Desire

I’m not sure when it started to click for me, that I saw him in a way that was unlike how I see others. But I remember how my heart beamed pink when he walked up to Molly’s house. I remember sitting next to him on their couch, ignoring everyone we should’ve been talking to, to be with each other. I remember leaving with him and sitting in his passenger seat while he drove me to meet his friends. I remember thinking that it would be so nice to be his girl, but cutting myself short before I could really dwell. 

He spoke of me like I was the most incredible girl in the world, calling me “omniscient” and “brilliant” and things of the like. I’d pretend to care about fantasy football or the world cup just to hear him speak. I’d stay up all night for him, if he asked me to. Months before we kissed, I called a friend on the bench outside my dorm. “I think I like him,” I told her, “but I can’t do anything about it.”

Late at night, my mind would rerun our shared memories—smoking in my dorm, dancing at his party, watching TV in my childhood bed, driving home from the movies, introducing him to my mom. Did these moments of tenderness have a different shape in his eyes? Did he ever want something more? All of my questions had answers that only he knew. I hoped that I could find them in the way he looked at me. But I didn’t have it within me to hear him say it. 

He was fundamentally a romantic. He kept a box of old love letters in his closet. One time, he had me read them all while I sat on his bed. He’d tell me every step of his dates while we passed a joint back and forth on my dorm bed. I liked sitting next to him, even before I wanted him. In early mornings, I’d text him memories of boys from the night before while he was in the shower, and he’d respond once he was out. “I’m gonna shower. Just spam me. This has to be our thing.” And it was, along with everything else held only by us. 

He and I traded romantic nihilism after every disastrous affair, and somehow every affair was disastrous. But our nihilism was never quite the same. After a breakup, I swore off romance. After a string of rejections, he swore to be “evil” and “the villian” to his girls. He stopped speaking of the grand romances he hoped to live. Instead, he’d say things like, “I just want to sleep with her, Violetta.” (I hated that he said that to me. It made me sick to my stomach.) Regardless of our angle, or our denial of one, both of us were always fixated on love. It was all we talked about. 

It was implied that he and I were more forever than any of the people we spoke of—as best friends, of course. I was never worried about the other girls; I believed that I was something special to him. He was never evil towards me. I believed I was the exception to his admitted Madonna-whore complex. I thought he wanted me too, and he still treated me like I was a divine entity. At the time, I didn’t understand how different it is to want and to have. I felt lucky to be his Madonna, although at the time, I just thought I was his, the way you belong to everything that cares about you.

I thought that he loved me. Not romantically, just honestly. The kind of love that stops you from hurting. Nobody saw me like he did, and he saw nobody else like he saw me. For a while, I was happy just being his confidant if it meant that we’d spend time together. 

With me, he never read between the lines. He made me feel so invisible and so seen at the same time. He looked right through me, through everything I said, and yet nobody saw me the way he did. Nobody studied my presence with as much care as he did. Some nights we’d admit that we used to have crushes on each other or that we were attracted to each other or that our friends believed we’d hook up. And afterwards, we’d act like nothing changed. He decided on us as friends, regardless of if he wanted more. So I did the same.

I swore to let go of my crush on him and dismiss it as just that: a crush. One night, over takeout on her dorm room floor, my friend asked me to tell her all the things I liked about him, that way I could see that I just liked the idea of him. She forgot that I knew him—really knew him. Everything I said was learned through our years together: his laugh, his attentiveness, his brown eyes, his kindness, the shape of his hands, the way he spoke of me, the way he wore his leather jacket, how he always walked me home, how he’d listen, how he knew all my secrets, how it felt like there was nobody better than him, how he poured care into everything he loved, how deeply he loved, how he loved like it was the meaning of life. With intention, I swore to let it all go. 

But I was deeply soft for him. I made excuses on his behalf. My friends hated the way he treated me—how he’d leave me on read, how he’d cancel plans to be with other girls. It was evident that he did not prioritize me, especially not as much as I prioritized him. (Roughly two hours before we kissed, he told me this was true.)

