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March 8, 2003 4:28pm

"Would you forgive me love,
if I danced in your shower?
Would you forgive me love,
if I laid in your bed?
Would you forgive me love,
if I stayed all afternoon?"
- Alanis Morrisette, "Your House"

Your House
Disclaimer: Any similarities to real people, coincidental and unintentional. really now.
Author's notes: Title goes out to Alanis Morrisette.
Rating: PG-13 for swearing and bad memories. and not trying hard enough.

~~~

The keys still fit the lock. Looks like you haven't changed it just yet. Or maybe you never will.

Though I highly doubt the possibility of that, you were a very careful person. Always wanted things perfect and smooth and flawless. That's what you were.

And I tried to be that, too, you know? Only I never made it past your expectations. Oh well, things happened, you know? Good ones, bad ones, happy ones, painful ones, and…

I shrug as I turn the knob, stepping in carefully, thinking, *What the fuck am I doing here?!* for a split-second, and then it's gone. As soon as I step into the your house, it's gone.

Replaced by a bunch of memories, washing over me, running across my mind, violently wrecking through me, at the sight of the familiar walls, they're just there. God knows I did not want them to be there. God knows I did not want to be here, either.

I never thought I would get in, you know? I honestly thought you'd changed the lock. Why haven't you? Were you waiting for me to…

Maybe not. Maybe, it's just one of the things you forgot. You forget so many things, love. So many things.

Like how I once loved you, and how, just once, and only once, you loved me, too. In some way.

Yeah, yeah, but I forgot, too, you know? so maybe, it's just right. This.

But you still should've changed the lock. One of these days, you'd get into deeper trouble for this. I roll my eyes and think, *Sure, like anything worse can befall you… after you had me.*

Yes, yes, after you had me.

I close the door behind me softly, without even turning my head to look. It was so familiar, everything, from the walls, to the tables and the covers and the paintings on the walls, to the smell that is so you, and the dust on the stairs…

The stairs. I run my eyes over it, and then I take a step closer, reaching out to touch the balustrade slightly, lightly, just my fingertips. And I still feel myself shuddering.

Remember when… it was on these steps, you know… once… I shake my head. Perhaps, you had forgotten. I can't expect you to remember much after I left. I should start reminding myself more from now on.

I can't expect you to remember.

But you can't expect me to forget, either. I close my eyes, take my fingertips off the balustrade, and sigh. That's all I could ever do now, anyway.

I turn my head, and look further around. Nothing much has changed. The tables are still pretty much where they'd been when I last laid something on them. and the chairs, still all look pretty much unchanged to me. to confess, they look like they'd never been used since…

I don't know, I haven't been exactly updating myself… but are you in fact seeing somebody else now? I mean… it's been quite some time… though yeah, had lost track of it… weeks perhaps? I'm time-unconscious, you know that.

You know everything.

I tear myself away from the stairs, move towards the other side. Where the picture frames were. They'd been there all their lives, I guess, and I find myself laughing slightly. I scan over them, and I find that the one in the corner still has our picture.

Oh. Our picture. You and me and happier times, when we were still… I don't know, naïve enough to be happy despite not knowing better? Pretty much like that. This is the part I hate most about growing up.

The disillusionment.

I lift the picture for a while, and then put it back face down. I don't know, with all due respect though… I mean, I do understand. It's still your house.

I mean, I have mine now, and it's a little bit different… it's me, not you. When I was still here, this house was you and yours at the same time… instead of being *us* and *ours*… and when I left, nothing even changed.

It hurts me so, but what the fuck.

I miss you, and I'm not even brave enough to go here when you're here. I miss you and I don't even want to admit I miss you, because I was the one who left you. I miss you, but I don't even let myself miss you because I know I'm not supposed to.

I can't miss you. I have no right to.

I used to live here. I used to love this place. I used to love the person I lived in here with, and hell, I even used to love the person I was when I was here. The operative word being 'used to' of course.

There were just so many things, so many things that weren't supposed to happen but did, so many things that were supposed to happen but didn't… we could have tried, you know? could've.

But not quite.

My wandering soon led me into your room. Used to be ours, though, but should I even summon that memory now? Don't think so.

Drawn to the bed, I try to resist, but to no avail. And so I walk on, towards the bed, despite myself. And I find my hands reaching out, if only to touch the sheets again. Pathetic, I know, but do indulge me.

I promise this won't happen again. If I have to go and change the lock myself, maybe I would. And I'd leave two sets of keys, just in case, you know… there'd be somebody you'd want to give the other set of keys to. I don't know. I don't want to know.

