I can’t sleep, but that should be news to no one.

I want to text Kat, but I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.

I want to go over there. But I shouldn’t even more so.

I don’t trust myself.

Not to say something that will mess something or everything up.

I want to hold him, or I want him to hold me. I don’t know which.

Doesn’t matter…

Both are out of the cards right now.

I always…make the wrong decisions.

So tonight, I’m not going to make any decisions at all.

At least if things go up in flames, it won’t be my doing.

I burrow my face into my pillow and the soggy cotton envelopes my face until I feel like I’m suffocating.

It’s too late. It’s too late. Again and again.

When did it cease to be okay for us to just be there with each other? 

When we were thirteen…

I don’t need anything, I just don’t think I should be by myself right now.

When we were seventeen.

Why does this cycle feel so horribly familiar?

No, I was seventeen. He was eighteen. And things were…I guess they were different-

They weren’t that different.

And we know it.

I…

…Hate this.

I hate it! I hate it!

I don’t care if it’s bratty. I don’t care if it’s babyish. I don’t care if I’m being immature.

I throw all my blankets onto the floor and bury myself face down on the empty mattress.

Not empty.

I’m here.

No, it’s empty.

I’m not real. I’m not real. I’m not anything.

…I say as if that - if I can make it true. 

…I can…

…Make this heavy sadness pour out of my chest.

Ghosts shouldn’t be able to hold onto a heartbreak. They shouldn’t be able to hurt. Shouldn’t be able to relive these horrors and be dead inside at the same time. So I’ve tried and I’ve tried to imagine myself away, but at the end of the day, I bleed…

…I…bled.

So I am.

Why did he have to send me home?

Why did I volunteer to go home?

I see Kattar’s face again, that night when we got back to his place after finally finding me a dress that satisfied all his dandy criteria and I just wanted to sleep…

It’s not easy. 

Knowing you’re pretty but not feeling pretty. Knowing you’re worthless…I mean feeling worthless…even though you know you’re pretty.

Kattar was giving me a full-on wiki-how tutorial of an oration on what sort of dress would suit me best, always trying to be helpful and encouraging, while never…never…

“So the key for your shape is to pick a dress that will draw attention to your waist rather than your curves.”

Somehow he managed to say it all so indifferently, without the faintest change in color.

But I didn’t have the energy to care how I looked. To be honest, there are very few moments I can remember when I did.

I know I made things harder for him, but I didn’t care about that either.

Bitterness is one of those flavors that gets more pungent the longer it sits.

“Just pick it for me, Kattar. I don’t want to do this.”

…I still remember that look on his face, as he hesitated.

Wanting me to rescind that request.

“You should pick something that will make you feel pretty, Lise. I can’t pick for you…”

“Nothing is going to make me feel pretty, Kat. So please just pick something so we can go home.”

We can go home?

I slipped up again.

I always get too…

Kattar looked at me for a long time with an expression…

…It must have been written in another language I couldn’t read. No human being could read.

…But maybe his mother can.

Still, I tried to read into it. Didn’t even care if I got it right. It would have been harder to stay bitter if I got it right-

I could read it.

I lied.

When he finally let out a long sigh, I felt like he was stretching it out on purpose, just to give me a little more time to change my mind. 

“Alright. Wait here then,” he finally shrugged, with such poised unaffectedness, it almost looked genuine.

But when he returned with that red dress…

The color that came into my face.

The lack of color that came into his.

I can’t tell which was more embarrassing.

Technically, he picked two dresses.

Always the one to try to keep the situation in control. Play pretend. Have a safeguard.

I immediately knew which one he really wanted me to pick, but he spoke so casually as he held up the sleeveless red cocktail dress, with a careless tilt of his head, “This one would look the nicest, but you might not like the cut.”

Then, as if it was even a competition he held up the velveteen peplum dress, “This one would suit you too.”

I shouldn’t have felt so angry.

But I did, snatching them both out of his hands and locking myself away in the dressing room to not cry…out of anger.

Just anger, of course.

The peplum dress was ‘cute.’

I know it was cute because that’s what he told me, when I stepped out of the dressing room in a blind rage to let him see how it fit, ridiculously reminded of how I used to put on ‘fashion shows’ with my friends for our parents when I was like 9.

I wanted to fall away to shreds or I wanted to shriek…scream at him…I don’t even know.

But when I put on the red dress he forgot how to speak.

And for one second.

One of those many times…

I hated him so much. Watching him trying to hide his flush as he asked me, smiling ‘casually,’ “W…which one do you like best?”

The red one of course. Not just because he was right. Because I knew I looked pretty. But because I wanted to make him miserable. Or…I hoped he would buckle down and say something, just like I hoped he would say something all those years earlier when his mother told him to tell me I looked pretty.

The only difference between that day in the red dress and the day all those years earlier was that I was the one torturing myself. Setting myself up for disappointment.

Maybe I hoped or really believed that I could somehow be pretty enough to force him into a confession. But that was ridiculous, in retrospect.

He had the situation under control.

“Whichever one you think looks the nicest, Kattar. I don’t care either way.”

“Alright then, let’s just rent the one you’re wearing and go home.”

Your home, not mine.

But I guess he’d gotten into the habit too. Just rolled with it.

