Woke up with August today, bedhead and rain obscuring the ugly truth of using someone to dull the pain and the second ugly truth of knowing that he knows I'm never going to get better but he keeps up the guise of looking after me because he knows I need him and we don't want to fuck with the status quo now, do we?
I covered my face.
Show the day those pretty eyes, August whispers. The bed sways ever so slightly. He is lying on his stomach, his forehead pressed down against the side of my temple. He's smiling through his beard but he is tired. I take a lot out on him. He puts it all back inside but nothing advances the cause here, because like I said, we all have too much invested in this to make any positive change at all.
The day has seen my eyes. They float to the surface of every single moment. I whisper it back and August laughs quietly.
I needed Jake. I needed him to put his arms around me and hold me close and kiss me until my heart stopped racing and I could breathe again without having to remind myself to breathe deeper.
I needed him so badly I pushed the rest of my life out of the way, adamant. Not now. Just leave me alone. Just go.
Life put up a good fight. Life has had enough of this and I can't fix it and ignoring it doesn't fucking work so we juggle the most innocent of the evils, grifting a series of events that will forge a path of least resistance to the end goal which is what, inner peace? An end to this hobbling grief? A better system of exacting life without turmoil, jealousy and emotional volcanoes?
What is the end goal?
To make it through to the end without changing things along the way. To sneak around these big catastrophic events without turning the whole mess into Pandora's box.
Good luck with that, August says as he drifts back to sleep, throwing one arm around me, dragging me closer, almost underneath him. I take a deep breath out and allow myself another half-hour here. One more half-hour of pretend life and then I go back to pretending I never knew him at all.
