by Ted Michael
I feel completely drained. I feel stupid and like a total bitch, and also disappointed, not so much in London but in Henry. Not that I blame him, but still—it’s shocking to know that the two of them hooked up, and even though it hurts my feelings, it reinforces the decision I made not to sleep with him and travel further down the road to a relationship that surely would not have ended well. Mine never do. The boy always winds up dumping me or cheating on me or saying something hurtful. It’s better we leave it this way, before either of us gets too damaged. We both have a lot of growing up to do. Better to end things before they really even began.
I don’t know whether it’s because I’m thinking about him or simply because we’re at the same party and just had a fight that was captured on camera and witnessed by nearly the entire East Shore student body (and he’s looking for me), but I see Henry walking toward me. His head is slightly bent, his shoulders are rounded, and he looks just about as exhausted as I am.
“Hey,” he says once he’s close.
“Hey.”
We look at each other and I almost cry at the sadness of it all. “So,” I say.
“So.”
“This is weird.”
He smiles but doesn’t show any teeth. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sure what to say,” I admit.
“Isn’t this the part where you tell me that even though you initially went after me because of a bet, during the time we spent together you realized how much we have in common, and how great I am, and actually fell for me? And then I’m supposed to be sulky for a little while and talk to one of my friends who doesn’t even really like you but tells me that I’d be an idiot to let you go, and then I run after you, maybe in the rain or as you’re about to board a bus, and I take you in my arms and kiss you and we live happily ever after?”
He looks at me, hopeful, and it kills me. Could he actually think it would be that easy?
“Why are the only happy endings the ones where the couples get together?” I ask. “Can’t they just be friends? Can’t that be a happy ending too?” I take a few steps closer and kiss him on the cheek. A peace offering.
“I don’t think it can, Garrett.”
“I see.”
“So, this is really it?” he asks gently.
“Yes,” I tell him. “At least for now.”
He jerks away. “Don’t say that.”
“Say what?”
“For now. I can’t handle that. If you don’t want to be with me, then I can’t have you in my life. At all.”
I close my eyes to keep from crying, letting his words sink in.
“I love you, Garrett. You’re the only person in my life I have ever loved. It took me seventeen years to find you. There’s never going to be anyone else. Please don’t do this.”
I try to find the right words, if there are any. “You deserve more than what I can give you, Henry. You’re sweet and funny and charming and handsome and there are plenty of girls who’ll want to be with you if you let them know you. The real you.”
“But there’s only one girl I want. You. All I’ve ever wanted is you.”
“I’ve never had a connection with anyone in my entire life like I have with you,” I say, and it’s the truth. “Ben, any of my other ex-boyfriends … that was just dating. That’s nothing at all like what I feel for you, which is something I have no experience with. You’ve taught me so much, Henry, about movies and about life. But I’ve been in relationships before that have ended really badly. All of my relationships, actually, and I need to learn from my mistakes. To focus on myself for a change and figure out what it is that I actually want in life. Before I knew you, I never would have admitted I wanted to pursue something in the music industry, and now … now it’s something I really want to explore.”
“You can do that with me,” he says. “We can do that together.”
“No. We can’t,” I say, and it pains me. Each word I utter rips a hole in the center of my body that grows bigger and bigger until I’m afraid it will swallow me entirely. “I care about you so much, Henry. You’re the last person in the world I want to hurt. But I know myself and I know what I need to do. And that’s to not be your girlfriend. I understand if you’re angry with me. If you don’t want to talk to me, we don’t have to talk. It’s up to you. I’d really like it if we could still be friends.”
I wait for him to respond and realize my dad has been sitting patiently in his car a few feet away. “This is me,” I say.
Henry looks at me, and his eyes, which have always been so full—of mystery, of life—seem dull and flat. “Go,” he says, his voice trembling. “Just go.”
The ride home with Dad is completely silent.
After a while, he says, “You okay, honey?”
I let loose. All of it comes out—tears, snot, more tears—and I just cry.
Dad pulls over to the side of the road. He squeezes my arm and waits until I’ve exhausted myself. Once I’m done, I look up and he is smiling.
“Boy trouble?”
I laugh. “Yeah,” I say, “you could say that.”
“What happened?”
“I hurt someone … someone I really care about. And I don’t know how to make it better.”
Dad reaches over and brushes some of my hair back. “That’s pretty deep stuff, Garrett.”
“I know.”
“Well, listen. What I’ll say is this: love is hard. For everyone.”
“Not you and Mom,” I say. “You guys have the perfect relationship.”
“Sweetie, no relationship is perfect. There are always ups and downs.” He kisses my forehead. “I know things seem rough now, but sleep on it. Time heals everything—corny, but true. And matters of the heart are always sunnier in the morning.”
At home, I fall into bed without taking off my dress. All I want to do is text Henry, or call, but I don’t. It wouldn’t be fair. I curl into a ball and hold my legs.
That look on his face!
I’ve lost him forever.
