March 22, 2001
Of Course
He said "Do you know what? There's no place I'd rather be."
I said "Ditto."
And I don't know what to do when he just sits there, looking at me. There are only so many jokes you can make before you realize he's soaking you up, he's gazing at you and enveloping you and he has no reason other than the fact that he thinks you're beautiful. And he doesn't have to say it. His eyes do.
Forgive me my cliches. There are times when my handle on this evaporates, when I realize the stability I've been holding is only a thin bag of air, that now the only thing I grasp is his hand; that his hand is the only thing holding me up. What do I do with this adoration? With this selflessness I find in his arms, the solace of simply being the girl in his arms? Can I be held onto forever? Do I want to be held onto forever? Is this what forever feels like?
My mom always said that you just know. What is the difference between knowing and just knowing? Because I think I know, but should I think? Should it be electric? Should it be instant? I can say the first time he touched me, tenderly, shivers ran up my spine. I can say he has the power to do the same thing now with the most hesitant of fingers. I do run out of things to say to him...but I like the silence, too. I like to sit beside him in the car with the radio spouting unintelligible lyrics and his hand on my knee with my fingers intertwined and think nothing, and say nothing, and be comfortable both thinking and saying nothing. Is it the comfort? Shouldn't I have a mountain of things to say to the man I love? Or is it the things that go unsaid that bind us all the more tightly?
But sitting there on the floor with my back against his chest and his arms wrapped around me, watching Aladdin with him in chorus; smiling when he scratches his stubbled chin across my cheek and looks at me for a laugh, kisses my hair, sitting there when he says "There's no place I'd rather be," I think to myself the quietest "of course."
Of course.
astera at sixth period-post bliss