This Is What It’s Like To Be Addicted To A Back And Forth Relationship

I really believe that you can get addicted to someone in the same way you can get addicted to a substance.

You can crave someone and everything about them. You crave the way they look at you and the way their mouth tastes and the way they run their fingers through your hair and the way they smoke a cigarette and the way they breathe can get you high and when you go for a few days or weeks without it, sometimes you can physically start to hurt. You start to feel it in your skin and you see it in the way that your eyes look when you stare in the mirror and you feel partially empty and thirsty for them all at once.

Then a few more weeks pass, then months, and then before you realize it, the emptiness fades and you start to feel normal again. You wonder how you ever let it get to that point. You feel happy and free.

Then one night you go out with friends to a bar and you see him sitting there, drinking a beer and existing without you, and all at once everything rushes back.

Then he sees you and looks at you in that familiar way and he smiles and you walk over to him and you entertain the idea that you can handle yourself around him. That you don’t need to go back, that you worked hard to get to where you are and that you’re better off.

You talk to him casually and you’ve almost convinced yourself that you’re done but then he flashes you that grin and you remember how he tastes and what he sounds like at 3 AM in the dark. Then he touches you and you feel the craving taking over your body like an unwelcomed guest, or an old habit that never really went away.

You ride the wave that he leaves you on when he excuses himself to get another drink at the bar. You catch your breath and you look around at your friends, caught up in their own conversation, not watching after you. You simultaneously feel angry and relieved.

Then he comes back and you lose all sense of the outside world. You’re so happy he came back. You talk more and he says all the right things and accidentally brushes against you at all the right times and you’re back. You remember how he smells and how it feels to be wrapped up in him and how his warmth kept you so safe. Nothing or no one could touch you. You were high. You were free. You were invincible. And now, alone you are weak. Dark. Scared. Unprotected.

You try to walk away. He asks you to stay and you tell him you can’t. He turns away and you make your rounds and say goodbye to your friends, but you look back and he’s gone. You can’t find him, and you know you should feel relieved but instead you feel your pulse racing and you think you might cry. You walk out to the parking lot feeling so low and so cheap and then you open the door of the car and you see him sitting there. Waiting for you.

He looks at you with that same tempting sparkle in his eyes and he smiles at you in that same way that you love because it makes his lip curl in that specific way. You don’t say anything but you reach out to him, knowing that you shouldn’t, but he’s tracing the skin on your hand with his finger and he’s leaning his head on your arm so you run your fingers through his hair and your senses come to life again and the tingling under your skin sends shivers through your spine.

Then, in that moment, you decide that you stop giving a shit about what everyone will say and you completely forget about all of the pain and the emptiness from the last time he went away and you look into his eyes and you feel him wanting you and you remember the way it was so you don’t even care and you leave everything behind and you lean into him and you breathe in and take another hit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.