Don't Tell Me You Love Me Tonight

A Story by chloe olivea

I Can't Have You Around Me Anymore - Renee Rapp

I found you in my room yesterday when I came home from school; legs sprawled over my pale grey sheets, arms curled into your chest, sleeping. Pensive blue spills in from the evening outside.

I’d guess you’d been there a while. I didn’t wake you, or tell you to leave. I changed into a sweater and laid down in the spot you kept for me on your left. You cooked dinner, again, and it surprised me how well you knew where to find every pot and spoon. You insist I’m a bad cook, so I just stood, pretending I wasn’t watching the soft tan of your hands weave their way through the drawers.

You laid the bowls down on my black-tiled kitchen island. We sat next to each other, so our eyes didn't have to meet. I tell you the pesto sauce is nice, and you ask me about college, but we don’t talk much apart from that.

I have no explanation for the way I avoid your eyes

except

because I'm afraid

of the feelings that come with them,

and how

when I finally see them

I remember how much I wanted to see them,

and why they come with feelings.

We lay on my marooned velvet couch. An R&B record slides along the vinyl player. We let the track pour on forever, and you let my fingers drape across you like silk. Time drags itself dry. Your body sinks into mine, my mind relaxed into the familiar curve of your thighs. At this point, we’ve touched each other everywhere except the lips.

I slip my palm into yours and

everything inside me

falls into place,

like it does every time,

my hips knowing how to fit themselves into yours,

my chest recognising this feeling

from another time and another place,

before the past and after the future.

The bones under your skin whisper something only we know.

There is nothing I especially like about you,

but if not you,

then who else?

Your dad calls, and I tell you I have school tomorrow. We sit up for a second, our eyes so close our eyelashes almost brush. I breathe you in again, the dense redolence of cheap vanilla, warm skin. I hug you so I don’t have to reply the hopeful plea lodged in your mahogany eyes. I lean against the door frame watching you stroll down the sidewalk. Your shoulders linger as you turn the corner, but you don’t look back, you never do.

I leave my keys below the brown fuzzy outdoor rug and sink back into the empty couch, foolish record still pacing around the player.

I don’t know why I thought I could say it. I will never, because I never can. I don’t know how to tell you because I’ve never had to tell you anything, you just seemed to get me. So please, understand now because I just can't seem to get the words out of my mouth.

Don't tell me you love me tonight.