Fiction: Withdrawal

Written by a friend who wishes to remain anonymous. Put up here by request.

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I miss you...

She can barely contain her emotions, but she understands she has to.

She believes letting them out isn't an option. She can only begin to imagine what it'd feel like to openly admit how badly she wants her lover back, to feel that soft touch and taste those supple lips again. She wants to be held, to be touched, to be tasted. But mostly, she just wants her lover back. The sensation, the desire, the overwhelming need gnaws at her constantly. She tries desperately to hold the torrent in, to keep the emotions contained, to hold the line separating the public mask and the real woman behind it.

But you see, it's not quite enough. Nor that simple.

Is she upset? Our last conversation really end so well...

She worries. Worries quite a bit. Worries over the littlest things.

It is in her nature, to be frank about it. She worries and she questions and she doubts. External factors frustrated her last they talked, and she didn't quite realize that she'd ended it on such a sour, mildly unhappy note. She didn't realize until too late that their last conversation was going to be their last for a while. She chides herself, lashes her mind for not realizing how upset her lover seemed at her decision to just end the conversation and leave. She should have seen it, she tells herself.

She's tried to make up for it, of course.

She's sent little things. Private messages on the forums they frequented before she left, numerous e-mail messages, and --- despite the stupidity of it --- messages on her AIM while she was clearly offline. She should have known better. In fact, she did know better. For the next several weeks, she might as well not have existed. Still, stubborn girl that she was, she kept going.

I'm sure she'll appreciate these when she gets back. Won't she?

She keeps writing letters. She keeps sending them. She knows that her lover won't be able to read them yet, won't even know they exist for a few weeks, at the very least. Still, she is stubborn. Still, she is persistent. So she writes and writes and writes, afraid of rambling on and on about the most pointless of topics, yet aware that she needs to keep writing about things. She knows she shouldn't ramble, but she feels that her lover would appreciate a letter that wasn't short and succinct, that the message was long and heartfelt and...well, the right word seemed to escape her.

It didn't matter.

It won't matter what she says, because somewhere, she knows her lover would be pleased to know that she sent something. Anything. It would have kept her lover from feeling lonely, the thought that someone was waiting for her to come back. That someone cared enough and thought about her enough to send messages that might never be read.

Still, she tries so hard not to ramble.

She'll come back. She promised me she'll come back. To me.

She believes it wholeheartedly. Her lover will come back. Sure, things might not be exactly the same as before, but her lover will come back. Her lover will come back, hold her tight and safe, and whisper words in her ears that will mean nothing at all to others, but will mean the world to her. Simply because they came from her lover's precious lips, spoken in her lover's gentle voice.

Yet, sometimes...

Sometimes...

She takes a deep breath, and reminds herself not to falter.


I love you, baby.

She does. She loves with the hopeless devotion and devoted hopelessness that characterizes women so deeply, madly in love. It devours her every thought, taking her attention side by side with memories and images of her lover. She's become used to the contact, to the sharing of attention, to the constant presence. She's accustomed to it, has come to crave the sensation and the truth of being loved.

She tries so hard to hide one awful little fact.

Come back soon, baby. I'm...I'm...

Without you here, I'm...I...

Please. Come back soon. I don't think I can...I'll try to hold it in, but...

Without her lover...

...it hurts without you.

She's falling apart.