Rumpled sheets

It's been a while since I slept with someone. No, not in that way. But in the way you do when you let your guard down... When you let all your defences slip and are naked in a way that's more vulnerable than even physical nudity.

I'm not exactly the cuddling and snuggling type... But even I can recognise that sometimes, giving up half the bed to someone, the struggle for the blanket, having someone's leg flung over you... It's all worth it. Because it makes the demons go away. Because when you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, it doesn't feel like the darkness will swallow you. Because it's nice to have someone kiss your mind into silence. Sometimes, not always.

Sure, there's the morning breath, the scratch of of his beard, the snores, the oppressive heat of a body always denting the other side of the mattress. But for once I'm wondering, would all these things be quite so bad? A little part of me wants all these things. Or wants to want it. I don't know.

Today, none of the evils seem quite as evil. Maybe I'm truly growing older. Maybe I'm just a little bit regretful... Because the only time I stayed with a boy, I insisted on a separate room. I always had a bed to slip into if I was restless. I always had a blanket that I wouldn't have to share. If it felt too much like marriage and commitment. Again, the obsessive need for a fire exit...

I'm wondering today, if the time had been right, if I hadn't been so hasty in my exit, would M and I be together today? Do I really even want the answer to that question?

Right now, I'm looking at my bed, my comforter, my pillows... And none of it is making me happy. I'd much rather have the sheets rumpled... To hear his breathing, strong and even, just like M himself is, instead of the time bomb that's been ticking inside my head since 15th September. I want to know that if I was to reach out, I wouldn't be left clutching at thin air. Because that would just kill me... To know with absolute certainty that he's gone. And so is M...

Mum and dad have been married for twenty-nine years. That's over 11,000 days and nights that they've spent together. Like every dramatic and imaginative child, I sometimes wondered, after a particularly loud screaming match, why they chose to live together and make each other miserable? Why they put up with each other's shit? I never thought sleeping together would ever figure in the varying answers that would come to my mind... Today, the answer seems as natural as the way in which their bodies curve towards each other. Just the right degree of closeness... It must have taken papa months to figure out how to be perfectly placed so that mum is protected from the direct blast of his AC and still be close enough so that if mum was to turn to him, she'd find herself safely tucked away near his heart. And it must have taken mum equally long to learn to adjust to papa's freezing temperatures and many pillows...

Maybe if I'd stayed all those nights... Maybe if, instead of roaming around the house after he was asleep, I'd stayed and wriggled in his arms till I found my perfect spot, I'd wake up to rumpled sheets too, like mum will, tomorrow, and every other morning of their lives.