So here is my first foray into something I'd love to make a regular part of this blog: a narrative of a tiny snippet of my life a la Sex and the City (the book).  Mike was telling me recently that by not publishing my writing, among other things, I'm not really putting myself into this blog.  But like I said in my Poetry in a Blog post, it's unwise to publish writing you'd like to see published one day in a blog.  Because of this, rather than put out sub par work as a representation of me, I simply haven't been publishing anything.  This is my way of making this blog my own, and I hope you enjoy it!

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The two of us were alone in her dorm room.  It was dim in there, the only lights a desk lamp and strings of orange and purple party lights hanging from the ceiling.  It always felt magical to me to be there under those lights, like I was experiencing somethings small and beautiful that I would remember for the rest of my life.  We called them brothel lights, and she always had them on when she didn't want to be in the pitch black, because she claimed the fluorescents made the room sick and full of vibrations.

String of Lights 01 by L-nay on Deviantart

I was standing; I'm not sure why.  I was probably exploring.  I always liked to explore that room, no matter how many times I went there, to admire the pictures on the wall or touch the petals of the dried flowers on her night stand.  It felt young and rebellious and sweet, like a part of my life I had skipped when I moved out of my parents' house and straight into an apartment.

I hated having to grow up that way, having to support someone who was born in a cesspool and would never crawl out and feeling that I had no other choice.  I was made an adult too soon and had experienced the consequences of attaching myself to a malign force so many times, someone who was simply not as good as me, however conceited that may sound, someone who could only drag me down instead of rise with me.  I wanted a do-over desperately; I wanted to be in that dorm and live under those lights for years of my life, to pay almost nothing for rent and never feel fears that a girl my age shouldn't feel.  I wanted sleepovers and shrimp ramen and Vault soda and a thousand things that young people deserve.

She was sitting on the bed with her laptop, just like always, nose buried in the screen.  Her typing was always tentative, especially when she was talking to someone or role playing in one of her groups.  She was the kind of person who was so careful with her words.  I always thought it was because she was terrified of saying the wrong thing, but later I knew it was because she had a way of taking her time to say exactly the right thing, the thing that would get her results.

Things were quiet; the conversation had lulled.  Without looking up, she said to me in a way that seemed offhandish and yet revealed how much she wanted to talk about it, "Mike called me.  Our Mike."

For a moment, I was silent.  I honestly didn't remember him in that second.  Time had so separated us, and I had lived a life that made that part of my existence seem a distant dream, "Wow, really?" I wrinkled my nose and laughed at the sheer improbability of that statement, "What on earth could he possibly want to call for?"

"I wasn't sure myself, but he ended up telling me he still loves me."

Shock. "What, really?"

"He asked if I would get back together with him and give it another shot, but I told him I just couldn't do that to Anthony, you know?  I'm engaged.  I mean, I told him I wish I could and that if things were different, if he had come along sooner, I really would have, but it was just too late for that."

"Wow, that's crazy."  It felt crazy, and it felt heavy.  It felt gross.  He felt gross, like the animal that could actually love someone I loved but knew to be so dysfunctional inside on levels she couldn't even address with me when I thought we were so close.

"Yeah... and you know what else?  Right after I rejected him, he told me he's going to join the Army.  I mean, he said he'd move out here and come live with me and we could be together, but you know I have Anthony; I couldn't do that.  I told him not to do it, but he said that if I wouldn't be with him, he didn't really have a choice.  I mean, really, I can't believe he joined the Army because of me."

And that was the moment that my mind dropped the whole thing.  It was fat, icky, and worthless to think about.  What did I care if he felt so strongly for her like that?  He must seriously have been creepy to have pined after her all those years and call out of the blue with all these six-year feelings.  After all, so many of the people she talked to were very, very creepy.  They scared me; I was scared for her.  But I refused to let myself get sucked into that midnights-outside-your-window world.

But I was being naive.  I was being trusting toward the person who had been the most beautiful constant in my life.  Who would ever, ever suspect the person they were closest with in the world to fudge the truth or even to tell a bald-faced lie?  And how was I to know that I was only feeling what I was supposed to feel, that I was a result?