This was the worst.
I was lying in bed, under the covers, with a mountain of unrequited feelings posing as a man. My heart strummed an aching beat, each contraction a painful this can never happen, you did this to yourself, this can never happen, you did this to yourself . . .
"I can't find your legs." He'd lowered his voice to just above a whisper, his lips close to my ear. I felt movement at the bottom half of the bed, as though he was searching for my legs with his.
"I bent them." I gave in to a shiver caused by his hot breath falling over my neck. "I'm all curled up. Where are your hands?"
"My fingers are still too cold."
I hesitated at that, but only for a moment, deciding that if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound. "It's okay. Here." I reached behind me, grabbing the frigid fingers of one hand, and placed them on my stomach. "I'd prefer if they were warmed quickly, as I don't want to be maimed by these mini-glaciers you call fingertips."
"I'm not going to argue." Matt curled his legs up and snuggled closer. "By the way, speaking of unsavory fingertips . . ."
"Yes?" I rubbed his hand between mine, focusing on warming his chilled bones, which gave me something to think about other than how nice this was. And how unhealthy this was.
Matt had become my crutch.
I'd come to that conclusion sometime after dinner and before this moment. I may not have been paying him to cuddle or dry hump me, but he'd become my crutch nevertheless. Like any crutch, I had two options: keep using the crutch, or get rid of the crutch and learn to stand on my own.
I wasn't ready to make a decision either way. Neither option appealed to both my head and my heart.
"When is your-uh-orgasm thing?"
I stiffened, staring at the wall in front of me, searching my mind for what on earth he could be talking about. "Pardon?"
"Your meditation session, with the guys who . . ." Matt made a jazz fingers movement with his hand still in my grip.
"Oh!" I exhaled a relieved laugh. "That's next month, a month from this Monday."
I felt him hesitate before he asked, "You're actually going to do it?"
"Yeah. I don't see why not."
An odd sound reverberated from the back of his throat, rumbling in his chest. It sounded like part growl, part breath.
"Tell me something," he demanded, his tone now gruff.
"What?"
"Tell me something I don't know about you, something I would find surprising."
He repeated his request from the first night I'd made dinner for him months ago and my first thought was, I think I'm falling in love with you.
I closed my eyes, willed the inconvenient realization away just as I willed the concurrent throbbing in my chest to retreat. It didn't work. At least, not as well as I wished. But then, I was lying in bed with him, under the covers; he was spooning me, caressing my arm.
His touch wasn't loving, because he didn't love me, but it certainly felt that way. And knowing the lie of it only made me feel isolated and alone.
It was difficult to dispel these thoughts, especially when they felt intrinsically tied to what we were currently doing. So the reflection, I think I'm in love with you, was replaced with, I'm so lonely.
Clearing my throat, I eventually managed to say, "I feel like you already know everything there is to know about me."
His fingers stilled. At length, he tugged on my arm, encouraging me to turn and face him. When I did, I was met with his dreamy brown eyes caressing my face, and his now warm, dreamy fingers, also caressing my face.
"Or everything you're willing to share," he said softly.
"Maybe there's such a thing as sharing too much . . . between friends." I caught his hand at my temple, pulling it from where he'd begun pushing his fingers into my hair, and placed it on the bed between us. "Or maybe I don't want to bore you."
Matt plucked my hand from the bed, and massaged my fingers, studying them as he did so. "Nothing about you could ever bore me. You're the most remarkable person I've met."
His earnestness, like so many times before, made me wish anew for things that would never be possible. But the wishing this time felt overwhelming, dangerously unwieldy. I decided to do the only thing I could do.
Leave.
I scootched away, trying to move out of his grip, but Matt's fingers flexed on my hand, holding me in place.
"What are you doing? Where are you going?"
"I have to use the bathroom," I faked a yawn, "and then I think we should go to sleep. We have an early flight."