I Don't Wanna Be in Love

Another night home alone, Jacoby leans against the door frame of the kitchen as his eyes invisibly burn a hole through the metal front door that Ember just walked out of. He wants to just feel angry and leave it all, just fuck it but there he is, unable to leave her like that. He wishes he really felt angry but all he could feel is guilty, they’re falling apart and its his fault. Letting her slip away, letting a wedge of anger build between them. Eyes bubbling with warm tears drop to floor as the guilty emotion starts swallowing him up from his feet, this wasn’t right and this wasn’t how it’s suppose to go.

The reflection that stares back at him looks slightly unrecognizable: sullen eyes with movie makeup bags, knotted hair that looked fried on the ends and he himself looked fried, overloaded with boozes and cigarettes. The five o’clock shadow looks as if it lost it’s spunk of being a shadow and he doesn’t look happy. “I’ve gotta’ stop this.” A mangled burp cuts through the silence of the house as he continues standing there looking at back at his self.

After Coby took some much needed time under the stream of hot water in the shower he sat on the couch thinking things through. Not remembering a damn thing from last night after leaving the recording studio, he searched the bedroom that he shared with Ember seeing if she had had enough and just walked out. Every time he looks at her to leave he can see the space between them evolving and it’s eating at him immensely. He doesn’t know how it got this way or why he’s just let it get like this, they’re breaking and not before long they’ll be broken.

Time slowly crept by as he lies on the couch waiting for her to walk through the door, if she was going to walk back through the door. He gave himself twenty questions, wondering why she’s putting up with this when she could do so much better. A sober Jacoby can see what he’s doing to her, to them and to himself and its deadly.

The lamp light was burning his dry eyes while he waited; his fingers scraped his other fingers leaving some places near to raw. “I need you,” he says to himself and the engine of a car creaked up through the driveway. A few minutes later the lock of the door clicks open and Ember walks in, momentarily everything he’s been thinking in the last two hours or whatever went out the window when he asks “Have fun?” monotonously.

“Yeah I did, did you eat?”

“Yeah,” He didn’t know what to say or how to talk, like his functions where popped with a needle.

“Are you mad at me?” Ember asks him softly, her voice slightly making him twitch.

“No, are you mad at me?”

“No I’m not mad at you,” She walks over to the front of the couch, setting down on his stretched out legs and taking his hand into hers. “It’s just a down pour is all,” Her affectionate lips touch every one of his knuckles lightly, one by one. A small smile plays across his face, her lips felt so fit against him; an intense heat that seem to spark his blood to go hot.

“Yeah it has been and baby I’m sorry, god I feel so fucking far from you, ya know?” He shifts upward to meet her face, only inches away and close enough to feel her breath on his face. “I love you.” His eyes close as he nuzzles his cheek against hers warmly, taking in the smell in her hair as if for the first time in months. “I don’t want to be like this right now, I feel apart even though I’m right fucking here.” He was holding in wrecked tears but his voice did crack as he spoke.

“I know,” She coos, holding tempo with his nuzzles.

“Do you love me?” The wetness of tears climbs through his voice when he spoke though his mouth was dry. Right there he was feeling the closet to her in what felt like months and hopefully this friend wasn’t changing any of this.

The morning light bleeds through the green-grey curtains of the living room waking Ember up. She fell asleep with Jacoby last night on the couch after a long talk about them that drifted into the middle of early morning. Underneath her, he’s fast asleep snoring softly. Carefully Ember got off of him and ran into the bathroom, last night was intense. No way around it. Ember didn’t expect to come home to a near to broken Jacoby that was guilt stricken and fearful of her leaving. Her stomach is pulling at bits of nothing to feed the toilet, a terrible gagging sound escapes her chest as she heaves and heaves. In between the streams of yellow-white mash that fell into the water she gasps for air and into light sobs, guilt of her own manifesting into something more. It was just one kiss last night and if it wasn’t for Jacoby pulling all that guilt shit she wouldn’t be throwing up right now.

Heated, she falls against the tub grasping for some sort of fresh air. She grabs some tissues and cleans off her face before she drops it into her hands, crying heavily. She squashes her palm deeply against her mouth as if to swallow it, so she didn’t make much noise. If he found her crying he’d put two and two together and there’d just be this big mess.

Her eyes start searing because of the mascara and eyeliner that seeped in due to the tears and her chest was beating hard and rapid, feeling like it’d cave in at any moment. She tries telling herself it was just a kiss and not to get worked up about it but it wasn’t that simple. He kissed her first, yeah. But she kissed him back and liked it. And she likes him, last night before she came in, while she waited outside, she thought he might even be worth losing Jacoby. And that thought killed her, she was in love with Jacoby but now she’s not sure if she just loves him or if she’s in love with him. There is a big difference and choice between it could tare apart lives.

For maybe a half an hour she sits there, crying, choking and hurting, before gathering herself together to wash her face and those thoughts down the drain. She’s been with Coby for three years now and it didn’t seem like Matt was enough to break that down. She’d ask him to lunch today to explain that, or maybe today was too soon…

“Hey baby,” Her face is soap covered as Jacoby walks into the bathroom, a hand gliding over her side lightly like she was a newly waxed car. “How about we go to lunch today?”

“Why don’t I make us something here instead?” She asks after pouring water with her hands into her face, removing all the face wash.

“Sounds good,” He touches his lips lightly to her forehead, like he was afraid she’d run at the touch. Last night was perfectly clear in his head and he’d keep the promise he made to her. “God I love you,” A smile brightens up his somber face and she runs the back of her fingers up his cheek “Love you too.”