Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved another girl. They lived in a cruel world where people said God would never love a girl who loves girls.

They loved each other in spite of it. But, because of other people's hatred, neither would say how they felt. So, they spent time together and danced around how they really felt.

As time went on, it became increasingly complicated for them, without knowing how the other felt. So, they finally talked about it.

One left crying. The other stayed behind, in pieces after hurting her lover.

Two weeks passed and they hadn't spoken a word to each other. Their friends kept asking what was going on. Neither of them wanted to talk about it.

One was angry. The other was sad. Both of them were stubborn.

The angry one refused to reach out because she wanted an apology. The sad one wouldn't reach out because she was afraid of what the angry one would say.

Finally, the sad girl broke down and said, "Hey, I miss you. Okay. Bye."

It drowned the angry girl's rage. All she knew was that she missed her lover and her friend.

When the sad girl asked to talk, the angry girl agreed.

They talked. They kissed. They spent every day and every night together, wrapped up in that love. They fell deeper and deeper into each other until it was almost too much. Then, they fell apart just as fast. The world and other people's opinions were too heavy. And the angry one became the sad one. She yearned for the other girl.

But, this time, neither of them reached out.

They knew loving each other from a distance was kinder than fighting every day trying to be together in an unkind world.

Starts without being seen, then an innocent IM

Then you go on all day just thinking of them

It can be any time of the year, Might be his day is your night.

No doubt you can't figure if it's wrong or it's right.

With an ache of desire and sheer flight of fancy,

Your appettite grows, driving you into frenzy.

It's a mirage of sweet dreams, erotica going beyond fantasy.

You bargain with Lies about what you know can NOT be.

& the passion rages on, taking control of your will.

You can't touch, but how you want to, an urgent need to fufill.

No, It's not face to face, moreso in your mind....

But You just haven't lived

Till you loved someone Online.

I woke up in a haze, my head pounding, my muscles tight, and my eyes stuck shut with sleep. I stretched hard and forced my eyes open. After a split second of luxuriating in the warmth of the sun rays shining through my window, a wave of anxiety came at me full force as the events of the night before came crashing back into the forefront of my consciousness. It came in bits and pieces, but I remember a weird unshakable desire to talk to someone, anyone, from my past. A sort of ravenous nostalgia. I remember a sickly sweet canned cocktail and a shot or four of Fireball. I remember the ringing of a FaceTime call. I remember his face.

It had been so long since I had seen his face. Almost exactly four months but it had felt like years. I lingered on the memory of his face coming into frame. I remember that a year ago, seeing his face made me feel warm, comfortable, even safe. But Last night I felt distinctly uncomfortable, and I remember the second he picked up, looking at my roommate and saying “oh. This was a mistake.”

I remember a fight. No, not a fight. He was mad, but I was confused. He was hurt. Crying? His cat. I remember now. His cat had died. I remember saying I was sorry for his loss but why was he mad?

I gave up on trying to remember the specific details. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand to see if there were texts to accompany this elusive call, and I saw something I didn’t think was possible.

Me: “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Him: “Fuck you. Don’t ever talk to me again.”

Me: “You got it.”

In four years of knowing this man, I had never definitively ended things with him. Was this the ideal method of doing that? No, not really. Now in his retelling of the events of our relationship, I will always be the bad guy. I will always be the person who drunk dialed him and said something distasteful about his dead cat, and he will always be the pour soul mourning his dead cat and hounded by an evil conniving ex who had been waiting in the wings to abuse his vulnerability. But I didn't care. We were done. We had ended things so many times before but this time was different. It was final. It wasn't accompanied by a sense of overwhelming anxiety that he was going to come back a week later, or a desire to change my phone number to avoid any more contact from him. It was real this time.

Just as I was celebrating my massive win, my triumph over this everpresent but suddenly gone force in my life, this thing which has abused me, ruined my self-esteem, destroyed my relationships, and completely decimated my understanding of my own emotions, I feel my phone buzz in my hand.

I look down, and there is a single text from a number I don’t have saved.

“hey, i’m really devastated, and just needed something to be angry at. I know that y’all didn’t mean anything the way i took it.

i didn’t mean what i said either, and i wanted to reach out so i can just think about my cat rn without anything else attached.

i hope you’re doing ok,

and i told you you could pull off the buzz cut btw lol.”

'x'

I had turned off all other notifications, set my phone so that a text from her would vibrate the phone which I had plugged into the power and set on the coffee table in front of me. My entire world was focussed on the message that was due any second, would I pack my bags and go home with tail between my legs, or would I know I had made the right choice in shifting halfway around the world. A converstaion was being had about me which I had no doubt would decide this. As the time I had expected the message passed, I began to pace; no text meant the conversation had no gone the way I had hoped.