Allen - May 29, 201x - "You did well for your first time."

"You did well for your first time."

Crazy how one harmless little sentence could stick to me like gum on a shoe. I hadn’t even thought twice about it when my she said it during our first time. But later? Every time those words echoed in my head, something in my chest tightened.

It woke something up inside me.

My brain wouldn’t stop replaying our conversations, searching them for clues I’d never noticed before. Tiny moments I had shrugged off back then suddenly felt like they were pointing at something bigger. It wasn’t like she had ever lied to me. She never dodged questions. If I asked, she answered straight and fast.

But who the hell asks a girl about her past? And why would she have brought it up for no reason?

And then there was the thing that scared me the most: the creature.

It had been sleeping inside me all this time, but that sentence shook it awake. I can’t even describe it clearly - it doesn’t have a shape, just this heavy, formless presence in the dark corners of my head. It feels like me and not me at the same time, like a warped reflection waiting for me to step closer.

Don’t get me wrong - I love her. More than anything. The thought of leaving her hasn’t even crossed my mind, not once.

It had taken me years to work up the courage to ask her out. Years. And when I finally did, it felt like a miracle, like the universe had finally thrown me a bone.

Cheesy as hell, but I swear I fell for her the moment I first saw her.