Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimer. They're my voices, and I'll listen to them if I want to. Please send comments, questions, compliments, and otters to sdelcul@yahoo.com.

Author's Notes: 03/05/06

There's a stranger living my life

It keeps me awake at night sometimes, wondering what he's like. What people think of him. My family, my friends, my partner. That's the scariest part, thinking about Benny.

It's not like we were anything formal or even anything at all. I have no hold on him other then friendship. No reason to expect him to wait patiently when it was my own fear that kept me from kissing him. No reason at all.

My thoughts, like my regrets, are disjointed.

I imagine the smell of his skin next to mine, and in the next moment I'm sure that he's waking up with someone else. Someone else will call him Benny, and sleep next to him. I hate someone I don't even know. More than I hate Victoria even.

It's stupid, I know, and not even logical, but I look in the mirror and see him. He's the one using my name, taking my place. He's the one who can call Benny. The one that sees the reminders, who doesn't notice the time passing as he watches my partner. My partner.

He's where I should be. I should be there. . . . . telling Benny the truth. That my faults and my fears made me leave him. That I love him. That I hold in my heart, in my soul, the kiss that we could share. The love I wish I'd been ready to accept. The love I know he needs.

I drive myself crazy thinking about rushing back to find that I've been replaced even there.

Maybe it's not by Ray Vecchio; it could be anyone. Anyone at all.

Then I want to stay here, preferring torturing myself with doubt to torturing myself by knowing that his lips and eyes are making promises to someone else. He deserves that. Not maybes. He deserves someone who will be there, even if it isn't me.

But if it isn't me? Can I live with myself if I've lost him forever? Can I live without him now?

I don't know. And that's why I stay away. I fear the answer more than the not knowing.

I love him. But I don't deserve him. That much I know for sure.