A few weeks pass before I finally start to leave my house again. I have turned into a hermit who stares forlornly at a box of graphite pencils while I avoid my computer and the outside world like the plague.
I haven't checked my email since before Ethan brought me my pencils. I can't work up the courage to see him, even in pictures. I simply take Johnathon's word that he did indeed send them and deleted the copies he had. Nothing bothers me more than the thought of someone else having something so intimate as nude pictures of my Ethan.
I'm obsessed and I know it. It kills me every time I force myself not to send him a text or not to drive by his house on the way home from the grocery store.
I know he doesn't want to hear that I miss him, or that I have fallen in love with him, so I don't tell him, and it tears me to pieces. I want him to know. I want so badly to go to his house, to grab him by his perfectly chaotic hair, and kiss him like he is the last man on earth, because frankly, to me, he is. I want to tell him that I love him and that I need him because without him, I can't even think straight, I can't see straight. It's like a part of me is missing and I don't know what to do.
But he doesn't want to know, and he doesn't feel the same way, and he doesn't try to contact me at all.
I have to force myself to get dressed and to leave the house, but I do it because I don't want to be a coward anymore. I know I probably won't ever look at the pictures, but I want to be able to check my email without feeling the need to cry. Getting out of the house altogether seems like it should be the first step in my recovery so that's what I start with.
I just drive around for a while the first night, because I don't know what else to do. I consider stopping at the gym, but I'm way too dressed up for that. I don't really need any groceries, but I stop at the store anyway, and the contraceptive aisle taunts me the entire time.
I must be the unluckiest bastard ever because I run into Jessica and she's buying Ethan's favorite cookies, so I know she must be shopping for him.
"Jasper, you ass!" she gasps, and I ignore her like I can't see her right there in front of me. "I haven’t seen you in forever! I thought you were dead!"
I abandon my cart that has nothing but a bottle of olive oil and a Details magazine in it and practically run out of the store. I can hear Jessica calling for me repeatedly as I flee, and it makes my already broken heart shatter.
I even miss her dramatic attitude. She was always giving me shit about checking out Ethan's ass. I really miss Ethan's ass.
I cry myself to sleep and dream of bronze hair tickling my abdomen as my lover sleeps with his head against my stomach. I dream of my fingers running through the mess of colors and I gasp awake as dream-Ethan looks up at me and smiles.
I'm never going to get over him.