Based on true events.

He lay awake, next to her, sleeping soundly.
He was always jealous of her sleep. He never seemed to get enough while she got enough for the both of them.
It's 7:43am. He has work in 2 hours.
He hasn't slept a wink. He can't. Not with the thunderous storm of self-doubt and distrust raging in his brain.

~buzz buzz~

She has a message.

He grabs her phone off the nightstand and slinks out of bed. His thumb slides across the screen, her passcode seared into his muscle memory.

It's the other boy.
With another encouraging hedgehog.

His heart drops when he sees the name on her screen
He scrolls and scrolls

The other boy's flirting and she's encouraging it

His heart is racing. How long does this go on?

He's shaking. He doesn't remember when he started crying.

He closes her phone. His heart racing feels like it's going to pop in his throat.

He puts her phone back and climbs back in bed.

He clings to her back.

He's sobbing now.

She begins to stir.

"Wha-?" she asks, half-awake and confused.

"Please don't."

"What are you talking about?"

She's sitting up.
He's still clinging to her.

"Please-- don't do it-- again." He pleads in-between sobs

He's holding tighter

"Please don't cheat."

She glances at the clock.

"Babe, it's 8:30! Have you even slept?"

She slides out of his grip.
He's still sobbing.
She doesn't acknowlege it.

"You need to get to work! I gotta get some sleep so I can set up for the party."

The party.
The other boy will be there.

He'll be at work until late.

His breaths sharpen.
His heart beats faster.
He hold the bed.
He sobs louder.

"I can't go. He'll be here."

"Are you kidding me? You're just trying to get out of going to work."

Was he? He wasn't sure.
He went through her phone. That's not okay.

"I'm sorry."

"You need to go to work."

"He'll be here."

She raises her voice.

"Yeah, with his girlfriend. You're telling me you can't go to work because you can't trust me with friends who are all bringing their significant others? You're ridiculous."

That makes sense to his logical brain.
Why can't he tear himself from these sheets?
He doesn't understand why he's like this.
There's no reason for it.
She's right, right?
But he can't stop.
His voice is a damaged record.

"I can't go."

"Then I don't want your fucking friends here."

Now he's angry.

Now it's in prespective.
He grip tightens.
He starts shaking.
He stops sobbing.
He raises his head.
He heart beats louder than his voice in his ears.

"You're getting mad at me? I can't trust you! You cheated on me twice!"

She gasps. Stands up.
Puts her bottom lip out.
Her voice shakes.
Everything she does when she deflects guilt.

"How fucking dare you throw that at me? I feel so guilty about it and you're throwing it back at me! That's really not okay!"

"But it's okay to flirt with other people?"

She storms into the bathroom and shuts the door.

He checks the time.

9:30.

He's late for work.

We're broken people.

She strung me along for a year, until I was “good enough” to be with her. She never truly cared for me, I don’t think. She knew she was stringing me along and acted like she wanted to be with me when I got “Better”. But she went on dates, dated other people, and shamelessly told me all about it and then acted like I was who she wanted. And when we did finally get together, she cheated on me. Twice. Blamed me both times. She told me she had feelings for someone else and stayed with me. I felt so unreasonable going through her phone in a panic. I hated being that person. I hated waking her up clinging to her and crying on her because I was terrified she was going to leave me for someone else on cheat on me for a third time while I was at work. She stifled so much of who I was. I stopped playing video games. I stopped going to boxing. I stopped watching my shows. Anytime I did anything remotely “me” was few and far between. It was always what she wanted. And what she wanted wasn’t me.

Your twisted mind is like snow on the road.

Twenty One Pilot's first album is taking over my life.
I'd like to thank you for being my first real introuction to their music so long ago.
This one's about you.


I don't scare easily. Of inviduals.
Individual people don't scare me.

But you do.
You scare me.

Whenever we talk, without some sort of digital cloud buffered between keyboards, I flinch.

Not because you're going to hurt me. I know you're not the person that goes out of their way to hurt someone. I know you're not going to hurt me anymore. Both because that's not the kind of person you are and because I won't let you.

But because you have hurt me in the past. It's a reflex.

Anytime you open your mouth, I flinch. I'm terrified.

And I'm not saying this to villify you. You're not a bad person. You're not the villain in my life, I know that.

A while ago, in one of my posts, I talked about my baggage. And how I don't know if it's a snug backpack full of the essentials or an inconvenient carryon that you can't close the airplane luggage door on.

I still don't know.

But anytime I feel I've got one thing packed up and ready to dismiss, it's like I turned around and found another box I still need to pack. Over and over again. I've made progress in healing but with the mountain I still have to overcome it doesn't seem like it sometimes.

There's so much damage that I still have yet to even see, I'm sure.

And I feel like you don't fully realize that. And that's okay, I mean I'm not mad about anything anymore. There's no anger, only residual pain and habits and defense mechanisms I've built to stop what happened from ever happening again.

I feel like you haven't grasped exactly how much damage has gone both ways, and I'm sure I haven't either from your perspective.
And I mean, we never had a conversation about it.

And I'd like to.
I'd like to know what I've done and what I'd caused.
Because I don't want to do it again, to anyone.
And I'd just like you to understand what happened to me as well.
Not make you feel guilty, but I want us both to fully understand what happened to the other party.

So, if you're ever ready to have that conversation, I'm ready.
If not, that's okay.

I just want to assure you that there's no anger left. No bad blood. And I'm not making you out to be the bad guy. I did a lot of shit that I'm not proud of, too. Shit that hurt you. Really badly.

Have a good one. Talk to you later.