To Begin

I woke up in his bed, heard an unusual early morning silence, and thought, "What the fuck am I doing?" I carefully slid out of his navy blue comforter, to the floor, where I gathered each of my clothes. Wildly strewn about in this last drunken night, I scoured his small but tidy room for black lace. The absolute last thing I can leave here would be panties. Christ. Upon their unearthing, I unlocked the door and shut myself up in the bathroom to put on my (last night's) clothes. I stared at myself in the mirror, thinking again my immediate sentiment upon waking this morning, "What the fuck am I doing?" This time, swiftly followed by, "I need to get the hell out of here." After sneaking back in to his room, I grabbed the rest of my things as he stirred and half opened a sleepy eye at me. I looked at him, knowing I shouldn't see him for as long as I could help, and walked over to his bed. (I would miss that bed; most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. Well, physically speaking. No sound mind, that's for sure...) I leaned down, kissed his head, and said, "Good bye. We'll talk soon." He mumbled something with some semblance of a grin and I slipped away. In my red little car, parked in his 40-something neighborhood sect of another 30-something hip, urban professional enclave, again, "I need to get the hell out of here."

That was the end of a long romance, a slow growing of love, a fucking ridiculous, unreciprocated situation. Which really means it was another beginning.

I suppose that whole mess was slated for disaster. Having known this man semi-intimately in the past and then rekindling those feelings far later, well, that may have been a mistake. But! At the time, I was on my way out of the city, destined for a new life in a new one, and basically thought, "Fuck it. He's amazing." While I was away, we would text eachother cute things and talk about when I would be back. And when I did come back, for a very brief stay, it was mad. We wanted nothing but eachother and it felt the best it ever had. But I had to leave again, and so the texting (not talking, mind you) continued until I finally decided, due to other reasons, to move back. I couldn't wait to spend more time with this man, this bartender/musician, who seemingly felt the same about me, a sales slave/musician, and I thought we were fated to be together. (No nine-to-fives for us! It's young lives we lead!) Until we weren't.

So much confusion ensued so quickly that I barely remember any order of events. Mixes of lackluster dates where my hand would not even get grazed by his during a two hour span of a movie, to wild nights sleeping outside under a playground, him massaging me after pouring champagne down my body and entwining bodies on his suburban deck for any adjacent apartment dwelling neighbor to see. This strange pairing of ultra hot with frigid cold was enough to make anyone feel fucked up. Then news came through the gossip of friends that he still had feelings for some married woman who frequents his bar, of whom he wrote a song about, of which I admit, was quite good. More importantly, he relayed to a friend that he didn't think I would care, brushed me off, said "Oh, she's fine." I was not fine.

Confronting this led to huge arguments at bars, walking through the streets trying to make amends and fucked up shit like: him-"So...maybe we try to have a monogamous relationship..." me- "Um...yah.." me thinking- "What the fuck was this before, you fucking asshole??" The night before I got real and came to my senses, I told him exactly what I thought: that he was not at all thoughtful of me. I factored so little into his life and decisions and I was sick and hurt by it. This, naturally, followed a similar path of previous nights out that consisted of fighting, drinking, smiling again, drinking some more, fucking, and then sleeping. Except when I woke up that morning, under his navy blue comforter, atop his dreamlike bed, and thought, "What the fuck am I doing?"

We have never spoken since.