By April, I found new crushes to journal about. I hung out with other friends when he bailed or ignored me. I pushed myself away while still keeping him close. I’d still cancel plans to spend a night talking on the bench outside of his dorm. I still pretended to care about sports just to hear him talk to me. But I didn’t think about him. I, too, decided on us as friends. 

In a conversation about my new crushes, my friend asked me, “But what about him, I feel like he’s a genuinely good guy. Why don’t you want him anymore?” My answer was clear and decisive: “Trust me, that’s over.” He meant the world to me, but I really had moved on. 

Later that day, he and I sat on the floor facing each other. Between us was a nearly full bottle of tequila.  

“Let’s play a drinking game to pregame,” I said.

“What do you want to play?” He replied. 

“I picked that we play a game. Now you pick the game.”

“What about truth or dare or drink?”

“Perfect.”

The night ended with us under my white sheets, drunk and undressed, with my cheek on his chest.

Tequila, honesty, and attraction made the whole night hazy. In an intoxicated confession, I told him that I used to like him for quite a while, but I held back and let go out of fear that he didn’t feel the same. He told me that he felt the same—and everything else I wanted, for so long, to hear. And in return, I let him undress me. 

I remember thinking that the way he kissed me was everything I’d hoped it would be—he kissed me like he meant it. My heart was pounding the entire time. It wasn’t even his touch that enamored me. I just felt so close to him. 

He asked if I wanted to have sex. I shook my head no. 

After he was done, he picked up the tossed pieces of clothing and dressed himself.

I asked him, “this isn’t something we just did because we’re drunk, right?” 

“No, of course not,” he said, “this has been a long time coming.” 

I kissed him before he left. Even then, it inexplicably felt like it would be our last. I texted him on his walk home, asking if he wanted to come back and sleep in my bed with me. “Next time,” he replied. 

Like that night, there have been a few other moments in my life where I watch myself from a distance, eerily aware that I am living in a memory. Knowing this was a promise that it would end, a memory like a memento mori. 

I was so confused that I didn’t sleep. I didn’t know where to put him in my mind. I knew he didn’t know where to put me either. I anticipated his affection towards me, but I didn't anticipate it coming to fruition. I didn’t know what this all should mean. But I knew that I wanted him—I wanted to be close to him, I wanted to laugh with him, I wanted to feel his fingers wrapped around my thighs, and I wanted him to stay. Every few minutes during that whole weekend, I’d get flashbacks from that late night, and they’d made me weak. 

 I decided I would only have sex with him if he felt for me as deeply as I did for him, like how he did that night. How could he not, after everything we said and did? After I let him into my room, into my heart, into my bed, into my body? The following day, I told my roommate, “I don’t know if being with him will destroy me.” Other bedroom boys had before. But he was different. I trusted him like I trusted nobody else. I was in his hands, and I let myself be. 

The hope was thorny, but I kept my grip. After all, I believed that I knew him better than he knew himself. I’m not a girl who will wait by the phone. But for him, I was many things I am not. I told myself not to worry. He told me that he felt for me. He showed me how deeply he felt. My hands were bloody from holding on, waiting for him to come back.  

I put on perfume and red lip balm for him, and he ignored my texts the entire weekend. 

On Sunday, I asked him to come over so we could talk things through, like we promised we’d do. He was late, and I did mind, but I also appreciated the extra hours to get ready. The last time we were together, I was unprepared. Not this time, I told myself. I showered and shaved and wore lingerie under a pretty red dress for him to take off. My room was sparkling clean and basked in pink light. 

He arrived deep into the night. We sat on my bed, like we always did. Secretly, I had filled half a notebook in anticipation of our conversation. I wrote things like, “I’m glad that everything unspoken has finally been said,” “I want to be open minded and see where things go,” “we are too close to have casual sex,” “I cannot hook up with you just for the sake of hooking up,” “I don’t know what we are, but I think that’s ok—we should do what feels right, and eventually that part will become clear,” and “I am very sensitive to feeling used and abandoned by the boys I sleep with. But I know you would never do that to me.” 

Before I told him any of this, I said, “You go first.” 

