When I (didn't) Know, remix

When did this all even start? Was it a conscious, deliberate decision? The best I can manage is to narrow down the timeline to the April visit of this year, the month I was connecting with Nathan in that feverish, intense freefall. He was there to anchor me, I suppose—is that quite right? No, he was my confidant, my reality check, my…reminder? During one phone conversation, Nathan asked me if I’d ever give up everybody in order to be with one person, and the first person I thought of was Asher.

Could I have done it? No really, could I have truly done it? I nearly did. The temptation to be uncontested #1 in someone’s life for once was almost overwhelming. I’ve never had that, the unassuming confidence of coming first, occupying the highest rung on a list of priorities I wouldn’t even need to consider. What did it feel like, having that kind of security? To always know your place? Deep down, I knew I could be that for Nathan, and he for me. I liked him so fucking much. But for how long? How long before we’d begin the inevitable slip-slide down each other’s lists? Before we fought? Before I came to resent him for keeping me tied, before he came to resent me for having such a storied sexual history?

There were too many variables. Then again, Asher isn’t exactly variable-free either. No relationship is—but he’s the one whose variables I’m familiar with. That’s not the sexiest reason for choosing one person over another, but remember, Nathan ultimately didn’t give me the ‘luxury’ of choosing. On the last night, I essentially cried into the phone for two hours while he told me in the softest voice imaginable why he was preemptively ending our whatever-we-could-have-been. And in the morning (that I somehow, fitfully slept through), I called Asher so he could murmur and let me tell him all about it in a voice that sounded as swollen as my eyes. Then I spent the rest of April with him as I had already planned on doing anyway. We left things as they were, and did not quite leave them as they were.

Maybe that entire month taught me to value what I have now: leaning back into the curved space his body makes when he curls around me to watch a movie, hearing the low hum of almost-petulant want at the back of his throat whenever he pulls me into his arms, laughing (or groaning) too loudly at an article he’s linked, running my fingers down the shirt I bought as his Christmas gift (the one he now inexplicably wears for half of my visits), tasting myself on his lips, closing my eyes to sleep after a phone call with him—let’s try that earlier question again. Would I have given all of that up?

I still don’t know for sure, but it would surely have been the most difficult decision I’d have made this year.