disappointment after disappointment. i am done. thank you.
you feel so far away
Talked to Marty a little today. I didn’t say much, he mostly told me about how he was doing, I think? I don’t even remember. I thought it would reassure me and make me feel better, but I don’t feel that way. I think I know what it is on my part - I love him as much as ever, but I don’t love him on an everyday basis. I can’t. He doesn’t feel like part of my life anymore, even though I think of him constantly and wonder about our relationship. It’s hard, and it’s sad. We need to talk, really talk, but that’s never been one of his strong points. I don’t know what to do with myself.
This person, this almost-extraterrestial I never could fit into any corner of my little privileged mind, this boy I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. He has a mass of tight, volumized black curls and black glasses with some kind of blue, and he has thin, brittle, purposeful lips. He writes funny lyrics, but when put together maybe have layers of meanings to him, but are incomprehensible to me.
We met on a drizzly afternoon when I had my hand pushing my heavy fringe horizontal-ways to shield my face from the rain, and he was walking with a crowd of faceless college boys. He said something like, “Is that working?”, and it caught me off guard. Who was that? I thought, as I walked away, my polite, insincere smile fading. I forgot it a half hour later.
It was the night of Marty’s recital, and I saw him there again. “Hey, hair girl!” And I laughed for real and we introduced ourselves. I forgot about that half an hour later, too.
A few weeks later I was running out of my apartment, late for Philosophy. I bumped into him ten steps outside, and we made brief, small talk, during which I told him, “Yeah, I live here.”
That night, I think it was. He came over after I showered and shaved in preparation for Marty. A grey tank top and short, short shorts were the only things I had on. No makeup. I was surprised and a little weirded out that he was there. He thought my telling him where I lived was an invitation to come over. It wasn’t. But we went to the Hub anyway, and we talked a little about forgettable things. I remember him telling me he was a vegetarian.
He asked me one day to go to the city with him to catch a show his friend was playing at. He’d bring champagne and chocolate. I went. The champagne was warm and fuzzy, the chocolate was the shitty Hersheys kind, but he did what he said he would and I liked that. We flirted the whole night, and ended up in a falafel restaurant. He told me that about his fetishes and how he’d always had trouble going in for the kiss, and I told him about Marty, how we were seeing each other, sort of, I mean, I don’t even know but I guess we are…
He was surprised, because he thought it was a date. I told him I didn’t know it was, but I secretly suspected that. Sitting opposite me, that tiny table drawing out the tension, he told me how he felt, straight to my face. No one then, and no one since, has ever had the guts to say it to me the way he did. He put it all out there, and I said no.
We said goodbye at the subway stop. I think I went in for a hug, I’m not too sure, and he put his face right next to mine. He said gently, slightly amused, and kindly, “Should I do it now? Should I kiss you?” and I hovered there, my insides quivering, my face flushed, wanting and not wanting him so badly. I have never felt so tense and excited like that.
I saw him a few times in the Fall, all briefly, all feeling distinctly different from that night in the city. I decided he wasn’t happy about my being with Marty; the tension disappeared. I haven’t seen him this year, but I hope to. I miss how that night felt, how I felt that night, and I miss him. I want to figure him out.
He’s left, and I miss him so, so unbearably much. All the small things, like not being able to talk to him just because I feel like it, or us going out to pick up food, or seeing something interesting online and sharing it with him, or not being able to watch Mad Men with him later today. Everything sucks.
So he goes on Saturday/Sunday. It’s painful and I’ve been hiding a lot under the blanket, feeling sorry about everything. I’m also slightly relieved, because I don’t have to think about whether he really loves me or imagine him with someone else - but then how I can not feel guilty about that?
I don’t think he feels like this; he says it hasn’t hit him yet but shit, it’s been a dark cloud hanging over my head and showering constant reminders of it on me. All the fucking time. He Doesn’t Really Love Me Part II. or III. or V, even, at this point. And I think the worst part about all of this is that he doesn’t even know. He has no clue about any of this. He doesn’t know how it scares me, how it drapes me in fetal position sadness. And all the hopelessness, because I don’t know how to tell him.
So this could be a good thing. I need to find out things about myself, and I need to do it alone. But that doesn’t make his leaving any less sad. I’ll miss him, and everything about him.
tired. tired tired tired.
what the fuck? seriously, what the fuck.
why the fuck do i even care anymore.
