Forever

I heard the word when you said it. You double checked to make sure I knew you were telling the truth. I know it. Because I didn’t just hear the word when you said it, I felt the taste of it in your mouth. I could feel it starting in the back of your throat, hot need. I could feel it caressing your tongue, passionate feeling. I could feel it rolling from your lips, courage enough to speak your mind at last. “Forever.”

Of course I believed you; why wouldn’t I? No one could know your feelings better than you, and you had never been less than all-encompassingly truthful to me. So what now? I could hear the slight bite in your voice when you saw the skepticism in my eyes that I just couldn’t mask. Do you know the divorce rate? Aren’t we too young? Don’t you think this is fast? Questions, questions, questions. And then your lips are burning in to mine. They leave a searing tingle everywhere they touch; the intensity of the feeling is etched into my skin for what feels like an eternity. But then time is relative, isn’t it?

My body thought it would never forget those touches. You thought you’d never stop loving me. Forever. Us – a unit existing outside time. But now I’m not so sure that it’s what we meant. When we said forever, we couldn’t even think past next week. When we said forever, we couldn’t have known what the future had in store. Or did you always know you’d be screening my calls?

Maybe it was my fault. I should’ve trusted you more, should’ve said screw the statistics! But then throwing caution to the wind could have led me to an even more devastating heartbreak. I could have never seen it coming when there were trails of Linda’s perfume on your neck. And then where would I be? But we were happy. I thought we were happy. It may have all been fake, everything after that night when you told me your heart and my eyes told you my doubt.

I wanted the white picket fence. Your dream was lovely and you had managed to fit me into it which was more than I ever expected out of anyone. I wanted to be there, I wanted to be that thing that you loved. So I said the words back. Maybe it was too late by then, maybe things had been over thought and the sincerity and the passion was already gone.

You needed someone to have faith in you. Someone to put all their cards in and depend on letting you follow through. We could have been great. But I couldn’t do it for you; I couldn’t be that person. But Linda’s there for you now, and she believes in you like I never could. And she tells you she always will. Forever.