Layla

Falling in love with her was weightless, like air was breezing through my bones.

Falling out of love is fucking heavy, like my lungs are carved from iron.

As shitty as it is to think, I kind of hope everything I’ve been feeling lately is a result of depression. A chemical imbalance of some kind. I could take a pill every day and then hopefully start to fall back in love with my life.

I can’t be the Band-Aid for her wounds. I need to be what helps them heal.

She tries to hide it, but anxiety is not an invisible thing. I can see it in the way she holds herself. In the way her hands twist at her dress. In the way her jaw hardens. I can even see it in the way her eyes dart around when we’re in public, as if she’s waiting for someone to come around the corner and attack.

It’s like all her resilience is buried beneath layers of scar tissue now.

I keep running back to the starting line because I don’t want to be finished with you.

She has no idea how not sick of her I am.

She believes I’m going to be a somebody, and her belief in me is actually making me start to believe it too.

I didn’t want to say goodbye to her. I didn’t find a single thing about her annoying. In fact, the thought of being alone sounded more dreadful than being with her. That was a first.

“No. The fact that you read is sexy.”