Hold Me Under

by Riley Nash

“Are you really him?” I ask, studying this manspreading puddle of athleisure in front of me. “Are you really the Victor Lang?” His eyes look so tired. “I ask myself that all the time.”

But I don’t deserve the same things as him. He’s a simple, pure person, made of cats and cookies and little brick houses full of afternoon sunlight. I’m made of mud and broken things, deep water and suffocation.

I hate that I look for him whenever he’s not here. I hate the relief when he appears, like all the bad ways he makes me feel are the only anchor I have.

Hate is intimate, endless, obsessive. Addictively co-dependent. You can’t disappoint someone who believes in the worst possible version of you. You can only memorize them, every hope to break, every vulnerability to tear open, until they’re your everything and you’re their shield against the nightmares that you made for them. And now that I’ve tasted it, I’m not sure I could ever go back, even though I know it’s wrong.

And if this has to be the end, maybe that’s ok, because this is absolute and forever, no thoughts or words, just us. If love can see us now, it must be ashamed that it has nothing to offer.