Agoraphobia | Teen Ink

Agoraphobia

September 18, 2015
By TalyaGelfand DIAMOND, Bronx, New York
TalyaGelfand DIAMOND, Bronx, New York
58 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
Something that comes easy, won't last. Something that lasts, won't come easy.


    I remember the first night we met. I remember how it felt to watch you laugh. And how I felt when I realized it was because of something I had said. We walked along the water for hours and talked for hours. You told me about the time you had too much to drink and it ended up with you and your head in the toilet. But that you were “glad it happened” because now you had “a story to tell”. I told you about the time when I got my period in class. I was in a dress and my face turned as red as the blood trickling down my legs. I told you the story about the man that proposed to me after our first date when I was sixteen. And I remember exaggerating it to make myself seem way more desirable than I really am. You told me about the time when you cried after your girlfriend left you when you were fourteen. And I told you how I haven’t slept for three days because the moon was too f***ing bright. But that I didn’t mind because the sky hasn't felt so clear in months. You didn’t understand this but you laughed and said “okay”. And I think I never searched for someone to understand, but for someone to listen. I remember the first night we met, I sat in my underwear in your bed as we watched episodes of “The Office”. And as you moved further away from me, the more I wanted to kiss you. I watched your lips as you watched the screen of your computer, and as it got later, I decided I would sleep in your bed with you that night. And as my eyes began to close, I forced them to open. I knew that I couldn't end the night without knowing what your lips tasted like. And what it felt like to bite them. So I watched Boston, as it seeped in through your window, as it went from pitch black to light again. Spending endless hours shuffling to face you, just to watch you turn your back towards me. And as I felt you reach your arm over me, I shut my eyes as tightly as I could to feel you grab your phone and jump out of bed.
     I remember a month later when I fed you wine and talked to you about love and how I just wanted to feel someone’s chest on mine, you told me you wanted that for me too. And I kissed you. And even when we silently walked back to your dorm where we put our hands on each others chests and you put your hands on my thighs, I was still kissing you. Even when your teeth were on my lower lip, I was kissing you. But you were never kissing me. It felt as though we were ending something that we had never started. Like you had just broken up with me, but I still begged for it to go on. I forced myself to feel wanted. To feel something. I needed you to feel something. But you didn’t. And I didn’t either. But I wanted to. And you still tell me to this day that that kiss wasn’t a mistake, but that it’s probably best that we never do it again. I tell you I agree, but every time you look at me with drunken eyes and soft freckles and bed head, I crave you. I crave your lips and every vein running through your body.
    You told me a few days later that you had decided to visit an ex love of yours and I told you it was a mistake. I told you that when we throw people out of our lives, it should stay that way. I told you that you can’t live in the past, and though you feel uncomfortable here, it doesn’t mean you should run back to look for comfort. You have to create “comfortable” wherever you go. You had told me that you had decided you will not be with her any longer, but you will be willing to pretend to be with her for two nights. You wanted to feel the same way for someone that I feel for you. And as envy filled every ounce of my blood, I told you that I had to go. I ran and when you asked me why I had done that, I had told you that I was late for a class. But I had left my keys in your room so I sat on the corner of Boylston for two hours, just to reassure you that nothing was wrong. But everything was wrong.
     But I realized it tonight. I realized that I can never force you to feel something you don’t. I can’t force you to kiss me the way I kissed you. We’re all humans and we all feel. And sometimes the way I feel won’t be the same as how someone else feels, and that’s okay. You will never want me like how I want you, and you will never long for my body at night like how I long for yours, but that’s okay. You see me as just another human. You see me as this person that loves black coffee and the movie Her. I see you as this misunderstood boy that’s slightly immature and smokes too many cigarettes. A boy that refuses to lie and can never say “no.” You see me as someone you love and care for and I see you the same. You see me as a friend. I don’t see you the same. And that’s okay. You crave me sometimes. Like during awkward conversations and in classes where you have no one to speak to. But I crave you during late night strolls. I crave you at midnight when I’m stuck counting my walls because it’s been two weeks since I’ve slept, and I search for you as if you were intertwined between my sheets. Sometimes you want me, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t want you. I need you. You don’t need me. You’ll never need me. And that’s okay.



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