[ the baby ] [ things i did not tell you; things that are lies ] [ the music ] [ the furher ] [ love will tear us apart again: an extended metaphor of the physical manifestation of a broken heart, or a bloody requiem for the might have been ] [ white space ] [ how to disappear completely ] [ sorry ] [ bus stop ]quasi-fiction
[ the garbage train ] [ dissertation on the concept of forever starting tonight, explained in the second person, to an ex-lover, a best friend, and the man in the astor place subway station who asked me for a nickel (or a true story that is 43% lies and 0% plot) ] [ breakup vignettes ]
Breakup Vignettes
I wrote these at different times, anywhere from March 2005 to June 2006. They are unrelated. They are all together because I noticed I kept writing breakup scenes. Strange. Some of them are true. Some of them are not.
i.
"I don't think I can do this," he said, his eyes focusing not on her but on the bright orange and pink neon clock on the wall behind her, garishly joyful, especially compared to the squinting, incredulous sadness of her eyes.
"Oh." She didn't have much else to offer him. She watched calmly as he chewed on his lip, waiting for her to speak more. She refused, pursed her lips. They tasted vanilla-minty, falsely so, the taste of the three-year-old lip balm she found in the pen drawer of her desk when she cleaned it yesterday. Briefly she wondered if one could suffer illness due to expired lip balm, and, if, in fact, lip balm expired at all.
"What are you thinking?" he asked, reaching across the table for her hand. Her hand was much smaller than his. Her hand was much smaller than eveyone's, save her little sister, who was ten.
"Nothing." It was the correct answer, she knew, for the part she was supposed to play. She didn't mind playing a part--without lines, she wouldn't really know what to say.
"I do care for you," he went on. She nodded, tried not to look bored. "It just can't work. We're too different. We're really different people."
"Yeah. I agree." She hoped this wouldn't go on much longer. There was the question of getting home before it got too dark and dangerous in her neighborhood, which was one of the worst ones in all of New York. There was the question of the semi-real, nearly surreal, tears welling up in her eyes, though she wasn't really sad at all.
__________
ii.
"This can only end badly for both of us," she said.
"Well, do you want to stop seeing each other?" he looked at her impassively, eyes clear but unreadable.
"No,"
"Why not?" He raised his brow, looked down. "If it can only end badly."
"Well, we've already started. It would be just as bad to end now as it would be to end later, and we might as well enjoy it while we can. Make the best. Appreciate. Something. The good part."
He smiled.
She frowned. She wasn't truly this cold, this logical. If only. The cost-benefit approach was so easy. Perhaps she could trick herself into believing it.
__________
iii.
(excerpt from the unfinished "i want to know what love is and i want you to show me: a plea to a non- lover, a non-friend, and the guy named kenny whose birthday it was at the office today.")
Non-lover.
We are sitting by the Hudson river on a Wednesday afternoon, in a silence that I want to believe--that I have almost convinced myself to believe--is comfortable and indicative of our peace and mutual deep understanding, and not just that our connection is characterized by static and discord. Not just that we really don廠 have much to say.
"I am not in love with you," you say finally, almost deadpan in your seriousness, your complete and terrifying emotionless monotone that sounds the same whether you are being funny or being sincere.
The thing is, I幟 not in love with you either. That is what I think and what I say, but it廣 a defensive move. The real thing is that I am not sure. I can argue it either way, just like I can with everything else.
There are things I love about you. There are also things I hate about you, things that annoy me and make me wonder why I am your girlfriend. Was your girlfriend.
The last time粺lso, the first time and only time--I was in love, there was no question that it was love. A wise person may or may not have once said that if you have to ask, it廣 not. If that廣 true, then I幟 not in love with you.
Later that night: Last week, maybe the week before, you left an undershirt at my house. You left it in my bed. I knew it was there, and I rummaged for it last night before I went to sleep, and I hugged it and smelled it and smelled you and I cried and cried. I felt myself grasping for dear life on some sort of skin that you managed to slip out of while we were holding each other, like a trapped snake in a cartoon. That at one moment, I was hugging something big and warm and alive and the next minute, I was hugging a hollow and small shell, a piece of white cotton you left at the battle scene to distract me while you got away. That was a sensation I could not handle, so I put your shirt over my pillow, like a pillowcase, and cried into a chest that was too soft and cold to be yours. It still wasn廠 realistic enough, because you are not just a limbless torso, so I arranged the rest of my pillows into the shape of your body--legs, arms, head--and weepily begged it to adore me until 3 am, when the eight sleeping pills I took to calm down finally kicked in and I passed out, the pillow standing in for your right arm cradling my head and bending sharply to rest like your hand on my waist.
