secret language

OO5﹒illicit affairs

August

I make sure nobody sees me leave after I leave James' suburban home. My hood over my head and my eyes down. I take the road less traveled despite telling my friends I'll be out for a run and knowing they'll question why I'm flushed when I return but I'd ignore them and lie about the fact that I was just sharing a bed with a taken man, being marked as his and marking him as mine.

I know I'll lie to my friends again, telling them only the first chapter in James' and I's story about how he texted me out of nowhere after seeing the pictures of me that would pop up on his Instagram feed. I'll just tell them about the beauty of our story, not the dirt. I will lie to them and tell them that this relationship started in beautiful rooms but I won't say it will end in parking lots. I won't tell them that is the thing about illicit affairs and clandestine meetings and longing stares.

I don't tell a soul how this relationship was born from just one single glance because all souls would think I'm a villain. They would tell me that these kinds of feelings die a million little times.

They wouldn't understand why I leave a perfume I picked out for James on his shelf because they would tell me that I don't even exist to him, that I don't leave a trace behind and that my scent doesn't linger in his mind, and they would be telling the truth that my heart refuses to believe despite my mind's certainty.

When I accept the words for what they are and how James speaks of me as if my body were a dwindling, mercurial high and my face was a drug that only worked the first few hundred times, I know that the heart I'm breaking is my own. I accept the humiliation of feeling used and as if I have an effect that will only last until James decides he's had enough because that's the thing about forbidden incidents and surreptitious meetings and stolen stares.

If a reader inspects my story's chapters, they might think I'm a villain, and perhaps I am, but no one understands the sorrow in your words unless they've experienced that same kind of sorrow. I don't think anyone understands how I feel when James shows me his truth one single time and then lies, again and again, a million little times.

My heart doesn't believe anyone has been as much of a mess as I am because of a lover and I don't think anyone can relate to me when I say I want to scream at James to not call me a kid, to not call me his baby and younger me never saw the colors James is showing me now. Young me had never experienced the feelings I get when James touches my body or had the goosebumps that arise on my skin when James comes close to me.

I know I am the idiotic fool for accepting this when I know damn well James teaches his girlfriend, Betty, a secret language she can't speak with anyone else, the language of love. I also know he teaches me another language, one that only intimacy communicates in.

I think that what James and I have can be defined as a fucked up kind of love because I believe James is his truest, instinctive, mysterious self around me because I allow him to show his darkness, and perhaps that's why our relationship is promised to be doomed.

Love can be all kinds of things. My love for James is what makes love ugly. James' love to me is what makes people afraid of commitment; it makes people insecure about their figures, personalities, values, worth, beliefs, and ability to distinguish between toxicity and desire.

Betty is the popular sad girl who everyone feels sympathy for. She's the type of girl who weeps over words, poetry, and music. She's the kind of girl whose face frowns when exposed to explicit oil paintings. She's the artistic type who enjoys museums and libraries. Every boy's face softens up when he sees her eyes, which look like gemstones. Betty is the girl next door.

I'm the girl who's popular solely because of her appearance. I'm the kind of girl who has boys looking at her hair when her mouth speaks. I'm a friend to all but a friend to none. I'm the girl who accepts being called "babe" for a weekend and then being forgotten about until a guy wants to fulfill his deepest desires. I'm the type of girl who would call someone her man because he wrecks her plans while she begs him to take her hand as if he were a mythical thing, like a trophy or a champion ring.

I'm the girl who would ruin herself a million little times for a boy who makes her feel like nothing more than a body, whereas Betty is the girl who would ruin herself a million little times for her passions and dreams, and that's what makes Betty and I different people in different universes.