"I'm just giving you ideas so you can think of your own," she says like she doesn't know how her words worm into my brain and scramble my thoughts.
Like she doesn't know that now I won't have my own original thought for the rest of the day, and when I do, I'll see it through her eyes. Which means it will be lacking. Which means it will be childish. Which means it will not be enough.
Which means I will not be enough.
I always laughed it off when people said you shouldn't date anyone you work with, or shouldn't work with anyone you date. I can't even pinpoint how it started with us, because we were always so entwined. We met in a graduate-level seminar and became best friends. We traveled together. We lived together. She got me a job with her firm. And it seemed like, since we were always together anyway... why not?
That's what happened in my mind, anyway. I'm sure she'd tell you differently. I don't think she'd ever say it was love at first sight, but I'm sure she thinks I have some of the details wrong.
I'm always wrong.
If I told her how I felt, she'd say it was my problem, not hers. That I was projecting my insecurities onto her, and all she was doing was supporting me.
I don't think she's wrong. I just don't know how to fix it.
I went to therapy, thinking I could strip myself down to the foundation and build myself back stronger than ever. But my therapist said I couldn't do it alone. I needed someone else. He sounded just like her, so I never went back.
I might have her "on my side" as she likes to say, but I still feel more alone than ever before. And more smothered than ever before. I can't breathe with her and I'm scared to breathe without her, so I hold the air in my lungs until it burns.
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