Only In The Evening

I suppose sometimes we just don't know how to love.

            I wake to the stale taste of last night’s wine on my tongue.

            You’re still asleep at my side, face pressed into the pillow. I always worry about you suffocating in your sleep. I also wonder if perhaps my problems would disappear if you did.

            The air is cold as I slip out of bed and search for my dress on hands and knees. There is a soreness in my hips that is all too familiar. Why do we always end up like this? I want to shake you awake and ask you why you can’t love me properly. Why can’t I just walk away?

            I feel the silken material of my dress in the palm of my hand and pick it up, crawling to the door. I lean against the wall for a moment before leaving the room and wait, letting the ache in my knees bring me to full consciousness.

            From my position in the hall, I can see our wine glasses on the coffee table. My shoes are by the couch, a reminder of how innocently the evening started out. Tomorrow you won’t even mention my presence here. This never happened. It never happens.

            Except it always does and I never wait for morning because I made that mistake once and I nearly lost you. So I sit on my knees, the ache dulling into a slow burn. It’s so insignificant, so completely forgettable compared to the raw edge of rejection I face every time I drag myself out of your bed, careful not to wake you.

            And I can’t help but hate you. I can’t help but wish we had never even met, that I’d never let your smile pull me in. I wish I had never let you kiss me. I wish I had walked away after the first night. I wish the second glass of wine hadn’t made me feel so terribly mortal that I could not refuse your reddened touch.

            I hate you.

            Yet I love you and I let myself cry because I’ll be back and I can’t stop myself any more than I can stop you.

            I get up and pull on my dress. Gathering my shoes, I let myself out of your apartment.

 

            She calls while I’m on my lunch break to invite me out. A group gathering at their new place. You’ll be there.

            The way she says suggests that she knows. I want to tear her eyes out. She has no right to pity me.

            You show up twenty minutes late and we’ve all grown hungry. It’s so typical of you. You’re so f*****g important, we have no choice but to wait for you. I imagine myself stabbing you with my salad fork. But then you smile at me from across the table. I hope she overfills your wine.

            After dinner, everyone is pleasantly tipsy. I feel warm with bubbles of alcohol in my blood and the possibility of having you tonight.

            Because I can only ever count on one night at a time.

            She drags me around the new apartment, pointing out all the lovely architecture, dropping names of men she thinks would suit me. When she holds my hand I briefly ponder loving her, but then I remember you and find an excuse to take my hand away.

            In her bedroom, her voice gets quiet. I fear for a moment that something may be about to happen with you just in the next room, but she just asks me about you.

            I tell her you’re my friend and it isn’t a lie, but she looks at me the way you looked when I told you loved you. I don’t want her pity. I don’t want your pity. The portrait on the wall becomes ever so fascinating.

            You’re his best friend, she points out. I wonder if she would kiss me back like you did.

            I know. She would taste like wine; you would taste like wine.

            Perhaps you’d like to meet someone else.

            I don’t want anyone else, I don’t say. I do say, It’s hard to meet people. I don’t really try, though, because people are boring and stupid and I just want you to love me properly. I hate you so much. I hate the tone of voice she is using with me.

            I do keep an eye out, you know. And of course she would. She wanted you to herself at first. I’m sure jumping out a fifth story window would do wonders for my stress. I’m so glad you didn’t love her, she’s dreadfully presumptuous, she doesn’t know that what we have works even though it hurts so terribly to crawl out of your bedroom at three in the morning.

            We stop talking and stare at the portrait in silence until you knock on the door and come in to refill our wine glasses. You’re terribly drunk; I love it.

            When we run out of wine, it is nearly midnight and you insist on calling it a night. Then you offer to take me home and we pass up a cab in favor of walking the four blocks to you place. I love you and I hate you all at once. I consider pushing you into traffic when I touch your hand and you walk ahead.

            Reaching your building, I feel the heavy sense of dread that has become my welcome every time I follow you home. Perhaps I should just go crawl into my own bed, delete your number, and scrub you clean from my body. I’m an addict to your drug.

            You turn to me on the sidewalk and ask me, in that way you drawl out words when you’re so very drunk, if I’d like to come up for a drink.

            I should say no. You only ever want me like this and I deserve proper love. But the word won’t leave my mouth quite as I planned and before I know it I’m saying yes and your hand is on my back, leading me to the elevator.

            You don’t look at me as the doors close and I shut my eyes tight and breathe in the familiarity. You’re never going to love me.