Love Me in the Morning

I heard the knock on the door. I froze like I didn’t expect it. I had been waiting for hours, preparing. I stood up and walked slow enough that a second knock was necessary. I’m not sure why I’m moving so slowly or why my heart is beating so fast. Maybe it's because I know I still love him. I get to the door, take a deep breath and open.

There he is, just as beautiful as the last time I saw him. His hair a bit longer and his beard is coming in. He looked at me and I could see a glaze over his eyes as if he had been crying.

I simply asked him “Are you okay?” and he fell into my arms.

I had seen him cry but not like this. Something about this was different, something about this made him hurt in a way I didn't know he was capable of.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Managing to work out those two words in his cries made me cry with him.

I held him in my arms until he could speak to me. We were sitting on the floor by my front door, but we stayed 'cause we were comfortable.

He sat up and leaned against the wall, he wouldn’t look at me.

“I don’t understand why you put up with me,” he said.

“Because I love you, you know that,” I replied.

“But I have never ever in my entire life hurt someone so badly. I love you, I do. But I messed with your head, and I knew what I was doing. I took advantage of your love and I was careless so why on earth would you still love me?” he said.

“Do you remember when we first met?” I asked. He nodded.

I continued, “You had no one. You were alone for so long and you needed me. You would give me this look that let me know that when you were with me, you were alright. I saw every bit of good in you before I saw any of the bad and somehow I can still do that. So when I look at you I still see the guy that I met a long time ago, the guy that needed me.”

We sat in silence. I had no clue why he wanted to visit in the first place. I thought we were done. I thought it was over but there's still something, I can feel it.

I finally found the courage to just come out and ask “Why are you here?”

He replied with an answer that sounded like it had been rehearsed millions of times.

“I need you back in my life. I know I’ve hurt you, I know what I did but I was going insane and you’ve gotta believe that. There were new things and people I was experiencing for the first time and they got in my head. I saw better opportunities and I jumped at them without even knowing what I’d be losing. You have always been everything to me and I and truly want to let you know that I apologize. I never meant to hurt you in the ways that I did because you are the love of my life and I somehow managed to screw it up and I understand that now. I know that we haven’t talked in awhile but I know you still love me the way I love you. I know you miss the nights that we used to stay up and just talk, I know you miss the nights where we would love each other like there was no tomorrow. I miss us. I miss everything about us. I miss when you used to wash my hair, how you would hold my head so softly and kiss me all over my face to let me know everything would be okay. I still love you and I’m hurting and I a, losing my mind without you. I want us to try again. I don’t care how slow we have to take it this time but I want us to try again.”

He was finally looking at me. But I just couldn’t tell if this was real. I had always wanted him to come back and want me again but with these circumstances, I don’t know if this was right.

I look up at him again and he moves his arms to hold me by my waist.

I don’t know what to do just yet so, for now, I want to hold this moment. This is not perfect but right now I feel good knowing that someone loves me when I assumed no one did.

So we sat there for most of the night, enjoying each other's company and not knowing what was gonna happen in the morning.