Body Pillow

"What was that?" I ask from the bathroom.

"I wondered why you took your cell with you."

Apparently I'm not quite as good at sneaking away as I thought.

"I thought you were about the fall asleep and didn't want to wake you back up with the light." It's a lie, and a half-assed one, but I just need enough time to give the cab driver the address. I turn on the shower to stall and wonder briefly where certain articles of clothing ended up. When I get a text that my cab is two minutes away I snap the shower off, move through the apartment at warp speed collecting belongings, and head for the front door, stopping briefly in the bedroom to kiss him goodnight and murmur something about an early run in the morning.

As I slide into the back of the cab, I sigh.

We've been dating for three months.

***

I’m sitting on the couch with a friend of mine. It's been an emotional few months for our group of friends and we're talking about the small ways that we were there for one another, and how much that had meant. After a long pause I say "Here's the thing. I'm shit at asking for what I need and I will never, ever tell you how I’m feeling when something major happens. So in the event of a terrible break-up or a death in my family or some huge event, these are the things I'm going to need."

We make a list.

If I had to pick one thing that isn't going quite as I would like it, it would be that I'm having what might be called intimacy issues.

It's not a new topic for me. I've never been very good at letting people in under my guard. It's why I hang out with the same ten people, part of the reason why it takes me so long to make new friends, and absolutely one of the reasons I loathe dating.

***

I had a boyfriend who liked to stay over after our extracurriculars.

More than that, when we were finished he always wanted me to fall asleep with my head on his chest.

Or he wanted to sleep wrapped around me. Like I was a sweaty, annoyed, insomniac body pillow.

I get it. We like physical intimacy in the ways we like it, but really?

We didn't last very long.

***

I never learned what you do after.

I never learned what you do after you've had an intensely vulnerable moment, be that the instant after I burst into tears in front of someone or in the moments immediately following sex, I never learned what happens next. It's my own doing, the result of years of believing that vulnerability was a weakness and should be absolutely avoided. That conditioning, combined with a deeply rooted fear of doing or saying something wrong means that I am constantly bolting after opening up to other people.

I hate it.

God knows I have a thousand reasons to be skittish about vulnerability and other people, but I want to know what it feels like when your immediate response to opening up to another person isn’t fight or flight.

I doubt I’ll ever get to the point where I enjoy being someone’s body pillow, but maybe I’ll be able to get to a point where I don’t immediately call a cab home.