How I knew at 22 years old I had fallen in love with someone

My boyfriend gave me a key to his house.  I know, how epic, the trust he must have had. We plan a Friday night in, pizza, bourbon, and movies, the kind of ordinary, indulgent lazy evening that depending on my mood later would either be used as evidence of our complete harmony, or that this relationship was syphoning my youth.  Class ends early for me, he’s stuck in traffic, and I’m left alone in his cave for thirty minutes.

I enter the kitchen, flip on the lights, grab a beer.  And then I spot his laundry basket near the door to the garage.  The basket is full, and I figure its either dirty, and sweet girlfriend that I am, I’ll pop it into the wash, or it’s clean, and I’ll ignore it (folding clean clothes would be over the line into mother territory).  I grab a white shirt off the top, and lightly sniff at it.

It was dirty.  Yard work, trip to the gym, slept in multiple nights, whatever the cause, the man had clearly sweat in it.

It smelled amazing. I smothered my nose into it and inhaled deeply. Intoxicating.

Fucking chemical, hormonal, trying to get me pregnant bullshit love.