"That’s a fucking disgusting habit, kid. You’re going to give yourself cancer. It’s so bad for you. You’ve got to take care of yourself," he says.
It’s what your sister tells you, and your parents. No one you’ve been fucking, though, has ever shown such a vested interested in your health. No one you’ve been fucking has ever so baldly stated in their subtext that they might want you around for the long haul, or that they want the best for you.
He’s a good guy, is the thing.
*
Good guys are sweet. Good guys are also boring. Especially when they get too scared to put their hands around your throat in bed.
“I don't want to hurt you,” he says.
Total boner killer.
*
The first time you say it out loud, it’s to a friend. You genuinely don’t understand she reacts the way she does, why her expression contorts like that.
"You didn’t make him hit you, Krishna, for fuck’s sake. How can you - do you even hear what you’re saying? It’s not your fault."
She presses too hard with the ice but relents when she realizes. Her eyes are red rimmed, waterline about to overflow, concern all over her face.
She doesn’t get it, but you don’t know how to explain what you mean so you keep your mouth shut.
*
The second time you say it out loud, it’s to test out better phrasing. You find, however, that there simply is no accurate way to get your meaning across. You understand that this is a well worn phrase, one that battered housewives and desperate kids have used over and over again when their self-esteem has been shattered by their abusive partners or parents.
That’s not the way you mean it.
“My intent,” you say to your reflection, “was to make him hit me.”
That sounds stupid. It sounds like you’re auditioning for a shitty but beloved crime procedural.
“I made him hit me,” you say again. It’s exactly what you mean.
You don’t make the mistake of saying it to another person again. It’s like falling over when you’ve had a drink; insisting you’re not drunk only makes you seem even sloppier.
*
Where are you?
received 1:05
Krishna.
received 1:49
Please answer me.
received 2:10
are you gown
sent 2:33
born
sent 2:34
HOME
sent 2:34
Yeah. Leaving the door unlocked for you.
received 2:42
*
His hands twitch like they’re going to come up to touch your face, but the movement is aborted. Instead, he breathes out harshly through his nose. His expression crumples and his shoulders sag, and he kneels there on the floor in front of you helplessly. The display, you find yourself thinking, is exceedingly, insufferably pathetic. Fucking grow a pair.
“Sometimes I really fucking hate you,” he manages to say.
You roll your eyes lazily, smirk unimpeded by your split lip. “Boo hoo.”
*
I wanted to tell you this in person but I don’t think I can stand to be in the same room as you. We’re done. I can’t do this anymore. It seems like all you want is to find problems, or create them if you can’t find them. You want me to be this thing that I’m not, but worse than that I think you’re actually turning me into it. I don’t know why you’re constantly picking fights. I don’t know what you want from me. I just know that we’re toxic together, and that this can’t go on. I wish you all the best, but please don’t contact me again.
received 18:11
*
At twenty-three, you’re a far cry from the person you were at nineteen, but sometimes, when you find yourself missing the burn of emotionless, animalistic fucking in the face of sex with someone you love, you wonder if you haven’t changed at all.