then go straight back to work. I worry like hell about him and I worry about who he’s with. None of those women I know he’s out with will give a damn about how he feels. They only care about where he can get them, with all those fancy parties he goes too. I went to one once, when he needed a last minute date and felt so special to be with him. Yeah sure, I had to swallow my pride and get all dressed up, but he laughed and made me feel beautiful. I can’t stop wanting him, even when I’m in his bed, and he’s asleep next to me, I’m aching for him. And in the mornings I’m so weak, so close to telling him everything, I slip away. I end up standing at the foot of his bed, watching him for at least five minutes before though. Thinking about how much I want to wake up to that face every morning. How I want to be able to come home not to an empty apartment, but to one I know will had someone either waiting for me, or wanting to get to me. Instead I come to him when I’m so frustrated with desire and I know no one else can give me what I want. He thinks it’s good fun, a way to scratch a mutual itch and I play it that way. That’s why I’m outside his door tonight, crossing my fingers and hoping he’s home. When I hear his footsteps coming to the door my heart lodges in my throat and when he opens the door it takes everything I have not to throw myself into his arms.
“Hey you,” I manage, smiling brightly, “I didn’t know if you’d be home, but I thought I’d check.” I duck around him because it’s hard to look up at him and not jump him.
“I left a little early tonight,” I control my physical shiver, but my mind trembles like mad at the tone of his voice. Thick with desire, deep with wanting, all for me. No, I scold myself, not all for me, for what’s about to happen between us. When I hear the door lock, I know he’s serious, I’ll be sore tomorrow. “For once I had something to come home to.” I wish he meant those words. I want them to be true so badly that I almost scream what’s really in my heart and make him tell me the truth. How he feels, what he wants from me and if he doesn’t want what I want, I’d walk. Only when his arms come around me and his body is against mine, I can’t. I’d rather have him in lies than lose him in truth.
“Nice to know I wouldn’t be left waiting for you,” I say, going for playful because it’s easier, so much easier than the truth. I kiss him, to give the illusion I’m in charge, and I am lost.
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