1. Stifling


    Date: 6/2/2016, Categories: Reluctance, Author: SITTING, Rating: 24, Source: LushStories

    It was madness. I worried about myself all the time, but that day as I stood in the house twenty metres from him, my heart was beating too fast to be insecure. There had never been anything real between us, nothing anyone else could have seen. It felt like a secret. The smiles, the words, the looks that felt like so much more than just looks. Any other day I would have wondered if it was all in my own head; if I was nothing special to him; just another girl he’d talked to a couple of times. Even standing there with my back against the wall, hearing people laugh and scream, the thought almost seeped into my mind. But I stopped it fast. Fought for another one. Thought of that time we were outside his flat and talking and when I looked up at him he was looking at me. Looking, and not listening to a word I was saying. He’d been looking at me like he loved me. I could never think of a softer word. It was more than just want. It was maybe admiration, maybe humour. It made me feel like a woman. There was no sweeter feeling in the world. And when he moved across town and I knew he was gone, I tried to put him out of my mind. But that look was still fresh in my mind. That look. And the way he laughed when I told him I was scared of moths. The way he was so serious with everybody but when he saw me, his face softened into a smile. His green eyes. I couldn’t get over him. The what-if’s echoed around my mind. I’d always felt inadequate in everything but when I was with him, just ...
    making small talk, I felt like I meant something real to someone. And I couldn’t let that go. It was crazy, wilful, desperate. I never was the kind of girl who went to parties. A friend of a friend had mentioned Robbie would be around and here I was like a stalker. It had been so long since I’d seen him. He’d told me where he was moving to, given me his address, his phone number but I could never bring myself to get in touch with him. People don’t do that. They promise to keep in touch but never do. I felt like I was hanging onto the past. He’d moved away, he had a totally different life, I had no place there. And days passed, weeks, months, and the idea of calling him seemed to get more and more absurd. But the thought of him lingered like cigarette smoke, dangerously tempting. And I struggled with it. No other man came close. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. The dream of being something to him had run on repeat so many times but it was still clear as a summer sky. Everything else faded, seemed flimsy and meaningless. I went about my daily routines, faked every smile, laughed at every joke my boss told, called my parents but it meant nothing. At night everything came alive. The memory of him, imagining where things could go, what his skin would feel like against mine, how precious it would be to touch him. It would take hours for me to try and dispel him from my thoughts, and the few hours of sleep I got were restless. I’d wake in the morning, my vest damp with sweat and the ...
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