Everything To Gain

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I have been alone for so long now, it is almost impossible for me to think in terms of living with another person again. But that is what Richard wants me to do. To live with him.

When he asked me last night to marry him, I told him I could not. Undaunted by my answer, and bravery, as is his way, he suggested we move in together. A sort of trial marriage, he said, with no strings, no commitment necessary on my part. "I'll take my chances, Mal," he said with a small, wry smile, his dark eyes anxiously holding mine.

Yet even this idea seems as out of the question to me now, this morning, as it did last night. I suppose, if I am scrupulously honest with myself, I fear the intimacy living with another human being entails. It is not so much the sexual intimacy that appalls me but the physical closeness on a day-to-day basis, the emotional bonding that weaves two people together and makes them part of each other. I am convinced I cannot handle this, and the more I think about it the more I am coming to understand truly my reaction to Richard's suggestion.

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