Work Text:
"Get out!"
"Oliver."
"I said leave!"
I stood in the hallway outside his door for a good twenty minutes, waiting to see if he would change his mind. If I'm being completely honest with myself, I knew he wouldn't change his mind after I had waited two minutes. It took me the other 18 to convince myself to go home. Home alone.
I don't know what to do. Normally, something like this wouldn't bother me. How many times have I moved on from being dumped to hooking up with another guy? I can't count. But this time....this time was different.
There was something different about Ollie---Oliver. Why am I giving him a nickname? I never give anyone I was sleeping with a nickname before. Well, at least not one that didn't have some part of their anatomy in the name.
Because that's all it usually is. It's about having sex, having fun, and appreciating what the other person brings to the table. Couch. Bed. Floor. That one time with the exercise bike...
But Ollie is different.
Ollie likes me, and not just for my body and for what I can do to his body. He likes getting to know me. And I like letting him get to know me.
Ollie cares that I work too long of hours for a first-year law student. He cares that I don't eat right all of the time. He cares that I ignored that call from my mom last Saturday.
If I'm being honest with myself, I like that he cares. I like letting him into my world, where I have been alone for so long. I like that I feel comfortable enough to start letting him in. A sense of comfort I don't even feel around my own family.
And now, because of one stupid mistake, it's gone. The caring smile, the goofy grin, the loving laugh.
Love.
That's what it is.
The word for how I feel. It is love. Rather, it is the feeling of losing that love. Losing that sense of love I didn't even know I had.
And I worry that there is no way I can even try to get it back.