He said, “My gut is telling me that we should go back to just being friends.”

And in an instant, he unraveled everything he had said to me before; he took it all back. I thought he meant it when he kissed me. He saw the sadness in my eyes when he told me he didn’t. He said that he just “wasn’t thinking,” that the other night was driven by nothing but lust. I realized a bitter truth: I kissed him because I wanted to be close to him. He kissed me because he wanted to touch me. 

He tried to say he was doing this to preserve our friendship. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this ruined it. But I said, “I can’t be as close with you anymore. It’s not good for me.” I put a sweater over my pretty red dress and leaned as far back as I could. 

He asked, “What were you going to say?” 

I told him the truth—about doing what feels right, about being glad about our honesty, about how I don’t hook up with people because I am afraid of being used for my body. 

“You should’ve gone first,” he said. 

He didn’t regret sleeping together until I told him that I did. 

He asked what I was most afraid of, and I responded honestly. “I am afraid of someone sleeping with me and leaving me after they get what they wanted.” I told him the truth as a cry for protection, to say, “please don’t do what I am most afraid of.” Out of everything, my friends most despised that he made my admitted fears come true. 

For a while, he was silent. Sometimes he would try to defend himself. Sometimes he’d bait me to change his mind (I didn’t bite). Most of the time he just felt guilty. I don’t know how many times I can bear being the reason that a boy I love feels guilty. 

I cried a few times while he was still there. “It just feels really inconsiderate,” I told him, “to hook up with me after I told you how I felt if you didn’t actually feel the same.” I told him that I couldn’t trust him anymore, and that broke his heart. Maybe it was like the way he broke mine. Maybe, at least, we felt heartbreak the same.

He apologized for hurting my feelings; it was not what he wanted to do. He swore by his inability to love the way I swore he was capable of loving. I still don't believe him. Or at least, I don't believe in the permanence of his desire for numbness. “What a waste,” I said.

He asked if there was anything else I wanted to talk about, and I asked if he could stay a bit longer. I knew it was the last time—he wouldn’t come back. So we smoked on my bed, like we always did. I wanted to ask him if I could lie on his shoulder, but decided not to. We looked at each other a lot that night, more than we did when we took each others’ clothes off.

He asked to hug me goodbye, and I shook my head no. He looked sad that I didn’t walk him out like I always did, but he looked more sad that I didn’t let him hug me goodbye. I asked him to text me “soon.” He promised he would. 

I asked him to leave so abruptly because it hit me all at once: I let him touch me, he didn’t want me, he wanted my body. Once I heard the door shut, I collapsed into myself. My head between my knees, my arms around my calves, I tried my best to sob inaudibly. I didn’t trust him to comfort me anymore. Even though I wanted him to turn around and take it all back, I didn't desire him anymore. I didn’t want to feel close to him. I didn’t want to spend time with him. I didn’t want to be touched by him. I didn’t want him to stay. From him, I let go. 

I feared that something about me beckoned boys to hurt me for my body. Was he a different person because of me? If not, why did he sound so unlike himself and so much like every other guilty boy? I kicked him out because it felt too familiar. 

He reminded me of what a terrible thing being touched could be. My gut would turn inwards every time I remembered his hands around my neck or his fingers against my lips. Thinking of him still made me weak—it was terrifying. Pain rewrote the memories. Calling him my “best friend” made me feel sick. His desire haunted me—what he did and did not want of me. Kissing my ribs, he didn’t love me. So I dissolved. 

He made me feel like a girl again. Unaware of her body and all too aware of her heart, she never really knew what was right for her, after all. The hurt felt like a duvet cover, with my head underneath, playing the same song on repeat, realizing that boys are no better than they were when I was too young to know better. For weeks I lied in that same dark, cotton space, my tears landing like gray raindrops on my white sheets. I hated that he hurt me where I was weakest. I hated that I was weak at all. 

Before he left, I told him that it would make me feel worse to not hear from him. And it did. Part of me didn’t blame him. I couldn’t even dream of anything he could say that would fix things. But I wished he had at least tried. 

