Friends with Benefits

7

THE MORNINGS AFTER 14 DAYS

Sometimes it is hard to face the truth, to get in touch with the mayhem within your soul. It is hard to even hear your own voice through the screeching of veins, and gushes of blood desperately keeping you alive.

The blaming, the anger and all the 'fuck you' were all a facade.

When you love someone, you see the best of them and you acknowledge every tiny flaw in them.

When you love someone, you choose to believe you know every inch of their heart. From the beginning to the end, you had their entire life written in your mind.

When you love someone, you push past everything else and you forgive even when it was really hard.

The facade was the coward's route and I was a coward.

I was petrified of facing my own emotions and so I concealed it under sarcasm, anger and mock when I never meant any of them. You never know the thoughts running through my mind and the silent prayers in my rooms.

They are all for you.

The mornings after, they are a burdensome relief.

Slivers of light were finally piercing through the dingy lit theatre of our own production.

From chapters one to six, I highlighted every gory fucked up detail of our relations Carter. I talked about moving on and self-realisation and loving myself but I am a hypocrite.

Time never stopped, the estuary of time just met with months and years that will flow by. Streaming endlessly into the great unknown.

But my unknown was never really the unknown. At the end of the day, anytime you needed me. I stopped my world for you. I just wanted you to have someone there because despite the mistakes you make.

You deserve love and you should never feel alone.

If I had loved myself enough, I would refuse you and suffocate you.

If I learnt the art of moving on, there will never be the occasional menthol cigarettes sleeping under my pillow.

If I knew self-realisation, I would never let me be the third party but I bear the weight of my own sins.

Chapter seven, the mornings after the fourteen days.

We were friends with benefits, no strings attached.

The three days we spent after you broke up, I saw liberty in your eyes. You picked yourself up, piece by piece you learned how to find every morsel of yourself. You had them underneath your skin and you started to rediscover your passion.

Carter, you never knew this but the days I saw you cooking and gymming. My heart was light and my shoulders loosened.

I knew you are going to be okay. When I said I knew how your story ends, I knew it did not end in shame and condemnation. It is ending with hope, joy and love.

The mornings after were a struggle for me.

Some days you would text me 'good morning' and we have a lovely conversation and I learn a little about your day and sprinkle a bit of encouragement.

Some days we do not talk. I do not hear from you and it made me miss you a little.

The eccentric, unpredictable surprises you gave made every day a test for me. It was either being in your life or having to deal with the fear of being replaced by someone else.

But it was the strength of knowing even if I were replaced, I am going to find someone who will never trade me for another.

But the biggest woe that stained me was the Friday night I went over.

23 August 2019. I should have said no to your advances but I succumbed to temptations.

People told me you were using me for my body but I choose to believe you needed company.

Anything was better than solitude.

23 August 2019, like I mentioned. Intimacy without commitment leaves you vacant and gasping. Previously, it left you wheezing and contending for oxygen in your blood. Now it left you trembling before romantic intimacy and me void.

I wanted more than that but I had to swallow my feelings. What you need now is a friend, you could choose to let me be that friend or someone else. It did not matter to me as long as you have someone to be with and someone to confide in.

But having you sunken on the floor, having the waves slowly drift you by. I clutched onto my heart.

The earth could bury you and feast upon your skin and bones and the last traces of you would be the remnants in my heart.

Dear Carter,

the mornings after having you checking in and out without warning were feral. I would trade for anything in the world for you to feel whole, complete and okay. But your stories never ended the way I want it to.

Surprise me Carter, which story would you tuck me to sleep with?