You Exist Too Much

by Zaina Arafat

It is a bizarre and unsettling feeling, to exist in a liminal state between two realms, unable to attain full access to one or the other.

“I’m straight,” I would protest, too ashamed of myself to accept the advance. I would watch her order a drink, then clench my eyes shut and wince at my own cowardice, hoping she would see my desire through my stated opposition and do the work of pushing past it.

I had often fantasized that I had a dick, but I couldn’t imagine trading in my God-given breasts, not even for a straight married woman.

It was a mistake to let me know how much she liked me. I couldn’t handle the responsibility—Anna’s feelings for me were things I would always hold against her. Every gesture of love I found fault with.

What we needed was to break up. But I just couldn’t stand to be without her, entirely alone without the possibility of anyone else.

we both knew it was too late: we had already started to shatter.

Maybe she offered the possibility of escape.

“You remind me of me. Or the me that I might’ve been, if my mom didn’t insist on whipping me into who she wanted me to be. I guess I miss that other version of myself, even though it sort of terrifies me.

A memory of standing barefoot on the cement balcony of my mother’s apartment in mid-December pops into my head.

Some love is just a lie of the mind, it’s make-believe until it’s only a matter of time.

As I watched the others, I felt something swirling around inside me, like leaves before a storm. I was breathing heavily and starting to shiver again. Bubbles were once again popping in my throat.

“I can’t believe I’m still trying to protect my image of you.”

“You have taken my weaknesses, insecurities, and confessions and used them all against me.”

never confessed; I just hoped the feelings would go away. But instead they spread like a disease, rushing through my veins and lining my stomach until I felt nauseated.

I then stopped and stood still as another slogan seeped into my head: Secrets keep us sick.

After confessing I felt hollow. Deflated, like someone had popped a balloon that had filled up inside me. I could feel my shame morphing into anger, and suddenly I was furious.

You don’t know pretty. I’m beautiful, and you’re average. I accepted her challenge that day. She might be beautiful, but my life would not be average. I would never be ordinary.

There was something about his perpetual inability to escape his self-destructiveness that made him both vulnerable and tender. I almost felt love for him, or at the very least, kinship.

Being limited was surprisingly nice. I took comfort in unambiguous priorities, in having no choice in the matter; certainty by default.

“What will I find to replace you?” I asked rhetorically. “Hopefully the real thing. And if I don’t let you go, there won’t be any room for that.”

“It’s the same for me. We may never do anything but talk, and so what: some friendships are driven by attraction. The only certainty is that there’s too much complicity between us to hurt each other, no?”

He knows more than I know, has done more than I have, and I like it.

It’s true. He’s leaving in a few days. And I feel it, too, the pressure of time running out, though at this point it shouldn’t matter. I’ve lost all faith in him. But the danger exists, that I might still leap.

When you don’t want to lose someone, it’s so tempting to deceive them.

“Breaking up over email is like spitting on everything we’ve had.”

How many stories have been penned for unrequited love? How many must I write to earn my existence? There’s more to you than these obsessions.

I had built a barrier around my true feelings, one even I couldn’t break through, my love for her impervious to us both, my resistance impenetrable.

“From you, I expect more out of a story about love,” she’d written in response. “Tell us about something that left you shattered.”