2. But I Love Him

Sometimes I pretend it's the end of the world and that him and I are the only people left. Some days I lie to myself enough to convince my head that it's the truth, and those are the good days when I can forget about school, forget about friends and forget about life beyond Kyle and I. There is no guilt then and all there is is us.
Then there are bad days when I wonder why I'm here. When the guilt threatens to choke my heart and wrench it from its socket. Those days I want to leave –

But I love him.

"Where have you been?"
I look up and I wish I didn't. Mixtures of hate and concern seep in Katy's eyes and I wonder how it's possible for her to care for someone she hates – I wish she'd just hate me.
"Were you with Kyle?" she asks, biting the name of her ex as though it were a bitter, rotten fruit.  
"Yes." I wish the student body would devour me.
"You missed school for a week," she says and I don't know what to say. "He's not good for you." But he's good enough. "You can't trust him." But I do.
I roll my tongue in my mouth and I wonder if this is it. If this is how we will be from now on. If this is how all my relationships will be outside of him.
And then I realise there is no life outside of him, and no me without.

Boulevard Montmartre at Night by Camille Pissarro. That's what the city from the rooftop of our meeting place looks like. If I imagine hard enough, I can pretend the streetlights, cars and windows are stars and that everything else is the backdrop of a night sky.
I stand near the edge of the building and look down. I feel like the Earth is tilting the wrong way.
I hate heights.
"You got it?" His husky voice makes me jump and for a moment I think I'll sky dive through 24 storeys of air and explode into the pavement. I step back.
"Yeah," I turn around. The wind is whipping his dyed blue-black hair against his face. He grins.
"Give it." I pull the coloured pills from my bag and for a moment I can convince myself its candy. But it's not. He moans like they're working their charm on him already. He snatches the Ecstasy from my hands.
I wait for a thank you but I don't really.
He pushes one of the pills candies through my lips and takes two. The bitterness scrapes against my tongue. I swallow.

I'm standing on the ledge and I wonder why I was ever terrified of heights. The world is beautiful from up here. His arms are around me. He laughs. "This is like Titanic!"
Except our brains will spill onto pedestrians rather than dissolve into ocean floors.
He squeezes me in a near painful hug. I squeal. "Let me go!" He lets go and I tilt forward. My stomach chokes through my throat. He laughs and I throw myself back into him.
I feel alive.
He holds me and my heart hammers itself like it can't pump enough blood.
His lips are warm and I am cold. He kisses me and his body against mine suddenly reminds me of how hollow I am. I pull him closer and I wish I could take a part of his soul to fill mine.
He slips his hands under my shirt and releases the clasp of my bra. He touches me and I'm no longer empty. I smile wider and kiss him harder. I love him, I love him, I love him. "I love you." His lips muffle my voice and I wish I could tell him a billion times but there's so much a mouth can do and I want to do it all.
Our shirts are gone and the closeness is almost unbearable. It tickles and it tingles and I don't know what to feel.
Ecstasy.
I fumble with his belt and I wonder why he wears that stupid thing but it's gone in a moment. The breeze scratches icy fingernails over our skins but our bodies feel like flames.
It feels like it's the first time we've had sex and I don't know why I zoned out for all the others. Sex is a sacred unity between two parties – or three or four or ten.
I'm floating and I wonder what it would be like to fall through 24 stories of air –

And burst into stars.