Fail Becomes Win!

After deciding to buy tea instead of a bagel, thinking it will keep me from feeling fat and bloated before I even eat lunch, I take my first sip out of the straw and feel that hitch. You know the kind! The hitch in my breathe/swallowing where I KNOW, I just know, that I've gotten some down the wrong pipe.

Immediately I cough, and oh crap, I can feel it in my nose.
I am gasping for breath and trying to clear my throat and cough without sounding like a TB patient. I am failing. All essential wind is being involuntarily forced out of me with jagged pre-vomit intensity coughing, and whats worse is that my face is getting all red. My eyes are watering up. It looks like I'm weeping. I'm still walking through the dining side of the caf and suddenly I see, oh great! Esteban, Lorenzo, Mazatlan, Puerto Rican, whatever, worker boy is over there leaning against a cart full of silverware. Its like he's watching me pass and I'm DYING.

"Went down the wrong pipe." I mutter at him in my half-gagged voice. I take a few steps past him, tears stinging my eyes, before coughing a few more drops of tea out of my windpipe.

Ew. I totally want to retch just thinking about it.
Anyway, I don't suppose I have to worry about Mazatlan down there anymore. Hopefully he'll think I have tuberculosis and am dying a slow and painful tea-induced death.

I want to be uncomplicated. I don't want my mind all wandering when I look at Mazatlan leaning against a cart on my way out. Its better if he thinks I'm a disease. That way I won't even notice him.
AND my dishes will be extra clean.
Because he'll be worrying about my residues infecting other diners.
So really, its a good thing I almost died drinking my tea downstairs today.
My fail becomes a win!

Score One For the Little Guy

I just caught a mistake in shipment that has, to date, cost my company $6,695.00.

The funny thing is, this mistake is the only thing making me feel kinda good today. I don't even feel fabulous or amazingly Sherlock (yes, I just made that an adjective) for finding the mistake. Its not that at all.

Its the fact that this one dude at this tiny towing company is charging us almost seven thousand dollars for holding a piece of equipment we bought over a year ago and forgot to pick up from him. I mean, this dude is out in the middle. of. no where. And he's all telling us what we WILL pay, and my superiors here are getting all antsy, and you know what I say?

SCORE ONE for the little guys!

I don't care that this dude almost didn't get his wire transfer because he doesn't know what a W-9 is. It doesn't matter that he calls me "that girl" when he refers to his point of contact. I don't even care that when I called him yesterday to give him a purchase order number he told me to call back after "supper," meaning lunch.

The company I work for is nationwide. Worldwide, actually. We spend more money than that just to ship some of our equipment place to place. Yet when we find out that we've got to pay a seven thousand dollar holding fee, its all pennies nickels quarters dimes, how much can we talk him down?

"No, sir."
"Excuse me, did you just say 'no, sir?'"
"Yes, sir."

He wouldn't budge on the price. No discount for negligence he said.
I laughed so hard when they told me that. His deep southern Louisiana bayou accent came through across the phone telling me that he would have to drive to the Sherrif's office to fax me the invoice. He didn't have a fax machine.

We made jokes on it all day. About how he probably didn't have email. He probably had our multi-TON equipment sitting in his backyard. About how he was probably rubbing his hands together, knowing he'd got us good.

This morning, when the wire transfer went through, I thought about how close he was to the water. I had google earthed his location. He backed up to a line of water, probably wetlands, that snaked around this bleak looking highway in Louisiana. Only five years ago this month Hurricane Katrina struck the coast not far from his location. And I thought, Seriously, man. This guy probably deserves a break. I mean, I feel better about finding this mistake we made, than about any other sale or reconciliation or redemption I've processed my entire time here.

SCORE ONE for the little guy.

Like Communism

Sometimes at night I used to drive by the house Miguel Morales bought for us to live in.

I really shouldn't have. It was creepy and stalkerish of me, but I did it anyway. I'd be driving home from somewhere, maybe even a date, and I'd find myself cutting a quick right into the residential neighborhood.

Miguel had lived at home until his mid-twenties, and decided it was time to move out because he had saved more money than was necessary. I don't really know how. He had never been to college, but his intoxicating charisma combined with his bilingual skillz to secure him job after job and raise after raise up the ladder. Up, up, up. His parents actually got a lot of his bloated salary. They had sold a restaurant twelve years before I ever met him and were getting by all right despite the loss. Alcohol also tended to get a good chunk of Miguel's salary. His car, an unreasonably stylish SUV, took another chunk. I might have even taken a sliver unintentionally.

I had known Miguel since high school. He had been insanely popular. We didn't really socialize in the same circles until I was 21 and at the salsa club near my parents house. I walked right up to him and asked him if he was who I thought he was.

"Oh, hey! You were in orchestra with me!" he said. Immediately my mind's eye went back to an image of him murdering the style in which a violin should be played. He had held the instrument right in front of his chin and rested his elbow nearly in his lap. He looked like he was trying to eat the thing.
"Yeah!" I didn't flinch, though. I'd had an intense crush on him my sophomore year. I couldn't remember why, or when it had faded into apathy.
"Hey, give me your number. I'll hit you up sometime. We should hang out and catch up!" I always thought it was funny when people said that even though they had never really known you to begin with. Catch up on what? Didn't they mean get to know you? Most likely because you were hotter than they had remembered?

His entire family was gorgeous. They all knew it. The entire family was personable and outgoing in a way that reminded me of the exclusivity they enjoyed in high school. He had two twin cousins named Alice and Alicia. Yes. Alice Morales.

