“This strand of hair,” he slides his finger and thumb back and forth as the other piece of her hair fall away until there’s a single one left in his grip, “this one right here. I love this strand of hair as much as I love every other strand of hair on your head. Just as much as I love every freckle on your body and every angle of your curves.”
They were uncomfortably close, she thought. Their foreheads only a whisper apart. She could feel his breath along her neck and shoulder. His eyes were too intense and she couldn’t take it, so she laughed it off nervously.
“You’re just-, no. I’m-, um, thank you,” she shook her head trying to free her single strand from his pincer grip but he wouldn’t let go.
“It’s true. All of it. There are so many things about you that make me hunger to touch you. To kiss you. I can’t stop myself sometimes.”
His words weren’t helping her nervousness. He always says them and they’re very nice things to say, but she can’t help but feel as if they’re just words with no meaning. She doesn’t understand how anyone could say those things about her. She’s nobody. She’s nothing special. All she wants to do is hide and he’s holding her up telling everyone to look. It’s as if he doesn’t know her and makes the words he says feel painful and awkward.
She tilted her head away and pull the strand of hair from him, “I have to go.”
He grabbed her hand and held her, “you don’t seem as if you believe me. After all this time and all the times I’ve professed my love for you. The times we’ve made love and the times we’ve kissed. The laughs we’ve shared and intimate moments, you still doubt that I love every inch of you?”
She sighed, “just don’t. I-, of course, yes. I do.”
He shook his head, “I don’t believe you.”
“Well what do you want me to say?” He pushed her too far and the dam broke and the waters came flooding out.
“That I don’t think you’re sincere. You say the words that you love me but you never seem to understand anything about me. That when I laugh I do it out of nervous energy. That when we fucked it’s because your hands wouldn’t stop. When we kissed it was your mouth forced down my throat. You’ve never known me, you’ve only ever known what you wanted and took it. You never stopped to read my reaction to any of it. You may say you love every inch of me, but only when you want something that I can give you at that moment whether I want it or not.”
He stared at her blankly and spoke without emotion, “so why are you with me then?”
“Because I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be sad and think I’ll never find anyone so I would rather take someone who seems insincere but is nice about it. I’d rather have a relationship I’m disappointed in than none at all. And that might seem fucked up to you but, again, you don’t know anything about me so I’m not surprised you don’t realize that I would want that.”
A Hopeless Romantic, Stirred 