And then out of the blue he showed up at my door, drunk and depressed, laughing too hard and acting recklessly.

His grandmother had just died, and he wanted to forget.

I tried to oblige.

~

"Have I ever told you how much I love you."

I thought I'd misheard the words through the heavy breathing, and looked down at his thrown back head. His glasses were askew, and his eyes rolled back. I had made them that way, but I never made him say those words.

He didn't repeat himself, but rolled me under him.

~

He touched me harder than I usually like, hard enough to hurt me, but I kept my mouth shut.

There was a pain in his eyes, swimming just below the oil-bright slick of rum.

His hands were angry, I let him to what ever he wanted, what ever would made that look fade a little bit.

~

"Have I ever told you I love you."

The words...they've been ringing in my ears.

He has tried to say these things before, with more frequency in recent months. I knew he did, first as friends and then as something else, but he always skirted just shy of saying it.

The liquor and the pain brought down his shields. I didn't ask, or reciprocate.

~

He hurt me. I kissed him.

He was angry, unhappy, so I held him and scratched his back so he shuddered with pleasure.

Finally, when the liquor started to get the better of him, I wrapped his sweaty arms around me in the way I know he likes, and lulled him to sleep.

He didn't sleep, and I barely did.

He got up at quarter to six in the morning and woke me up to help him find his scattered clothes.

He was stand-offish enough to hurt me, for real. He stopped in my bedroom door, side-lit by the morning light coming down the stairs.

"It's a good thing I woke up when I did," he announced, which is always his precurser for his reason to abandon me, and I don't know what to say, but I'm angry, so I grunt and roll over.

He is silent for a long moment, patting at his coat pockets, trying to find his cigarettes.

"I'm going to have to go to Utah in the next few days," he tells me, but I am already falling asleep.

Maybe I should have gotten up and kissed him goodbye.

But honestly, I couldn't give a fuck.

~

I woke up bruised and sore where he touched me. I knew I would be.

It made me want to cry, not because I hurt, but because he hurt.

~

I found his cigarettes and his lighter. They'd fallen among my shoes.

I never told him I had them. I still haven't.

.

Rosie.

Before&After