Today, my ex-boyfriend asked me to fill up his water bottle while I went to fill up mine. I can only just remember saying “Sure.” It’s a vague recollection: like everything else involving him, this response gets stacked under agendas, priorities and my five senses – and a glassy fog encircles it, burying it once and for all. I don’t even remember what staircase I took to get to the water fountain. I was swallowed by fog.
Under the fog lies, untouched, over a thousand days worth of memories, cherished by only the most inner depths of the chambers of my heart. But today, I asked myself if I was ready to finally allow real feelings to surface, slowly but surely. The answer I got; faint yet undeniable, was “Sure.”
It hurts. Plain and simple. While so much more is complex, this much I know for sure.
To go back to the beginning, in Grade Seven, I was put in a class with no friends. Instantly, though, his role as the class clown struck me as hilarious, as he and I would jokes around all the time. We were never really friends. I don’t know how it worked, but we kind of skipped that and went straight to best friends, or maybe more.
I still remember the exact feeling I had when I first fell in love with him. It’s a little weird to think there was a specific moment, but it literally hit like a ton of bricks (how I love my cliches). To make a long story short: we were at my best friend’s birthday party, and he had hurt himself, so when everyone else went outside to play soccer, he played video games. And I sat with him, just there, wanting to be as close to him as I could. I never played the games; I just watched him. He was glowing. He wasn’t perfect, but he was truly extraordinary. I wanted to feel his presence; his heat radiating off his body, keeping me warm.
I wonder what he remembers from that day, because I know that he felt what I felt that day, too.
I don’t want to go into details about the rest. The storyline goes as follows:
December 9, 2006: Fell in love.
June 23, 2007: Got together (officially).
June 29, 2007: First kiss.
April 4, 2008: He broke up with me.
June 28, 2008: He told me he still loved me, and asked me if I would take him back (I said the cop out: “I don’t know”).
October 5, 2008: He reminded me that he loved me (and I had a new boyfriend).
November 4, 2008: I had, effectively, dumped my other boyfriend two weeks earlier, when he asked me out again. I said yes.
January 12, 2009: We took a break.
February 9, 2009: He broke up with me.
December 2, 2009: He told me he still loved me, and asked me if I would take him back. I said no.
December 3, 2009: He told me he still loved me, and asked me if I would take him back. I said no.
December 4, 2009: He told me he still loved me, and asked me if I would take him back. I said no.
January 5, 2010: I finally said yes.
February 22, 2010: He told me he wasn’t sure if he even knew what love was.
February 26, 2010: I told him we didn’t have to be exclusive, and that he could fuck around with other girls.
June 17, 2010: He broke up with me.
(notice the repeats.)
Now: He has built up his palace, and I am not a part of his kingdom. I stay hidden, in the shadows, and invisible in the fog. I could tear it down, so easily. I could force him to remember how he felt; what he said. But he’s trying to forget, and I still care about him more than anything. I will stand, in my silence, waiting to disappear before his very eyes, while he forgets. Because that is what he wants, and when you love someone you make sacrifices that you never thought you ever would. I prefer the role of giving anyway.
Now: We tiptoe around each other. We used to have the same friends, but we have all divided now. We chose different paths. I ask how he’s doing, I offer him my pens, and I let him cheat off me during a test when he’s desperate. Him? He laughs at me. He finds something rude to say concerning every single thing about me: whether it be something I say, do, the way I look, what I wear… it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hurt me, though. My friends say he does it because he can’t not think about me. And even though I will never admit it to them, I agree. I know him. He needs the confidence, and I understand if that needs to come at my expense. And he can even try to pretend to forget, but I know, plain and simple, that neither of us ever will.
And that’s okay with me. I’ve learned. I’ve learned of strength, and love, and human capacity; of heartache, and truths, and external relationship forces. I’ve learned that all those clichés… they’re true. They say your first love never truly dies – they were right. I wish people didn’t have to go through this process of like, love, pain, tears, repeat. But if we didn’t, wouldn’t we be constantly wishing and yearning for that insane experience to just feel alive?
He made me feel alive. I just want to continue to feel that way.
Time to smash it up, baby; time to smash up that fog.
And to think this got set off by just a “Sure.”