Reassure Me

My head spun with anxiety. All I wanted was to be in his arms but I didn’t feel like I belonged there. I looked at him with torn emotions and bolted out of the room without any explanation, running down the hallway and collapsing against a closet door.

Why did I always have to create such drama? If I just let things be, we could be happy…

I cried at my own weakness, my inability to let things go. My personal refusal to accept his love. I wanted to die. As much as I didn’t want to let him go, I felt guilty for having him. He was better than I. Curling up really small, I felt immature and stupid. My fears and incompetence swirled in my head and crawled to the back of the closet, feeling the cold walls touch my skin as if to further accentuate my point. I was alone.

Tears blurred my vision not that I would have seen much anyway in the dark armoire I had escaped to. Just kidding, it was a closet. My ears rung in my sorrow so all I could hear was the soft noises that were escaping from my own person. The shuffling of my limbs against the ground, the unsteady beating of my heart, the small release of each new tear as it fell from my face. I buried my face in my hands as if hiding into layers of darkness as if I was the center of a matryoshka doll set.

I didn’t hear him enter the room.
I didn’t hear him come to the closet and sit outside.
I didn’t hear him place his hand onto the wood, as if to reach out to me across an unbreakable boundary.
I didn’t hear him sigh as he questioned whether or not to open it.
I didn’t hear him slide the door open slowly so as to not startle me.
I didn’t hear him.

Not until he sat next to me and pulled me into his lap and asked me not to cry. He stroked my cheek softly and made sure that I felt his arms wrapped around me tightly like a shield of protection from the outside world. I looked up at him with shame and only saw concern and love that wouldn’t let me refuse his offer.

We kissed softly and I’m not really sure who initiated but it was wet with my tears and gentle with uncertainty. He pulled me in closer and pet my head to reassure me.

“I’m not going to leave you,” he whispered slowly, as if answering a question that I forgot to verbalize. “I love you.”

“You’re too good to me,” I protested with gratitude.

“I know,” he said with a smile as he kissed me again.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly, not wanting for the embrace to ever end. He just breathed me in while nuzzling my cheek affectionately. I forgot that we were in a closet. I forgot my fears and my doubts. Caught in his embrace I could only think of how much he made me happy and how much I wanted to please him.