love is a four letter word and I'm already cursed

“I -” I didn’t know how to respond. “I’m sorry; please… don’t - ” I didn’t know how that sentence would end as I said it, my mouth dry and still tasting wrong from the unwelcome intrusion. don’t do that again - don’t get any closer - don’t love me all those were possible endings to that sentence. Language formulation was why I didn’t finish my sentences, my mom told me. Certain natural disasters knock formations to the ground, and what they had just done was one of those.

“I thought you liked me?” They questioned, and I couldn’t suppress the whole body shudder of revulsion at the thought of what being liked entailed.

“I - liked you? I thought we were friends! Just - don’t.” They did, though, their hand on my shoulder and the desire to move had never been stronger yet I froze. Please don’t kiss me again I thought, wanting to return to the time when this wasn’t yet a fear I knew I needed to feel. That made no sense. Being kissed made no sense. I didn’t know what had happened except of course I did - reality just had yet to hit. 

I was dissociating, that was what was happening. My once-friend, now a threat? Possibility? I didn’t want them that way! I hunched in on myself, trying to calm my overreacting nervous system. “Don’t touch me, please.” To their credit, not that they deserve much at this point, the hand left my shoulder, the body in front of mine moved further away. I couldn’t relax yet, wasn’t safe yet, not until there was a door between us so I darted inside my room - I had a door between myself and the public arena that was the dormitory hallway. 

Doors that closed, that was a difference between university and home. Another difference was that here, in university, I had people who listened when I pleaded “don’t touch me, please” as opposed to treating my desire like a joke or a symptom to be trained out of me. But just then, having been confessed to by my friend that they were in love with me, having been French-kissed against my will, university and home felt indistinguishable. Nowhere was safe. I’d always have to wonder, when existing in public, if people were thinking about what they wanted to do to me. If they were imagining me naked, as an object, as I knew this friend had objectification fetishes and now I was who they wanted. 

Maybe if I never moved again my body would stop existing. Maybe then I would be able to exist without this - the feeling so overwhelming I couldn’t put it into words if I was paid to. The fear of being perceived, of being wanted, and I knew how pathetic I would’ve seemed if I was being watched, just lying on my bed in a child’s pose trying to slow the racing anxieties trapped inside me. I was afraid of the very idea of love when most people wanted love more than anything else, but… 

Most people first experienced love from their family and I was no different in that respect. Only what was expected from me was different. The type of love I was shown, given, expected to be grateful for - the thought of love brought back memories of touch, of hands where euphemisms are used in place of body parts. Having a body, being a body, that’s all I would ever be. If I had told my friend, maybe they wouldn’t have assumed I liked them back. Maybe they would understand why I couldn’t kiss them back, love them back. I wanted to, I always wanted to want what was expected from me - I just couldn’t. I thought I was safe here.

I texted my once-friend, knowing I owed them more of an explanation. Typing an apology, the usual cliche of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ only altered: it’s not you, it’s my inability to… I deleted that text. Sent ‘I’m sorry. It’s not you, I promise nothing is wrong with you.’ instead, not sure how true I felt it was. Nothing was wrong with them in that nothing was wrong with developing feelings for a friend, I’d read enough novels and seen enough movies to know that happens all the time. What was wrong was me. ‘I just can’t be in a relationship right now. You know how we only just got back from winter break?’ I threw my phone off the bed softly, unable to wait for a response with it near me. Was I really about to betray my family like this? The buzz of the text pushed me to reach over and pick the phone back up.

‘Yeah, what’s that have to do with anything?’ They replied. Now or never. I wouldn’t be able to physically say it but texting, writing, maybe I could. 

‘Whenever I go home for break, I have to see my brother. My parents expect me to be in a relationship with him.’

‘Wtf does that mean?’ How to explain, how to put into words what I went through only a week ago. The nightmares still had him all over my body, I couldn’t shower without fearing his eyes on me. I hated myself so much. I’m an adult. In theory I could stop this. In theory I could leave for more than a few months at a time but in practice I had nowhere else to go and nobody wanted me around unless I could give them my body, that much had been made clear earlier.

‘I have to be in a sexual relationship with him. Letting him do things… not kissing but when you kissed me it still made me feel like’ I sent the text half-written. Words were always difficult for this subject. Feel like I didn’t matter, like what I want will never matter, but I couldn’t send that to them without it seeming like they did something wrong when they didn’t. Or did they? I felt like I was wrong, my reaction was wrong, my inability to even be texting about this without my body beneath blankets so nobody could possibly see me. We had been friends though, before this. I resumed typing: 

 ‘Like I would be treated the way I am at home, like I was only moments away from being touched and I thought that wouldn’t happen here, so I just panicked and kinda still am panicking. I’m sorry. None of this is your fault.’ Only it was, if they hadn’t kissed me, had just confessed that they loved me and let me maybe respond first, maybe - I probably would’ve cut myself off. I might’ve just nodded, let them do what they wanted, only I didn’t. My phone had apologies messages on the screen, only I didn’t have the energy to read them just then. I needed to sleep. Maybe this would all be a horrible nightmare and I would wake up to a world where school was as safe as it had been when I woke that morning. I doubted that, doubted the world would ever feel safe again.