THE END
There is nothing sadder in this life than to watch someone you love walk away after they have left you. To watch the distance between your two bodies expand until there is nothing left but empty space … and silence.
—from Someone Like You (2001)
HENRY
Relationships take time. They are days and nights and weeks. They are stretched and worked and kneaded into something you never imagined they could be. But when they are over, the end comes so quickly you barely have time to breathe, to blink. They are minutes and seconds, and one moment you have everything and the next you have nothing. So here’s my question: when you lose the most important person to you in the entire world, where is all the love—love you never even knew you were capable of—supposed to go?
GARRETT
To: Amy Goldstein
Subject: Hey …
Truthfully?
I was hoping I’d hear from you by now. I can only assume you’re uncomfortable talking to me because of this thing with Ben, and I hate that our friendship was so fragile that a guy was able to come between us. It hurts to know the two of you are hooking up. It hurts even more that I heard it from Ben and not from you.
The funny thing is that if I’d found out about this a month ago, it would have devastated me. You were my very best friend in the entire world. But I met someone who kind of changed my life … and it’s a long story that’s not worth telling—or rather, it is worth telling, but not in an e-mail, and maybe, at this point, not to you—and now I’m just sort of thinking about bigger things than you & Ben.
So, I guess the point of this note is to tell you that I forgive you, even though you haven’t apologized. I’m taking some time to “find myself” (how clichéd is that?), and maybe we can try this whole friend thing again in the future. If not, it was a good run while it lasted, wasn’t it?
I’ll have my people call your people.
xoxo,
G
> HENRY
It’s really over.
I don’t go into work during the weekend. I fill my time with nonsense. I eat dinner alone and try to write a song on the guitar (key word: try) and check my e-mail. I don’t go on AIM. What if Garrett’s on?
She wants to be friends. But what does that mean? Were we ever really friends? Friends don’t stay up talking on the phone Every Single Night about Stupid Little Things and Most Important Things until it’s light outside. Friends don’t tell each other their most secret secrets.
Friends don’t hook up.
Friends don’t ache for each other.
They just don’t.
And when two people share those things, how can one of them simply shut off all the feelings? Is there a switch, a button I don’t know about? Is it possible to bypass the pain and hurt, the what ifs and maybes and why nots and what the fucks?
But maybe Garrett never felt that way about me. Maybe she never ached for me. I thought she did, but I could be wrong. And does it even matter? I don’t know if she felt the same way that I did, that I do, but surely she felt something. She must have. You can’t fake a connection—that much I know.
I guess she just didn’t feel enough.
So Garrett was never really my girlfriend and she was never really my friend. I can accept that. Only why, then, am I hurting so much? I barely know this girl. She’s been in my life a very short amount of time. Shit, though, did it mean a lot. Why does she occupy every second?
How can you so desperately miss something you never had in the first place?
Ben, all of my ex-boyfriends … that was just dating. That’s nothing at all like what I feel for you, which is something I have no experience with. Was she lying? I don’t think so, but if that’s true, then how can you throw it all away? Why aren’t I good enough to add to her list of previous boyfriends? What was so great about them?
But I’ve been in relationships before that have ended really badly. All of my relationships, actually. Doesn’t every relationship end badly until you find The One? And how could things possibly end worse than this: me feeling broken and used, the two of us not speaking.
What if we’ve lost each other forever?
I replay our last conversation like a scene in a film I’m obsessed with. I wonder if someday she will ever want me. But here’s the thing: when you press Rewind and start again, all you’re doing is seeing the same thing over and over and over. It never changes. I can think about all the things Garrett said to me, and her previous boyfriends, and what I wish could happen between us, or I could draft a million e-mails begging her to change her mind, or send her a text, or even pick up the phone and call, but none of that alters the essential ingredient in the recipe of whatever these past few weeks have been. I want her. I want her so badly it’s maddening, I want her so badly I can taste her and smell her and see her with my eyes closed. But she doesn’t want me—at least, not like I want her.
I must accept this.
I must move on.
I make a list of things I need to do and chant them to myself like a personal mantra. A list of goals and where I want to be emotionally a month from now, six months from now, a year from now. I have never really thought about stuff like this. I have never really been this vulnerable.
INT.—EAST SHORE HIGH SCHOOL, WEDNESDAY
Girls in movies (and in high school) forever talk about getting their hearts broken. I’ve always felt that phrase is incredibly stupid. A heart cannot break. It’s muscle and flesh and arteries and veins. And yet, now, I get it. I completely understand.
My heart is broken.
I’m not sure it will ever be the same—like a vase or a ceramic figurine you drop and then glue back together. It may still be functional, but it’s no longer beautiful. You can see all the cracks.
I take a few days off from school. When I return, the entire place is different. I barely recognize anything. That’s not to say that anything has actually changed—same lockers, same hallways, same random freshmen, same douchey teachers—but, it seems, I have changed.