The shower door's ajar. Maybe you forgot to close it. Again. There you go again, forgetting the little things, thinking there'd always be somebody to pick up after you.

Come to think of it… there's always somebody waiting to pick up after you. namely me. I don't know why I still do it, though. It's weird. You're old enough to stand on your own, but here I always am, right behind you, thinking, *Just in case… just in case…*

Yes. Just in case you'll need me again.

That's all I ever was, right? Need. It was all about fulfilling needs and assuming roles and doing one's part of the job, and I thought, sure, we could get along, just like this.

Just like this, and with only this, and I thought… I thought…

I find myself clutching the sheets, crumpling them inside my hands, and then, I become aware of my breathing, hard and laboured.

And then I remember just exactly why I left you in the first place.

I left you because you were only using me.

I let go of the sheets, push myself off my knees, to my feet, dusting my khakis a bit. I was the obsessive-compulsive one with the housekeeping. Looks like you haven't done much by yourself.

I bet you could run around now like mad with those noisy shoes I really hated. Remember when you first bought that, I had wanted to flush them down the toilet, only they were too big for the bowl to accommodate…

I find myself smiling. Yes, we were crazy. Sometimes.

I still am, you know. Crazy. I actually thought of buying a similar pair, not so I could run around my own empty house in them, and make an awful lot of noise at three a.m., when I'm still wide awake and thinking of you, but rather… rather to hit myself with it, perhaps, everytime I do. Think of you. yes.

You ought to know, I ran out of coffee because of you. mug after mug after freaking mug… I know, I can't kill myself with too much caffeine. Or at least, if in fact I could, I guess it's still not enough.

Maybe I should go home and fix myself another cup of coffee. It's getting late, and I'm not supposed to be here. Perhaps you just went out for a ten-minute errand, and fuck, for all I know, all I got's a minute.

A minute to remember everything, commit everything to memory all over again, cause I know, I'd have to leave everything behind anyway, so much that I want to take with me, but then again… then again, I couldn't. because they're yours, and you weren't really one to share.

Once, if you do remember sometime - some other time perhaps, when you decide to stop forgetting, pause for a second and remember - once, they were mine, too. The walls, the sheets, the picture frames. Even you.

Too proud to admit, but hah, news flash. There was a time when you were mine.

Me and my goddamned illusions.

On the table are your glasses. I find myself shaking my head a bit - how could you ever forget your glasses? But then again, don't you always… forget?

Remember, that one time over lunch, I got so annoyed with your habit of pushing these freaking glasses up the bridge of your nose so much, that one time, I stopped you, I grabbed your hand, and I pushed them up myself?

You don't remember. But I do. I remember how exactly everything else felt. Cold metal against my fingertip, sparkle in your eyes when you laughed, my anxiety. Everything.

Perhaps, I was really one for the detail. And you were just sogood at forgetting.

It's getting late, I should really get going. I rush out your room, hurried steps, careless, blindly heading for the door. Remember, I used to live here, I know this place, and I can find my way out without having to look at where I'm going…

Passing through the walls, the paintings, the tables and chairs unmoved, forgotten…

I remember that night, I packed everything I owned inside a yellow backpack. That night I thought I had everything I needed - toothbrush, toothpaste, underwear, money to last for a couple of weeks, or at least until the money my parents sent me monthly arrived in my ATM.

By mistake, I remember, I brought your shampoo. And I had to live through the torture of remembering how your hair smelled whenever I took a bath. and whenever I wake up each freaking morning, I almost forget I'm alone because my pillow smells just like you.

Do you even remember how hard I cried, how heavy my footsteps were as I dragged them across the floor, as I barely reached out to touch these same walls, as I hurried out this same corridor, not minding these same chairs and tables and picture frames? Do you even remember… how hard that was?

Maybe you don't. that's okay, I don't blame you. I'm a sucker for details. Perhaps already to a fault.

Then the door swings open, even before I get to it, and I stop.

I'm sorry, I took a minute too long. I know I should've left hours ago. I know I shouldn't have gone back here in the first place. Perhaps it was better that I'd just left a letter instead.

But there's no running away from here now.

There's no running away from you, there's no running away from what happened, from what we had, from what we should've done to fix things, from… from things, just things. No more running away, or at least, no more for me.

I'm sorry, I know this is your house. Used to be ours, but the point is, it isn't anymore.

"I came to return my keys," I just whisper instead, eyes fixed on the floor, handing cold metal pieces around a metal ring over... "You should change that lock…"

==

"So forgive me love,
If I cry in your shower.
So forgive me love,
For the salt in your bed.
So forgive me love,
If I cry all afternoon…"
- Alanis Morrisette, "Your House".