I can't help but think that my move will change things, bring me more time, more space to be myself. I imagine the walls and the piano, the warm cozy spaces that will be mine and mine alone. The lake shining quietly beyond the swaying cedars that guard the cottage.

But what I don't tell Daniel is that I fear who I will become when living alone. Nobody there to normalize my behaviour, nobody to check my destructive habits; will I be able to stay strong against the darkness of privacy? I also don't tell him why I have drawn within myself these last few days: Timathy. I miss him, I missed such important things in his life. He shared them with other people.

I am no longer his.

And that is why I am no longer his. Because he made me his, and I was not my own person. I stood in his shadow, comfortable there in anonymity. He's pull me into his light sometimes, and I would stand there shyly smiling, talking about the weather and derailing any conversation into a stalled silence.

I hated that he smoked, and I hated how he let his emotions spill all over the ground like his flicked cigarette ashes. I hated the stupid tattoos and how he'd pull on his stupid labret spike when he was talking and it would mumble up whatever he was saying. I hated knowing that he would one day be filthy rich, and I hated myself for desiring a part of that.

Why did I let him fall in love with me? I thought him somehow different. He seemed to care more about life than others, to live more passionately. He thought me wonderful? I felt a chemistry so powerful, so contrasting to the wilting relationship with Chris. I'd always wanted to have a Native fall in love with me, because then maybe some way I'd sink deeper into the earth.

In the end, between gasps of broken hearted confessions, I knew he loved me deeply. In the bog. On the highway, speeding towards Chilliwack. Each time I'd hold him through the night after a club show. He loved me, he loved me, he loved me.

And now here I am letting Daniel fall in love with me. It's so easy and tempting... I tell him to sit still and I draw him in India ink. Somewhere between his skin and the arc of energy between my eye and hand is a cloud of diffuse orchid love potion. He asks me where I came from, if I am real.

I must step back, breathe, step out into the snow alone. In this frozen quiet city, I will run alone for a while.