I told her where I was from the beginning:
"I want you, but not at the expense of my life."
Somehow she valued this as honesty and gave herself to me -
generously, completely - and I drank deeply of her. Friends for years,
we found ourselves wrapped around each other, naked, vulnerable,
guilty as sin.
I wonder how this has changed us, changed me? How naive was I to
believe that "my
life" was something to be valuated and bundled into a tidy little
package of assets, spouses, and children? How naive was I to assume
that it was mine to risk...
"I want you, but not at the expense of my life."
Those same words never dropped from her lips. With just as much to
lose as I, she could have easily bought into my foolishness - something to
put me in my place, to let me know my standing - but it was never
there. Just those eyes with their "bullshit filter" seeing
right through me, through my selfishness, insecurity, and fear.
She knew all along that this would happen. She knew that I would
collapse into this formless pile of indecision and confusion, pulled so
tightly between desire and fear that the fine threads binding my psyche
together are dangerously close to snapping like over-tightened guitar
strings.
She warned me, too: "Be careful", she said. "You have no idea what you are doing, do you?"
God, I thought I did. I thought we would be friends who fuck. Now I wonder if there is such a thing.