i'll out-pale you any day

Let's put some icing on the stale cake that was today:

Woke up after five hours of sleep. I won't be a brat; I was very grateful for the ride to and from and the friend who let us share his tiny one-bedroom apartment for the night and who made us cookies and breakfast, what a treasure.

But after a gray day and having my friends' car towed the last 100 miles home and actually still having to go to work and not getting out until after my shift was scheduled to end, what I need is rest.

Instead, my mind is fitful.

(This happens so much at work, I swear.)

I almost cried when fucking 'Demons' by Imagine Dragons came on over the overhead muzak radio in the store.

It's stupid. It does not specifically pertain to you or me or whatever situation I've imagined us to be in, whatever muted star-crossed entanglement I've made.

So soon after seeing you, and only after a grand total of five minutes, give or take,

I almost cried out of longing. I literally choked back an involuntary sob, kind of like the one Emma Thompson's Elinor makes at the end of 'Sense & Sensibility' when she realizes Edward is actually proposing to her, except I wasn't happy.

How about that icing? Okay:

I shouldn't miss you when you probably don't miss me.

But I keep hearing songs that you played in your car on the way there and back that weekend in April
and I'm not hungry. I'm sick to my stomach.

I told Carl while we were at a rest stop waiting for his wife, after he asked me how I was feeling and all I could do was exhale deeply, that I don't like feeling vulnerable. He replied that I'm technically not because I haven't put myself out there that much. I thought about the fact that it took all the embers I could scratch out to try and hold your attention for five minutes in a room full of people who all wanted your gaze and for fuck's sake, I don't even remember looking you in the eye. I'm not sure I did--wait--five whole seconds.

I countered with "...because I don't like feeling vulnerable, so that's why I'm hiding."

Sick to my fucking stomach and I think I've eaten 1.5 full meals since Friday night and it's all mental.

What do I do? I'm at the point where if I leave it, I'm in agony, but if I bolden up and get thrown to the wall, I'll be gnashing my teeth for months.

I'm at the point where that line from that stupid new OneRepublic song (OneRepublic!) is melancholied down to fit my energy at the moment: "Everything that kills me, makes me feel alive."

I collapse.