Before Garrett, I walked the halls like I was in a movie. Like I was living someone else’s life. I saw people, but I never really saw them. I just sort of watched them go by. But now, after Garrett, I see them; they come at me from every direction; they rush past me and bump into me and knock me around. Each time someone brushes my shoulder I feel it. Each time someone says my name I hear it. It’s completely disturbing. It’s like I’ve been living my entire life in black-and-white and finally someone has turned on all the color at once.
“Earth to Henry!”
I turn around. It’s Duke.
DUKE
Good to see you’ve finally resurfaced.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess.”
I stare at Duke. He’s the same as always, of course, but also so different. Or maybe it’s just that I’m different.
“You get my messages?” he asks.
“I did. Thanks.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “So, how are you? Holding up okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“You’re gonna be just fine,” he assures me, leading me down the senior hallway and toward the back entrance of the school.
“Where are we going?”
“Out for lunch. Nigel’s getting his car. We thought it’d be good for you to … ya know … not be in the cafeteria on your first day back.”
I’m glad. I can just imagine how awful it would be to sit around a table and hear people whispering about me and my so-called tragic breakup (i.e., pretty much how all of my morning classes went).
“Thanks, man,” I say.
“No problemo. That’s what friends are for.”
Duke and me order burgers and fries and a soda at Wendy’s. Nigel gets a salad. “I’m watching my figure,” he says, patting his stomach.
We mess around and eat and I almost feel … normal. Well, normal isn’t the right word. But I feel okay. Recently, Garrett was my entire life; I completely ignored Duke and Nigel. Even though my relationship with them is in no way comparable to my relationship with Garrett, it feels good to know there are still people who care about me. Who enjoy my company and want to see me happy.
What we talk about: the song Destiny was lip-synching to when one of her boobs accidentally popped out of her dress and the color of the BMW convertible her parents bought her for her birthday (even though she doesn’t even have a permit yet).
“So, what’d the big prank end up being?” I ask.
Duke shrugs. “No prank.”
“Why not?” I ask. “You guys were so psyched about it.”
“We, uh, couldn’t do one without you,” Nigel says sheepishly. “It wouldn’t have been the same.”
I’m touched. I owe these guys so much. I don’t even know where to begin.
“Also, we couldn’t think of anything good,” Duke says, laughing.
Finally, the inevitable topic comes up. We have a few minutes before we need to get back to school for sixth period.
“Have you spoken to her at all?” Nigel asks.
“Dude,” Duke says, “let it be.”
“It’s okay,” I tell them. “I haven’t. She wants to be friends but I just … I don’t think I can do it.”
“Why would anyone want to be friends with a girl?” Duke asks. Then he goes to high-five Nigel, but Nigel just shoots him a look that says You are a complete moron.
“I wish I could be friends with her,” I say. “I want her in my life so badly, but … as much more than a friend. So much more. And I don’t think I can handle anything less. I’m really sorry I shut you guys out.” I look at Duke, then Nigel. “You were both there for me when my mom left, and I couldn’t have survived without you. Really. I should have been honest with you about Garrett from the start. I don’t deserve friends like you guys.”
“Yeah, man, you do,” Duke says. “We love you, Henry. We just want to see you happy. It sucked you didn’t tell us what wa
s happening because we couldn’t help you. But now we can.”
“Not to get all sappy on your asses,” Nigel says, “but my dad has this saying that’s like, ‘In matters of love and living situations, you’ve gotta put yourself first.’ If you don’t think you can handle being friends with her, then don’t.”
“But I’m really worried about her—”
“Dude,” says Duke, “you’ve gotta worry about yourself. Not her. She’s a bitch.”
“She’s not a bitch,” I say.
“It doesn’t matter if she is or she isn’t,” Nigel says. “She hurt you, and you need to heal. And that’s going to take time. So take all the time you need.”
“Or you could just get a random sophomore to give you an HJ,” Duke says, leaning back in his chair. “That always makes me feel better.”
Nigel punches his arm, and I laugh, knowing that the only time that has ever happened for Duke is in his dreams.
“And you know,” Nigel continues, “even though you probably feel like complete shit … there’s something, I dunno … alive about you today. You seem like you’re really here with us, you know? Not a million miles away thinking about some random movie you watched last night on IFC. You’re gonna be just fine.”
Alive. I like that. I do feel alive. I feel like I’ve been asleep for a million years and I’m finally awake. I am finally ready. For what? I have no freaking clue. But I know that I can never go back to the old me. I can never go back to crashing Sweet Sixteens and hooking up with girls who mean nothing to me. Sex and intimacy, I’ve learned, are not mutually exclusive. I want a connection. I want romance. I want, I don’t know, love.
And now that I know what it is to love someone, I want to know what it is to have that love returned. Garrett supplied me with a taste, but that’s all it was. A hint. A start. And if I’ve gained anything from having her in my life, it’s realizing that I have a fucking lot to give. The fact that I don’t have my mother anymore, and I don’t have Garrett anymore, doesn’t mean I’m going to die. It means I’m going to live. I have to, really. I’ve got no other choice.
