I avoid walking down my street now, in the direction that I paced a well-worn path into over the past year and change. When I walk past his old place and reflexively look up to see if the lights are on, my breath catches in my throat. The windows are dark. No one lives there now.
I lay here in my bed that has barely been slept in for a year and even with a cat at my feet, it feels too big and too cold. I stay up too late, avoiding the nightly challenge of falling asleep without his solid warmth at my back. I wait until the last possible second, until I've already guaranteed I'll be exhausted for school in the morning before I turn out the light and curl around my still cramping belly, my uterus apparently deciding to take several months to acclimate to my new IUD.
I don't want to wish away my time here at school. I don't want to, and yet I find myself doing just that. I see him on some weekends, and for a blissful three packed days of Thanksgiving, and it's wonderful and reassuring and always, always too short.
I want to be
there, in his bed, with the sunrise pouring through the windows over the buildings of a city that is starting to, maybe, feel like home.
I tell myself,
here is good, too, and,
here is where you need to be, and several times,
there are worse things in life than a long-distance relationship.
My toes curl as another cramp rips through me, and all I want is his hand there, holding me in.
I miss him.
Edit: Yeah, not pregnant.
