"somewhere other than inside the out there." -- part fourteen.
so he had tried to break up with me some time in january. he gave me every line, like he was flipping through stereo instructions, trying to figure out how to get the radio stations programmed. i mean, he just went on and on until the statements turned into questions, like he was expecting me to accept one from the multiple choice exam.
what is the underlying reason for the eventual and inevitable failure of the relationship between specimen x and specimen y? please choose from the following options: a)specimen x is too good for specimen y. b)specimen y needs its space. c)it's not specimen x, it's specimen y. d)specimen x and specimen y are better off as friends.
please fill in your answer completely.
yeah, he tried to break up with me. i told him no. simple as that, i would not let him break up with me.
to an outside observer, that may seem, um, "psychotic" or "obsessive." but it wasn't like that, he was freaking out because we were close. closeness is fucking freaky sometimes. and he and i, in such short months had become everything to each other, and that, my friend, can be one helluva horrifying ride.
there's something, some little microchip planted in every guy i've ever dated. they freak out at the slightest notion that they may be getting close to me. like skittish kittens, they jump sky high when i say something like, "it's cool that we have a lot of fun together." does that sound like "give me your soul and all your shiny things for my very own?!?!" apparently, something is lost in translation. almost every guy i've ever dated has tried to break up with me after two months because he's petrified that we're getting close. it can't be a commitment thing, really. because when i think about it, at every stage that this happened, i was not being a scary, clingy girlfriend type. they just freak out on me. like someone's taking off their goddamn training wheels. note: these are lessons you should have learned with some other girl a long time ago. i like to call it the 'two month scare.' i know, i'm terribly clever.
so i told him no. i said that he was freaking out for no reason. he was really confused that i wouldn't let him break up with me. i thought it was kinda funny, upsetting but funny. what he was telling me was that he wanted to spend just as much time with me, and he wanted to continue to have sex, and he wanted eagerly to know me better than anyone ever had. but he didn't want to be in a relationship with me. well, put those things together, and you have a relationship. i told him as much, and that he was freaking out for the sake of freaking out.
and sure, it ran through my head more than once or twice, i must admit ... what would i do if it all ended. not speaking on a purely physical level, but the spiritual elaborations between friends, the slight sessions of adoration, the futile and fragile bonds. i would have to go back to life, back to putting up with harboring lost college students in my hovel because they couldn't smoke in their rooms. so i found myself in a time of high stakes in a house of cards.
funny though, in the midst of this, she was still around. that goddamn ex factor.
let me give you just a few of the tiny nuances that made this girl so relentlessly hideous to me.
goth and i began to call her "frog." she hopped from lilypad to lilypad extracting all the attention and glorification that she could, and once that was used up, on to the next penis, um, i mean, lilypad. "frog" was pretty enough, tight little body and short bleach blond hair and big whatever eyes. she had a token homelier twin sister who she hated for being a better actress than she was. "frog" was a drama queen, a self-proclaimed everything, a user, and a manipulator. doesn't she sound like a gem? keep in mind, this is years after the fact, and i've actually had many conversations with "frog" but my opinion has changed little. but i don't actually hate her any more.
at first, i tried hating her, but i found that i had really hated him for choosing to kick me out when she came over that fateful day during our first try at a relationship.
i'm not a jealous person. well, that's probably the biggest lie i've ever told. i wasn't jealous of her, how's that? i knew she was prettier than me or hotter than me or whatever, but i knew that my intellect alone blew her up and over the seas. let alone any of my honesty or insight. i may not have any of it in abundance, but i guarantee it was more than her.
so boy was still talking to her a bit, they worked together sort of, and all of her shit was still at the apartment.
well, she decides to move to connecticut after her and her next big thing ended badly, and she enlisted boy to help her move.
you can probably imagine the shit fit i had.
he left to the state of small towns for the weekend, and i was left alone.
but i just kept dreaming of summer, when it would be warmer.
because of this, he spent the weekend before telling me how amazing and important and saintly i am. needless to say, i took that with a fucking huge grain of salt. it all came and went without immense discombobulation.
then, we isolated ourselves from griggs for a while. we would order food and retire to his room to eat by ourselves and talk. we had gotten bored with talk without action.
we were not better but different at that moment.
i got sick of watching the same people waste away on the orange couch, sinking deeper and deeper into movies and music. it was not the time for hibernation. i refused to talk about problems that i didn't have yet and then solve them in the past tense. i refused to function in the "what i would have done" mindset. because fuck that and everything it stands for. because it stands for past. it stands for regret. it stands for choosing not to choose. it stands for talking about what has happened and is happening. i didn't want the time to talk. i wanted to constantly be evoking and doing. creating new problems that make the old obselete.
through all this, boy and i made plans. he wanted me to move into the apartment that coming summer. he wanted me closer. after talking the finances over with my parents (still a full time student and making little to no money, moving out of the dorm could have been impossible without their approval and help), i told him that i would move in come may.
