half of my heart has a grip on the situation…

I have a good man. I really do. He is patient with me, kind, open, warm, sincere, simple, and faithful. And I am painfully aware of the fact that I do not deserve him. I am a coward. I write the things that I am afraid to say to him and then when he asks me about it, I brush him off. I never give him any answers. I close him off from the things that I feel the deepest, the things that I should be sharing with him.

When he questioned me this afternoon I hung up on him instead of telling him the truth. The truth is…

I don’t want to see him like that. I don’t want to think of him as belonging to someone else. I want to believe that he was put on this Earth for me (and yes, I am aware of how supremely selfish this is) and me alone. I don’t want to replay “I love yous” that were meant for someone else, because I know how I can drive myself crazy with things like that. When Kevin cheated on me I spent long nights awake torturing myself, imagining how he kissed her, how his hands rested on the small of her back, how he pulled her in close and she could smell him. How he gave her what should have been mine. And how I was completely and utterly powerless.

And so last night when he divulged an intimate detail of his previous relationship, I balked. I asked a question that I didn’t really want the answer to and then I feigned a wound when I got it. I got what I wanted and then I didn’t want it anymore, but it was too late — it couldn’t be undone. So I went home and I turned it over and over in my head, embedding it there, pressing bruises. I know it is my fault, I just do this to myself all the time. It is like I want to feel betrayed because it is familiar, I lived with it for so long. In reality, he did absolutely nothing wrong. I just feel like if I can find a reason to put him at arm’s length now is the time to do it, before I get even more involved and then really open myself up to legitimate heart ache.

But of course, I won’t tell him any of that.

…half of my heart takes time.