This is what happens when I clean.

I think I’m nesting.

I know, I know…it’s like, a month late. But there was so much going on in my life a month ago. I was commuting for school, so I was at my parents’ house five days a week, and I couldn’t nest there; you know, it not being my home and all. And when I was at my own home, I was so exhausted that I slept, rather than cleaned. Plus, I knew we were moving at the end of the semester, so I rationalized that there was no reason to clean, because we were leaving anyway.

So now that we’re at our new place, I’ve decided I’m going to be Martha Stewart, Claire Dunphy, and Jillian Michaels all rolled into one. Impeccable housekeeper, amazing cook, crafty. Hilarious, crazy, yet wonderful mother. Super driven and fitness-oriented, and in incredible shape. 

I make that promise to myself every time we move (which, thus far in Andy’s and my relationship, has been four times), and I always fail to keep it. But I figure if I get just a little further on that promise every time, I’ll eventually make it.

ANYWAY. My point: I was cleaning today, and I found a plastic storage container that held about 70 pages of stuff I wrote during my junior and senior years of high school.

Not even close to even being half the stuff I wrote during that time, but it’s a start. I’ve been looking for this stuff for about three years.

So I’ve decided to share some of it with all of you. Keep in mind, I was a painfully angsty sixteen- or seventeen-year-old when I wrote these. Actually, I found some stuff I wrote when I was a very morbid thirteen-year-old. Stuff that I refined for years and may eventually share.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling and get to the first story I’ve decided to share.

 

Facing you like this isn’t easy. I’ve been out all night. You never once checked on me. You trusted my judgment and my loyalty.

But you shouldn’t have.

 

I stand before you, shaking, sweating eighty-proof bullets, and telling you lies. I prattle on, rationalizing, for some reason, that if I talk more, you’ll believe more. Bright lights around the room set me ill at ease as I tell you I had fun with my friends. That perhaps I had a little too much to drink, but I came home slowly and carefully, using roads less traveled. Less patrolled.

Do you believe a word I’m telling you?

 

Claiming alcohol-induced fatigue, I opt to sit down, and you sit close to me. I try to steady my breathing and smile, brushing your hair out of your eyes. Those eyes still take my breath away.

My pulse quickens.

 

Don’t I reek of guilt?

Can’t you feel lies in my touch?

Doesn’t infidelity echo in my laugh?

 

How in the world could I do something like this to someone so precious to me?

 

I lay my head back and my stomach churns. Chalking up my nausea to the booze is useless. You speak sweetly and I wonder how you’re not reading it all in my eyes. Eventually your touch hurts my heart too much.

I smell like bad bar food, I tell you, and I need to go shower. Go ahead to bed, sweetheart.

I’ll be there soon.

 

The hot water isn’t enough to melt my frigid heart. My wedding ring remains on my finger. Seeing it makes me furious, and I pound my fist on the wall of the shower, and I immediately regret it, sure I’ve woken you. The tears rolling down my cheeks are hotter than the water I’m trying to boil myself in. They burn thin trails through my skin. The soap doesn’t do the trick the first time around, so I wash myself again, scrubbing until my skin stings.

But you can’t wash a filthy conscience clean in the shower.

 

By the time I come to bed, your breaths are coming slowly and evenly. Your serene face captures my gaze for long moments.

I love you so much.

 

Softly I kiss your warm, tired lips. You don’t even stir.

I cry myself to sleep wondering how I, the demon with the rancid heart, could still be loved by such a beautiful, perfect angel.