turned
it was a clandestine relationship. a secret. looking back, i can't really pinpoint why we did that, but i'd guess it was mostly just to protect other people's feelings. we'd sneak around corners and into rooms to really and fully just be with each other. we'd drive up to his home town on weekends and stay with his parents and his sweet dog - i loved them - just to get away and not wonder who was watching if we held hands in public. he'd tuck me into his childhood bed and kiss me goodnight, leaving me surrounded by boyscout paraphernalia or whatever it all was while he slept somewhere else in the house.

he was one of the better romance-ers i had encountered - completely sweet and completely selfless - almost to a fault. also, changing the grammatical make-up of the word "romance" makes me think of the ridiculously cheesy and (therefore) ridiculously fabulous classic cinematic masterpiece, "romancing the stone." sorry.

i remember little details of the romance, though the big picture seems to have mostly eluded me. i remember the shape his lips took as he kissed me. the way he'd wrap his arms around me in his kitchen only to tell me that he loved the way i held my cup. it always touched me that someone would be so smitten by such a simple thing. i've since forced myself to stop holding my cup with both hands, so that i'd stop remembering those moments. it looks silly anyway.

i remember when we first made love, and how i almost wept for the beauty of the whole thing. it felt like the first time in my life that i was with someone who didn't just want sex, or didn't even just want me, it was a need. a need to just be as close to me as he possibly could and make me as happy as he possibly could. it was a bit intense for me, but i lapped it up. i was so alive. i don't think i ever shook that feeling, and i don't really think that's a bad thing. it changed me.

i remember the he way he'd cling to me as we fell asleep protected and cozy behind a makeshift fort of blankets in his dorm room, the magnolia soundtrack humming away in the background. it was as if he was afraid that if he let go, i'd get away.

if so, he was right.

we weren't together very long, as far as grand schemes go. don't ask me how long, i didn't count. but when i told him i couldn't be with him, we tried to still hang out - we tried to still see each other just as much. he told me that his mother had talked to him about how she broke up with his father several times, and that gave him hope. (and gave me a scosh of guilt.) i hadn't fallen out of love with him, i just made myself step away. god knows i didn't want to, but something was telling me that i needed to. i forced myself to break his heart, which fully broke my own.

it was one of those relationships with one of those people - it totally turns whatever cushy little world view you have upside down - it's even more drastic when it comes from someone so unassuming, so unexpected.

the world is a different place with two wounded people wandering aimlessly, neither really sure what happened but one of them knowing undeniably that life is better because of him and life is worse because of herself. momentarily, of course. momentarily. heartbreak is much more fleeting than being alive, stronger, more careful and, best of all, being changed.