Walking Away
I came home from Germany like Santa Claus, only with slightly more… distinctive presents. Jewellery, dream catchers, fluffy sheep, and photos of lederhosen I really would have bought had I been able to afford them.Texted David, “when do you want your present? x”
In my defence, and this is a very bad defence- it wouldn’t get me anywhere in a decent court of law, I was feeling lonely and pathetic at the time. He replied “anytime” and he came over.
I asked him over because I missed him. I can’t lie and pretend that missing him was the only reason I asked him over, and it definitely wasn’t the reason that he came. And it’s stupid. We’ve not been together… four months now.
But he came over. We sat on the bed. Stupid place to start off a conversation I know, but while there wasn’t anyone else in the house, it still feels strange trying to sit with him downstairs on the sofa. So we went to my bedroom like kids, closed the door, and talked on the bed.
It should have been awkward. It should have been something, I don’t know what. It just should have been different to what it was. It was too easy. We just talked like we used to, called each other names, and promised ourselves the world. He wanted to have enough money so he could buy a new motorbike, a train, an airplane, basically anything big, fast, and dangerous. I wanted the world to play with, to travel the universe, and to be adored by millions.
I called him… something. A numpty maybe, whatever. He tickled me, I tried to escape, kicked out, he moved to stop me kicking and so he could tickle me more. I hate being tickled. I’m the tickliest person in the world, I can’t help it. It just isn’t something you can work up a resistance to. I wasn’t kicking him hard, but he had to move because I was getting dangerously close to somewhere that he definitely wouldn’t have enjoyed being kicked. So he pinned me under him and called a truce.
A truce is all well and good, but the tickling and kicking at least distracted from the fact that I was lying underneath him and his lips were approximately an inch away from mine.
I want to tell you I don’t know why I did it. In fact, I’d love to tell you that. But, the simple truth is that in those few seconds when we were just looking into each other’s eyes, waiting to see if either was going to back out, I took a measure of myself as much as him. He waited for me, he didn’t do anything, he just stopped. Right then all I had to do was wriggle out from under him and start up another conversation. We both would have known that I’d turned him down, but it wouldn’t have hurt anyone.
I made my choice. Tell me it was a bad one, feel free, but I won’t apologise for it. He stopped me later, said that he only wanted to take what I was willing to give, put words to what we’d earlier established just from looking into each other’s eyes.
He's gone back to the navy now. It was fantastic, but made better because we both knew that it wouldn’t happen again so enjoyed each other like we had to take everything because there was no point in leaving anything behind.
He stayed for a while afterwards, but still left me lying on the bed as he had to go to work. We laughed about him loving and leaving me, we both watched the clock, and when he said goodbye we kissed but very briefly. In all honesty I have no idea who used who. But I know that I came out of it with a feeling of conclusion rather of unfolding possibilities.
I do things my own way. A lot of my friends aren’t going to talk to me for a while because of this. And maybe they’re right. Maybe it was the wrong thing for me to do, and maybe I was indulging him and hurting myself to do so. Except that it doesn’t feel like that. It just feels like I had fun, rediscovering him was at least as great as discovering him the first time. And it feels like we both got the best end of the bargain. We both got to walk away.
