These things matter.

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I remember the way you first kissed me.  I remember the way we kissed like high school kids, on the couch, for hours, with a book in my lap.  I remember you kept your eyes open, as if you couldn’t believe it was really happening.  Of course, I know your eyes were open because mine were open too.  And I only believe it now because I’ve looked at the memory so many times.  I remember you were awkward and polite.  You didn’t know where to put your hands – or else you knew, but you refrained.  You were the only man who was ever polite to me.  You were content with just the skin of my shoulders that my strapless dress left bare.  And so when it got late and you invited me to sleep beside you and gave me clothes to sleep in, I left you alone on your bed and I went to the bathroom to change.  And when I returned, I had changed my mind.  I undressed for you in the moonlight that poured through your bedroom window.  And then I undressed you.  And we went to sleep.

I am not afraid of being alone.  I am afraid of men who aren’t polite.  I am so afraid.  I cry because I am afraid that someone will take away all the beauty and kindness that I felt when I saw you looking back at me.  And I am sorry that someone already did.  In the hospital, you looked at me the same way you did in the beginning, like I was magic and sunshine and stars.  And I saw what I should have seen in the beginning.  And then you saw the bruises on my skin and I saw your face. You were the only man who had ever been polite to me.