My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

In the end, people always found you out. And when they did, it would be worse than if you’d simply told the truth in the first place.

Because when you’re in love with someone for the first time, their name is enough. Just seeing my hand form Tom’s name was enough. Almost.

People say that love is like a lightning bolt, but this wasn’t like that; this was like warm water, spreading through me.

We hadn’t yet become lovers, and in that photo there is something of the promise—and the threat—of what was to come.

I can still hear him saying my name. It was like hearing it uttered for the first time.

I thought it even then, holding his poor, beautiful body in my arms. They’d won. He’d let them win.

“For a policeman, you’re very romantic.” “For an artist, you’re very afraid,” he said. My answer to that was to kiss him hard on the mouth.

I tell you all this, Patrick, so you’ll know how it was between me and Tom. So you’ll know there was tenderness, as well as pain. So you’ll know how we failed, both of us, but also how we both tried.