You never used to ask for anything, or expect anything. So when you did ask and you did expect, and you even threw in a spiteful little comment – ‘A month, Steph’ – I could have cried. But instead, I merely concurred and slipped my body further into your bed, eager to make the most of the little time we had before necessity dragged you away from me.

Desperation comes across in kisses. But for some reason mine were misinterpreted. How could you understand how little I was looking forward to the end of the day, when the sun sank into the earth and the moon was clouded with rain yet to fall? I tried to explain with my lips, but all you said was; ‘That was a little violent, wasn’t it?’

There was me, sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk, and you sitting between my legs. You tilted your head back, and gave me an upside down kiss. ‘They make it look so much easier in Spiderman,’ we laughed and kissed again.
Because practise makes perfect.

There was a silence that radiated from your body, and I wrapped my arms around you, to smother it and calm it, to bring you out of your head and back to me. ‘What’s wrong?’ A murmur. Your soft reply was so quiet I couldn’t make out the words, and so; ‘Hm?’ We barely speak in words sometimes.
‘Oh, nothing.’ You replied and a smile eased its way on to your lips, where it promptly died, with an echo of fakery.

Goodbyes are not my forté. At the top of the stairs and round the corner, you pulled me close and kissed me hard and soft and sad and happy, all at once. I let us pause for a minute, but the longer we stayed, the more likely I was to cry in front of you, so I pulled away and headed downstairs to greet your mother and my dad, and our spoken goodbye was short and then I was out of the door and down the drive and in the car and then… I couldn’t see you anymore.

It took five minutes and I was crying.

Head turned away from the driver, turned the music up louder and let the silent tears run down my face.

Now, the absence of you has become a background noise. If I turn up the present I can fade it out, but of course, there are times when I find myself wandering around my house, contemplating the lack of your smile and your thoughts. I can’t imagine where you are, it’s foreign and far away, across seas that stretch for miles.

It’s been two weeks and every day I still press your jumper to my face and breathe you in, hoping that maybe if I wish hard enough, I can bring you home.

There are three weeks of this limbo left. I don’t know if I’ll be able to let you go again after that.