Over a week after he watched me cry on my bed, he texted me. My friends and I dissected his words on my dorm room floor. We talked about how he had nothing but empty excuses, how his apologies were bullshit, how he sounded selfish and uncaring. At the time, everything was so shocking that it made me laugh until I cried. My friends said, “It’s like he’s a completely different person.” I agreed. After a while, it didn’t feel shocking anymore. I had to accept it for what it was; there was nothing else I could do. I knew for a while that I cared for him more than he cared for me. I didn’t see the extent of it until after. 

I decided that he did not deserve my vulnerability anymore. The idea of having to defend my pain made me shake. He didn’t care, and I couldn’t handle trying to change his mind. It hurt enough as is. So at the start of summer, I texted him that I didn’t feel the need to talk things through anymore, that I just wanted to move on. We both knew I meant “move on” without him by my side. He agreed. I said I hope he has a nice summer, as a kind “fuck you.” He returned the favor. And with that, he disappeared. 

Despite the pain, somehow I never had nightmares about him. Instead, in the months following, I would have dreams that he would text me: “I’m really sorry, Violetta. I miss you.” When I woke up in the morning, the warm feeling would drip away as reality set in. The absence of this text—an apology—blended into the pain of his absence. I missed him without forgiving him. I was afraid he didn’t miss me at all. He was gone; he never gave me a reason to forgive him; I had no reason to believe that he missed me. Like a girl, I silently reassembled my life without the missing pieces. 

But I thought about him every time I was driving or walking or swimming or trying to sleep. And every time, it made me cry. Not because I had lost a lover, but because I had lost my best friend. And from his carelessness, he had lost me, too. 

Months into the epilogue of our story, I still listened to songs that sounded like his name. It made me feel close to him, to myself, and to everything else that’s disintegrated with time. Feeling something slip through your fingers is at least feeling something. The pain was all I had left of him. I learned to find peace without his care. That was the only way I could find peace.

In the last week of August, we both returned to the city that I loved him in. He pretended that I didn’t exist. I dreaded walking around campus. Every brunette boy made me shiver. Six months after he broke my heart, I ran into him for the first time. I didn’t look at him. A few days later, he texted me asking to get coffee and talk. I was unsure as to if I should go. But after months in his absence, I wanted to know where he was, what he thought, what I meant to him, if I meant anything to him at all. I hoped an honest conversation would be healing. 

I was ten minutes late. He bought me coffee and waited for me outside the cafe. We walked together to a park across the street. Little kids giggled and played in front of our bench. 

He apologized and admitted, “you are probably the person I’ve hurt most in my life.” 

I asked him, “why apologize now?”

“Being here and seeing you made me realize I had to address it. For a while, shame and guilt made me avoid it—avoid you. I told myself I was giving you space for the summer. Then I started to wonder if I should just never come back. I didn’t know how to handle this. I’ve never been in this position before.”

I reminded him that I have been in this position many times before. I reminded him that he knew that already. 

“There is no excuse for what I’ve done… I never wanted to hurt you. I never want to hurt any of the girls I’m involved with, but why would I ever want to hurt you, of all people?”

“Did you ever really have feelings for me?”

“That night, I wanted to hook up with you. So I said whatever it took to make that happen.”

It made me cry to hear him say it. I didn’t want to cry. I told him I missed him. He told me he missed me. I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me. He asked if I wanted to be friends again. I said, “you don’t deserve to be in my life.” He agreed. 

“I wanted, for so long, to forgive you. But it’s too late. The damage is already done. I’ve learned to move on without an apology and without you.”

It was mid October and the ground was covered in yellow leaves. I spent the conversation crushing them between my red nails. I couldn’t look him in the eye. 

“Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, I think I understand.”

Like in April, I sobbed after leaving him. My friends came over to comfort me. They ran their palms over my hair and said, “fuck him.” They were astonished that he admitted it. I wasn’t. As much as I felt like a girl, I wasn’t anymore. I had survived all the little deaths and guilty confessions. And I survived this one, too. I felt an unexpected wave of relief—it was finally over. 

I never spoke to him again. 

AUTHOR: Violetta Balkoff