I want to believe it's cold in my memory, but in reality it was nearly eighty.

Pitch black- I've closed the store again and an hour past midnight I'm finally speeding towards home.  Just stay away- my silent prayer.  Don't let me have persevered to die here, on the side of the road mangled into the white sheet metal of my brand new Corolla.
The phone rings five times before you answer.  A month ago, it would have been once.  Six weeks ago and you would already have sent me five concerned messages.  I would have yelled at you, don't you understand that ever one costs me three quarters?  How things have changed.
 When I hear your voice it sends such a shock of relief through my body that I let out the breath I don't realize I've been holding too fast and my first word is lost.
"Hmm?"
"Hey, I love you."
"Mhhm."

Clickity click click.  They keyboard is the giveaway of what I have known since the third ring.  Distantly I can hear the other people, the headset that you won't-can't? take off.  And so, I try to talk.  I don't know how to do this.  I've never had a boyfriend before and then you, you called me a goddess.  You told me I'm beautiful.  You chased me.  The first one, only one to do so.  Though the whole conversation I get five words, maybe six.  Forty five minutes later and the silence stretches into endless tears.  You don't hear, or you don't care.  Probably both.  I try again.

"Let's play our game....I'll ask you a question but you have to answer truthfully.  No lies."
"Sure."
"Most embarrassing high school moment?"
"I don't have one."
"First kiss?"
"I told you that already."
"If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"
"I don't know.  Hey Prot, I need heals!"

Just like that, I'm shut out.

Did you know then, I wonder.  Did you have any idea that I was taking every nice thing you said, locking it into a box deep in the back of my mind for the days when there was nothing left to say.  Were you already propositioning them, in between sending my pictures as bragging rights?

I wanted to give you the world.  You handed it back to me.  Literally.  The plastic globe that I had spent six months searching for, you put it right back in my hands.

So instead, I locked away my love.  I learned to apologize for your shortcomings.  I learned the art of fear.  Of my own worthlessness.  Meanwhile,  I gave everything I had.  I love you, without fear or distrust.  In a way that I never will be able to again.  I took care of your dog.  I loved him as my own.  I went to the hospital with your sister when she had her child.

And I learned to write murder stories.  I learned it was safer not to say things out loud.

Until you found this.  I won't make that mistake again.

Now I love cautiously.  I apologize too easily.  I don't make decisions for fear that I will make the wrong one.  I look for violence and fear and I'm surprised when I'm met with love and a gentle hand.

You told me sex was better when I'm scared.  Better when I'm hurting and crying.

You made me believe that was the only way.

Some days, I can still hear your voice, still see the crooked tattoo on your shoulder blade.  You will not be my nightmare.  I banish you.