And I am left to wonder: Of what is such mourning indicative, if not love? Maybe it廣 not the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. I never thought about marrying you and spending the rest of my life with you the way I did with He Who Came Before. I幢l admit that freely, and even a little savagely, as a small poke to the ribs of someone who beat me senseless with "I幟 not in love with you." But I so want to be with you right now. I want to be with you more than anything else. Back at the Hudson, you said that you said that you loved the time we spent together, and we could still have that, but we could both date other people. The idea of you dating other people綟he idea of you thinking about dating other people, taking other people home with you and kissing them and touching them and looking up at them with your lovely dark brown eyes that I used to think were black until I stared into them wanting to know all of you緅s an idea that makes me break down crying on the subway when I realize that you might be able to fall in love with anyone in that car except me.
In the last story that I wrote in this style, I was able to write in the second person successfully. I could predict things that my ex-lover would do, predict things that he would say and think and know and want. I cannot do this with you. Maybe you are right. We have become very close, but we hardly know each other at all.
__________
iv.
Paige looked very seriously into my eyes. "On a molecular level, a breakup is not possible, you know," she said.
"What?"
"You heard me."
I had. I had heard her and I had hated her smug satisfaction enough to stall what was bound to come next. Next I expected her to come out with an obscure fact and smile an esoteric smile. "Well, okay."
"I mean, you have my molecules all over you. You can't get rid of them. They're all over your house. They're in your bathroom, in your bed. They're like headlice. You're going to have to soak everything in bleach. You have to wash all your clothes. Little bits of me, everywhere. It's so much effort. Is getting rid of me really worth all this effort?" Hm. Not so obscure after all. Not so esoteric. I could do this.
"Your molecules don't bother me, Paige."
"Yeah?" she narrowed one of her eyes and looked at me sideways. "Are you certain?" She leaned in closer. "I mean really certain. Like, what if you have another girl over? And she sleeps in your bed? Is she going to want to sleep with my molecules?"
"Well, I'm not going to tell her that they're there."
"Oh, she'll know!" Paige laughed sharply. "She'll know, all right."
"Well, I guess I'll wash my sheets."
"You're probably going to have to move. I've touched every inch of every one of your walls."
"I'll sponge them down."
"You're going to be a busy man, Steven."
She never called me Steven. No one does.
"A very busy man. You'd better go home and get started right now. It's going to take you years. Years."
I could see tears welling up in her eyes, which were alarmingly green.
"You can go now. It's ok. I'll pay for lunch. You have so much cleaning to do. So much--erasing." She broke .
"No, I'm not leaving you here."
"You have to go get rid of my molecules!" she sobbed.
"I'll keep them for awhile. It'll be okay."
"No!" she cried, slapping the table and making her plate of salad bounce. "I don't want you to have them anymore! Go get rid of them! Go do it or I will!"
"Um, if you did, wouldn't you just be leaving more molecules behind?"
She buried her head in her hands and her body shook. "Oh god that's right!" She moaned. "Well, I guess I'm stuck then."
"You'll be fine."
"I'm fine already." She was still crying.
"You are not."
"You have no idea how fucking fine I am." She was red, like a burn.
"I have an idea of how fine you're not," I replied, surprising myself with my quickness. I am not known for my quickness.
She glared at me. "Don't fucking look at me with pity. I can't stand it." She had grey streaks of mascara running down her cheeks. "Fine. We're broken up. Leave me alone. Go."
"I'm waiting for the check."
"If you don't leave, I'm leaving."
"No, just--" I realized I had no right to keep her. "Okay."
She didn't move. We stared at each other. "You want me to leave?" Her voice was small. She was being difficult. This is one of the reasons we had to break up. I almost said so, but instead I just shook my head no.
"I want you to stay. Let's just stay and finish our lunch, okay?"
She sniffed. "Okay."
__________
v.
Erasing. The repetition was soothing. Scritch, scritch, rub, rub. There and then gone. She drew a line and then she erased it and then she drew another and she erased it. It was like lifting weights or having sex.
"...Of course you realize, none of this is you. It's not you."
Scritch. Rub. Scritch. Rub. She nodded.
"What are you drawing?" He sounded irritated. It was like him to want her full attention even in this matter.