…I always. Always-

…Get a little too comfortable. 

If I never did, I’d be better prepared when things fall apart.

Just that quickly, I got used to calling Kattar’s place ‘home’ - a constant slip of the tongue that turned itself into a knee-jerk response - though I technically only lived there for a few weeks, consecutively, after the breakup. Because of my forgetfulness and my clinginess and my milk and water constitution...

I fall for it. I fall for it. I fall for it. 

I don’t know how to stop.

Forever forgetting that I was pretty but not that pretty. Not pretty enough.

I was pretty enough for him to stare at me, dumbstruck, with the brightest eyes I’ve ever seen on his pretty face.

But not pretty enough to want…

To be honest with.

After the breakup it just became normal…our routine basically…to be together nearly every day.

From that day he found me on the floor of my apartment until the night of the award ceremony…

Though I realize, it was that way…before I started dating Etan too…

I got used to falling asleep at Kattar’s apartment. Got used to having somebody nearby to try to cheer me up when I went into a black spiral for the millionth time. Convinced myself it meant he was in love with me or at least loved me.

It only makes this that much harder…

To disbelieve.

This doesn’t make sense but I believe him. This hurts like…Hades…fire…but I believe him. 

Am I crazy? Is this insanity?

Or is this just trust? Love that goes a million times deeper than what feels good.

It makes a difference.

This will always make a difference.

Just having someone willing to stay in the middle of the heart attack with us when everything hurts, even if nothing can make the hurt go away.

I still remember that night when I was 17 after my mother passed away…

Stop.

My face burns and I cover it with my hands. 

I’ve tried so hard to forget that one.

Especially while I was with Etan. Remembering made everything worse.

Maybe trying to forget is another form of lying, but I’m not brave enough to tell myself the truth.

I know. I know. I’ve always known. For both of us…

I didn’t deserve Kattar comforting me. 

I didn’t deserve him rescuing me from what I did to us.

And I don’t deserve this.

He deserves so much better than me….than this…refund-sort of love where I only got part of me back, and I don’t have enough left to give.

What have I ever even done for him?

What am I even, beyond another face? Maybe a face he likes, but it’s not like he couldn’t find another.

I can’t rediscover the love he’s given me in anyone else.

Over more than a decade. Throughout those moments that can’t be relived-

God.

I hope nothing like those moments can ever be relived.

But I’m just me and ‘me’ isn’t…enough.

Maybe a ruby…if I’m bold enough to call myself a ruby…or a rare flower, shouldn’t feel guilty for all the one who picked it chose to spend to care for it, and call it their own.

But it’s been so give and take and take and take that I’m left with my hands full of a debt I’m not sure it’s possible to repay. Afraid of him losing interest.

Maybe we get attached to the things we spend our time on. But maybe we can also realize that something is a little too much work.

I’m a piece of work.

I dare anyone to try to deny it.

It’s the reason why there’s a chip on the living room wall. It’s the reason why there are paint stains on the coffee table and the floor. It’s the reason why I’m in the living room, watching my paintings descend into chaos again. I try to breathe these petals onto the branches of fragmenting silver and black and gold trees, but they all seem to collapse in on themselves, and to melt, at each drop of my tears on the canvas, creating fiery smears of running red and orange pandemonium-

I’m so furious with myself that I want to throw the paintbrush. I’m so disheartened and so miserable I don’t want to do anything at all. The pain - I mean the paint - runs down my hands all the way to my elbows. Falls to the floor. Stains the carpet yet again.

Maybe someday I’ll have the self-control, or the presence of mind, to fix this.

To be pretty and put together. To be clean and pristine. 

But I’ve been going strong for this long, and I guess you never age out of being a baby - making messes you can’t and don’t plan to fix.

Why start now when nothing is ever going to change? Why start now, when we’ve just taken a step forward - take steps forward - to hit a wall - to take the same steps back again and have everything be the same way it’s always been?

There’s a song about that. One my Kitty Kat likes…

Even after these peeps through the tinted windows into something that looks like what we were made for.

Why keep trying? Why not give up now? It blew up the last time. It’ll just keep on…

Licita.

I wipe my face with my less-painted hand and try to will myself to go back upstairs and wash. Go back to bed. But I don’t even have the energy to move.

Tomorrow is my Kitty Kat’s birthday…and I give up. Tomorrow is his birthday and I’ve resigned myself to fail.

I’m not even sure if I should be trying to impress him. 

I know he’ll always say he forgives me, no matter what, but it’s me that’s the problem. Because I can’t make sense of this disaster, and I don’t think…

I don’t want to be a child anymore.

I’m tired of these cycles. I’m tired of losing it and losing control. I’m tired of making these messes. I’m tired of messing up everything. I’m tired of blaming myself and regretting instead of fixing my mistakes.

I don’t want…or at least I don’t think I need…anyone to fix my life for me, I just want someone to help me, stand with me, and help me to become someone I can live with… living as. 

I don’t want to be a baby anymore.

I want to be a mother.

I want to have Kattar’s kids.

I want to grow up. 

I want him to grow up.

I want us to grow up together.

I want him to be okay.

I want me to be okay.

I want us.

Now if only I’d said that to his face.