I lay there in bed, looking up at the ceiling, my heart in my stomach as I thought about all the time after the river trip.  The way we were almost inseperable.  I turned over on my side, and his pillow lay on the other side of my bed.  The one we bought together for when he stayed over.  I reached over and pulled it close against my body, and I could still smell the faint scent of his cologne.  I closed my eyes, to hold back the tears.  It was so hard to lay there, and not have him with me.  The tears creeped between my lashes and rolled down to drop on his pillow.  I buried my face into that faint scent and cried.  I cried harder than I had in a long time.

*                                              *                                                    *

“Are you sure about this Jesse?”  He asked me, as I handed him the spare key to my apartment.

“Yes, Joshua, I am as sure about this, as I have been about anything.”  I smiled up at him.  “Besides it will save you in gas money.”

He took the keyring with my spare key on it, and started working it onto keyring that held the keys to the porche.

“So, let’s go get you a pillow, so that you have one to sleep on, while your here.”  I looked at him shyly, and he returned the smile tenfold.

We loaded up in the porche and ran up to that same Wal Mart we met at.  We walked through the aisles and wandered up and down them, playing with the toys in the toy aisle, and rummaging through the pillows.  He said he wanted the perfect one.  After several pillow tossing events, which reached the attention of a store associate, we found him a king size pillow, it was firm but soft.  We picked out a very manly shade of blue for his pillow case, and headed back to my apartment.

Josh and I had a strange relationship, to say the least.  We never had an intimate relationship in the 2 months after the river trip.  We kissed and held hands, but never beyond that.  It wasn’t because of me or him, it was because of us.  We wanted to keep things as simple as possible.  It was just easier that way.  He had stayed over at my place several times, even slept in my bed with me.  It was nice to have him there, just to cuddle with, that night after Wal Mart, it all changed.  We stepped beyond that line, and there was no turning back.  It almost became an addiction with us.  After a month, he almost never stayed at his place.  Two months later, is when I got the first email.  A week later, I got a typed letter in the mail.  A week after that, another email.  Two weeks later, this last email.

Six months after our first kiss at the river, I lay in my bed, alone and wondering who could hate me enough to send me these emails and letters.  I never told Josh.  I just told him I couldn’t see him anymore.  I was moving to fast.  It broke his heart.  I could see it in those blue eyes, and it wasn’t a look that would come from someone who used women.  It wasn’t a look that came from someone who didn’t care.  I hurt him, I could see it.

Here I lay, in this bed I made, his pillow in my arms and my tears on my face.

Should I talk to him about it?  Should I ask him about his exgirlfirends?  What should I do?  Where do I go?

I cried myself to sleep that night, thinking about his arms around me, and the taste of his kiss on my lips, and the threatening email looming just behind all those wonderful sensations.

(more to come)