22:18 - September 02, 2002
share my bed
I miss the touch of my friends' bodies and hands almost as much as I miss them, because I associate by feel and nobody hugs here and my skin feels so different without it. I talked to Erik on the phone today and hearing his voice was so much that I almost hung the phone back up and went back to bed and went back to sleep, but I managed to steady myself and act nonchalant. I think I'm happy here, or as happy as someone like me can be anywhere, and I don't want it to seem as if I'm crying into my pillow over my friends all the time and not going out and having fun and meeting new people. It's always been hard for me to meet new people. I blame them for not coming to me, and when they do, I want them to go away because I don't feel comfortable enough around them to talk about anything I'd normally talk about. I've forgotten that friendships take work.

That said, Camille got into Denver yesterday and so she and her parents took me out to dinner tonight. Seeing her was such a relief; it was like the one familiar thing I've ever wanted back. 30th street looked completely different from her car window, and Pearl Street was infinitely more interesting and less cliched, as the thought sometimes gnaws around my brain. I was so happy. And then so angry when her parents said they had to get back early to go to sleep. They'd just bought me dinner, but I had the strong urge to snarl.

So I keep reliving my friends' last hugs in my mind, to get me through these nights. The days are fine. The nights are not, not when I'm in bed and everyone's stone drunk and clattering around in the room next door and I can't stomach them anymore so I pull the blankets tighter and remember almost crying in Nora's lingering embrace, her fingers stroking me arm and her kiss on the cheek, and then holding more tears back in Nikki's strong arms trying not to crush my bones, her hair somehow ending up in my mouth every time I open it to speak. Finally losing control in Erik's crushing bear hug outside by my car, his drifting hair catching my tears and his having to stop me just climbing in my car and driving away without saying anything more. Trying to hold back the already flowing tears when Mike comes out to give me one of his lightning quick hugs, the knobs of his spine like piano keys under my fingertips before he starts falling and pulls away and runs in the other direction.

Erik had to almost literally put me in the car. He didn't let me drive away until I'd looked him in the eye, although I threatened to run over his foot if he didn't get the fuck off my rearview mirror. Then I draped over him again and cried until I couldn't see anymore, and then I drove home, blind, got lost a few times, and crawled into bed.

Into bed. This bed is different. This bed was advertised as extra-long, but isn't. This bed is cold and smells foreign. This bed creaks on the old floor when I shift position, and there's a refrigerator next to the headboard that hums a flat E... nothing so concrete as an E flat, just a flat E.... and it all feels wrong and I can't let out any audible signs of distress because then Ashley will sigh loudly from her bed and pull her pillow over her ears.

I want someone to come and share this single bed with me; I want to have no choice but to be close to someone. It seems that that's the only way it would ever happen.

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