STAY
“Stay.” Slipped out of his mouth as I got up to leave. His fingertips played with the ends of my hair that hung over my naked back as I sat up on the edge of his bed. He continued, “You don’t have to leave.” His body laid on its side as the right side of his bed carried him as the night sky did to the stars. I caught his glance as I looked over my shoulder in response to his demand, “I want you to stay” poured into the empty glass cup that had become my heart from giving myself to him. Right when the glass was about to crack as it did the night before and that one before that, the water of his words came crashing down into it instead. At the brink of shattering, it held strong to carry those inviting words.
I should have walked out. I should have left. I should have let the glass crack as it did every other time to then eventually shatter, so I can have nothing left to hold the emptiness of what we were so, I can finally move on. But how could I? His hand ran down my back and he gripped my waist and gently pulled me back as he shared the words, “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” How could I not lay back down? His touch felt more real than every other time as he opened himself up to me with words. It brought me more pleasure than any other time I shared this bed with him.
Did he notice how weak he made me? Did he know that speaking to me like this would compel me to please him? Did he know that I’ll become Bonnie to his Clyde if he asked for it?
That night, I became the moon to the dark sky his queen sized bed was. I complimented the stars he was, that scattered across his sheets. His arm wrapped around me as the late October clouds would to the moon on a chilly night.
He had me.
If only I would have remembered that by morning the moon was no longer needed and his stars that made this night memorable, would no longer be visible, that the sun will bring to the light the truth and end this fairytale as if the clock hand struck midnight.
I should have remembered.
I did every other time.
I, then would not have needed his warm breath to caress the back of my neck as his beating chest pressed against my back rocked me to sleep. I wouldn’t have cherished so much his grip on my breast catering the skipping beats of my heart in excitement of being his for that moment. And maybe, his words that once was the water of my glass cup of a heart would not have poured out of my eyes and ran down my cheeks as my heart shattered in the days to come, from not hearing back from him. Maybe, just maybe, these tears would not be as salty. Maybe, I would not be walking on the shattered glass of my heart bleeding out the memory of his words wanting me, the memory of that October night sky we created. Perhaps, I would not be leaving behind footprints of blood that only paved a path that’ll soon be all I know in this walk of life.
I should have left.
I should have left that night and let it be another crack in my cup. Then, I would have had more nights with him, though full of emptiness, it would have been of him. Cracked and empty that cup was but it’ll be better than this shattered one that lost what it once held. And maybe, if it would have shattered empty, it would hurt less. The pain would not be like this. I wouldn’t bleed a past that made the present so unbearable.
“Stay,” he said. Stay, so he can leave.
