The last tears I cried were in his arms, and I haven't been able to cry since. What a fool I was. How much wiser I am now. Or, perhaps, a different sort of fool. He says, "I'm sorry," and it echos in my ears and reverberates in my rib cage as though attempting to find and caress my heart, but at last gives up and goes lower, only to leave a sinking feeling in my stomach. No means no, our mothers say, and we believe them.A few weeks later he tells me that his mother, bearer of him, wants to meet me, that he showed her a picture and she thinks I'm beautiful, and he's an idiot, and I laugh out a "no". My mother had wondered why he had denied me as well. He shakes his head and says he shouldn't have, that he doesn't know why he did. But, I knew. I knew that it would be safer for both of us if I asked when it would be too much for a yes.
But, boys aren't trained that no means no. They're taught to ask until no means yes, and so maybe he thinks I'll keep asking. Like he continued to ask me, when I said no. When I said I didn't want to risk our friendship with something added. With a title of something more. Something closer. Something warmer. But, he refused my no, and I had relented. I had dissolved. I had asked for the security of being his. And he said no.
I ache, somewhere, but I cannot find it. Cannot find the source of the pain, the open wound, the bleeding hole. I cannot find my love. But that was the point. No means no. And maybe that's the only answer I was looking for.
Maybe "no" is the only answer I know what to do with.
But between you and me, I still remember my "yes". I still remember what it felt like to have the question well up within me and escape between lips that relaxed when I kissed him. I still catch myself looking at him and knowing that I love him.
"Are your walls up?" he asks me, now and then, when I'm in his arms. When I'm not asking, not crying, not caring, just there.
"They have to be," I answer. It's not a yes, but he takes it as one, and he doesn't realize he's reminding me to raise my guard and not to allow the Feeling.
