The Softer Side of Ex-Convicts.

"Why haven't you and I ever had anything more than this", he asked.
The stoplight was red but I let my foot off the gas. It was 4:30AM.
The night was quiet. The air colder than usual for August. And
everyone besides he and I were locked into their perfect little houses
on these tree lined streets. Everything glistened from the rain that I
didn't remember falling.

My stomach was filled with five or six gin and tonics consumed over
the previous ten hours and nothing else.

I had danced with his friends. Flirted with his friends. Given them my
phone number and he was still asking why.

I wanted to tell him, felt like I really had to say it but the words
disappeared before they made their way between my glossed lips. The
thoughts seemed too grave and too important to exchange between two
partially intoxicated people at such an absurd time of day.

So I told him that there was just too much between us. Too much anger,
guilt, and pain. It is true. But it's obvious. Actually, a pathetic
excuse because I'm afraid. My instinct overwhelmingly warns me to stay
away. And maybe I should, but a part of me is attracted to the glamour
and the danger and the belief that deep down somewhere, he is a good
man. Sometimes I think I have this inherent attraction to people who
are fundamentally flawed, as if my ability to deal with them somehow
proves my superiority.

"It's all just sort of weird, you know. All that we've been through
but never dealt with".

And he had a point.

"I've never felt like this around another woman".
"It's hard to watch you with my friends and know that you're not mine".

He was there at my lowest point but he was also the lowest point. But
I couldn't tell him that. Not now and not ever.

Somehow we found my front door, he climbed between the sheets of my
bed. And there we were. I cried and cried well into the daylight. I
never said a word but he knew. And he said it would all be okay and I
believed him.