well, shit in the fan and all that.
philosopher pulled me aside and said he was worried, like things were falling apart. well, honestly, they were, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. creation. destruction. we've talked about this. our tight-knit group of twenty-somethings was being reevaluated from the inside out, and the hibernation was proving that things needed to change. people were breaking up without making up. friendships were on the line. but above it all, i just said, "we're not leaving each other. we're family. we fight. it's what we do." we had to let each other be. if only until summer.
things had become routine, and that's certainly a recipe for taking the scum off the top. it was the same people every night, doing the same amazing things, and talking the same brilliant talk. eventually, even brilliance loses its shine.
the only thing i had was a light in my eyes that told me i loved him. i would give him everything. he could have my ideas, my words, my love, my taste, my smile and laughter, my sight. he could have it all if he wanted it. but i was slowly losing, being drained of my faith. it began to snow the night i realized that. the sky was all tainted with rose. i felt uglier by the second.
i had known exactly where i wanted to be. i had had such a strong grip on everything, and suddenly, we were all at each other's throats. so i sat, for hours, staring at my wall, doing absolutely nothing just to see how it felt.
it was that time when winter got too long. cabin fever. the cold kept coming and pushing and defeating us. tiny pins under your nails, clinging and pushing. conversations lost their glisten, and froze over with malice.
but we had each other. i woke up next to him everyday, and that was enough.
and then...
and then...
and then, he told me about her.
i had spent my entire life loving in grandeur, convinced that no matter the the distances or disagreements or differences, i could love anyone if i knew them well enough. because as much as i hated people, i believed in the abilities of change, opening, and shifting. it's a matter of letting your eyes be opened while you're prying at someone else's. my whole life, i saw the possibility to love them all. but then i met this man, this incredible good man who i love and cherish and pry into. it was exciting and invigorating to focus all my love onto one person, my one and only. i had someone just as into action instead of talking and hating. i had this love.
and then, he told me about her.
i had forgiven him and come so close to forgetting about everything from the previous winter. i had let him in and up and out and through. i had this love. suddenly, i was this girl standing just outside the door with a gooey, drippy love pooling from her hands, weeping.
my cigarette dropped to the floor. i was reluctant to pick it up for fear that the small movement would burn this moment into reality.
"i do love you."
i was silent. i was gone. i was quivering.
i was sitting on the corner of my bed. he was still wearing his coat and standing over me.
jump back a couple of days. he began to get this nasty sensation of disconnection, and he didn't feel right. i reassured him and told him he wasn't eating right. he needed sleep. he needed a good meal. he needed some advil. he needed...
but he kept telling me that it wasn't physical, it was mental. he was mentally fucked. one morning, he woke up asking why this was happening to him.
and then...
i was sitting on my bed.
he was still wearing his coat and standing in front of me.
"we went to a movie." he looked down.
i was silent.
"and then she kissed me."
i was gone.
"and i kissed her back."
i was quivering.
some panic button, a big red one with large white typeset - "P A N I C" -, had been slammed.
i had seen her before. a few weeks before. there was a party, a cast party, for one of boy's plays. we had it at griggs street. one of the the griggs crew dj'd the whole thing. we were all rolling and dancing. boy and i were sitting right in front of the tables, watching our friend sweat and create. this girl came up and crouched in front of boy. my hand was on his leg. i was staring at her in her fake buddy holly glasses and vintage sweater. she spoke into his ear and smiled. her hand was on his leg. i was sitting right there, his hand in mine.
"i love you, but ..."
i finally spoke, "no."
"baby, i can't..."
"no. and fuck you. no." i said it all calmly, not getting up or moving an inch. in my head, i stormed out of my own room. i threw things at him. i screamed and cried about how i had trusted him. i ripped posters from the wall. i burned pictures of him. i tore my hair out until my scalp was bloody and ripped. i created elaborate voodoo dolls and sunk into a suicidal depression that make it so that i would eventually take a baseball bat to something trite, like my phone or my desk chair.
but i just sat there, shaking my head, and saying no like a goddamn victim.
"i figured it out. why i've been feeling so awful. i mean, i could have just let this go," and he put his hand to his head, "but something makes it impossible for me to lie to you. it's like these goddamn motherfuckers won't let me. i feel like i'm being punished. this is what i get, sickness of the mind for not being..." and i knew he was referring to gods or goddesses or ghosts or anything higher.
i shook my head some more, like a bobble toy on a dashboard.
"i used to ... well, i would have never cared before. i would have just cheated and lied and kept you near. but i... gotta go."
and he took a few steps and looked back at me, shaking my head.
and he left.
i looked out my window and saw him leave the building and walk toward kenmore station.
i sank to my knees, and i screamed. i coughed, and i screamed. because i had this love, this adoring love rendered useless by a moment.
because we create only to destroy.
