I look up.

Two circles of glossy browns mixed with amber and gold rays fix their gaze on mine.  My blues land on the two lips curled in a smirk underneath them.

Silence.

I relax as if preparing to fall asleep. I feel warm. And safe.

And happy.

I take a breath.

And exhale. With the carbon monoxide comes -

“I love..”

NO.

I see bright white as I slap my hands to my face and shake my head.

“I’M SORRY. I LIKE YOU A LOT.”

“What?”

He continues to question me as to why I’m upset, where I’m going, what just happened as I shakily stumble up out of his chair and out of his room, repeating lines I know he isn’t buying.

Locked in his bathroom I sit on the tub. How. How did that happen. I’ve been so careful.  My own lips betrayed me. Fucking bastards.

I look in the mirror until my body stops giving me away.  I twist a tissue to fix the mascara that has collected underneath my eyes as a result.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

I walk the 17 steps on the balls of my feet back to his room and pause with a warm hand on the cold handle.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

He is waiting for me.  I sit down at the computer and begin to look busy.

Silence.

Clicking and typing. Fuck, this is awkward.

I feel him staring at me from his post at the end of his bed.

More silence.

“What just happened?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He continues to periodically question me.  But it’s not an interrogation. It’s a sad sort of questioning.  With the kind of inflection a 5-year-old boy has when he asks the vet if his dog will be ok.

He knows it won’t.

I give in. I tell him my mistake with a degree of shoulder shrugging honesty. An simple mistake. I’m embarassed. I didn’t mean it.

I lie.

He asks why it was a mistake. Why I’m embarassed.

I tell the truth. For once.

“Because you’re not ready.”

We’ve done this before. These words aren’t new for us.  He made the mistake first. I said I wasn’t ready.  He said he was sure. He knew what it felt like, and this was it.

And then he took it back.