At 2:30 am I woke drenched in sweat mid sob; nothing is crueler than having a terrifying nightmare about your sister when she lives in a city far from yours. Or really when she is not in bed next to you and you can be certain she is safe. I didn’t even think about it, I called him immediately and sobbed hysterically into the phone. I told him I was terrified about the little one and the older one and how they are both embarking on events that could break them into a million little pieces.  They’re strong he kept saying, everything was fine, it was just a dream.  Things like that. When he asked if I wanted him to come over, I again didn’t hesitate and said no, I’d call him in the morning.  Sprawled out in my sheets I was overcome with the enormity of the world, of the suffocating realization that perhaps we all have so much less control over our lives then we think we do. 

In the morning I called him again, I couldn’t stop crying. I slept periodically throughout the day at his house.  It was the same as six months ago except that there were remnants of other people in his apartment. There is nothing wrong with this, we have been over for months now and the main reason I didn’t want to have him over to my house is because I lacked the physical energy this morning to make sure no recent guy had left a shirt or shoes or something. He ordered me soup.  We were affectionate but it could have been anyone.  This sounds like a dishonest, unkind  thing to say but what I mean is, the warmth of another and the familiarity that I was groveling for could have been anyone.  I found it unfortunate it was him in a way but in the same breath, also endearing: at least it was someone. 

Everything has made me cry today.  What I resent most about myself is that when it comes to my emotions everything has to be made darker and more serious than it actually is.  I have the flu, I worked 60 hours last week, its the first week of school, the first week back to the writing job, and I live alone. Why the fuck wouldn’t I have a meltdown that led me to tomato soup and a long term ex boyfriend? And yet, I’m obsessed with how weak and terrified this makes me feel as a person. 

 I keep waking up, extremely disoriented, freaking out for thirty seconds or so trying to figure out where I am. A flu thing, I guess. When he was tracing his fingertips over my bare back, I, half awake, pressed myself against him and tilted my head back looking for his cologne. When I didn’t find it I remembered who I was with and longed to be with the other one instead.. I longed to skip all the getting to know and just longed to have his hands on me while I’m sick and weepy.  Internally, I said, I can’t fucking wait to be on this level with this new person and I instantly felt pathetic for being so incapable of being alone and cried silently while he laid behind me, oblivious.