"Hey, take a picture of us! Oh my god, this is gonna be so hot!" Alice handed me the camera and turned to Joanna.
"Okay, lets make this really sexified so we can get Damon all hot and bothered." They giggled and then dug into each other, literally. I was taken aback by the ease with which they did it and I kept my perma-grin on an awkward high trying not to look like I felt. I hurriedly pressed the shutter button. Miguel reached around me and shoved them.
"Damn, girls! You can't be doin that! I'm tryin to make a good impression here!" But he already had. His silver tie on his black dress shirt. The shoes, the hair, everything screamed I-am-young-and-gorgeous-and-you-must-look-at-my-awesomeness. I did. I looked at it all night. He ate it up. His impression of me was insanely good. I had no idea why.

"Would you run away with me right now if I asked you to?" We were eating at a Mexican restaurant. He knew the owner. He knew everybody.
"Run away where?" I looked at him grinning at me across the table, and seriously considered his offer.
"To... I don't know. Don't they do like Vegas weddings in Gatlinburg? We could go to Gatlinburg and get hitched. Come back. Nobody would even know but us. It'd be a secret and then we could do it for real. When everybody knew what we know." Oh my god.
"What do we know?"
"That we're in love. That this love is forever. That we belonged to each other the minute we met. Again, that is."
I laugh for no reason and look at the table suddenly feeling shy.
"Come on, Miguel, you were drunk when we met."
"But I knew what you were when I met you. You're a catch. And I've caught you."
"Oh you have, have you?"
"Yes," he reached for my hand. "I have."
"How do you know I haven't caught you?" I counter.
"Oh!" He laughed. "Maybe you have. We've caught each other."
I watched his fingers moving over mine.
"You know what? We could buy a little house together. We'd have beautiful children, you know. They'd be green eyed. They'd look just like us." I felt all the breath leave me. "There are some houses I've actually been looking at." He straightened, and let go of my hand. "For myself, at least. Or for business."

The latter, of course, were the reasons he bought the house. Because we didn't run away. I went back to college for the fall term. We saw each other several times a week. But like I've said several times here, college was like the Black Plague for me. Its like I could never figure out what was making me sick, but I died a thousand deaths.

Miguel and I broke up one day in the parking lot of his office building. We'd known it was coming. About the only thing we did together then that made us happy was drink and spend money. I admired him so so much. He still thought I was beautiful. But there's this tiny thing inside relationships that seem perfect sometimes. It starts out small and it grows and grows and you notice it that much more. And one day you wake up and it's all you see.

I think I was immature. It was my fault we broke up, really. I was a brat. And I don't think it would ever work again. I tried too hard to resurrect it for about a year and a half after it was over. I'd end up crying. He'd end up mad at me. It was stupid, really. I should have just let it lie.

"Say something. Say something in Spanish."

I don't know if the whole culture thing started then or if it had been long before. But Miguel was the best kind of cultured. He was born and raised here, but he was bilingual and his parents had instilled all the values I loved. The passion, the compassion, the loyalty, the openness, the faith, the honesty; they were all there.

Did I love him? I thought I did. I thought I would take that ring we'd talked about buying and run away with him. But it didn't work out like that. Whatever we had wasn't enough to keep us from saying the things that were said and doing the things that were done. I really don't think it was love at all. It was an idea that couldn't be in reality.

Like Communism.
But anyway, I don't drive by that house anymore. I don't really need to know about it anymore.

Chispa

One of these days I'm going to say something to that delicious dark eyed, warm skinned guy who works in the caf downstairs. I'll pull out all the chispa y espanol I can think of without faltering. He'll raise his brows and smile out the side of his mouth.

We'll talk. We might exchange numbers. I'll notice his bright white teeth, his stud in one ear, the way his smile dimples on only one side. He'll be 32, but look 20, because he's short and from Puerto Rico. We'll exchange awkward looks, awkward phone calls, awkward text messages. He'll ask me to come down at 1 instead of 12:30. He'll be able to walk outside with me through the employee-only side door. Ernesto, Ernesto... I'll breathe. And I'll swirl the blackberry he'll save for me-- he'll hold it out, cupped in both hands-- around on my tongue before squishing it and sucking on the seeds.

We'll listen to vallenato and I'll hate it. I'll ache for bachata, but he won't even know how to dance to it. I'll wink at him when I leave. He'll be washing lunch dishes with the hose. He'll smell like them. He'll smell like the inside of an industrial freezer.

And then one day I'll stop coming to the caf and talking to him.
Becuase he'll come on sneaky and strong, I'll think. Because I'm an American girl, he'll think. Definitively. And what could I want from him except to play around in the kitchen?

Contributing Too Much

If you contributed to the United Way this week, then today, August 25th, is your day to wear shorts and or jeans to work. What is it about a small allowance that makes people push the boundaries?

Most Awesome Quote of the Day Thus Far:

"I haven't seen this many white legs in a long time!"

Oh yeah. He did just say that.

The Least Attractive Quality

You wanna know what's the least attractive quality a person can have? Self-pity.

"You know, four years ago, when I was in high school, I ran that place. I was the shit. I drove a Mercedes Benz. I was an athlete. I was good at school. I didn't even have to try, everything was so easy." Mordred took a swig of beer from his bottle and placed it back on the coffee table. The faraway look in his eye was frightening in the fading light.
The blinds were drawn, as usual, but there were slants of light illuminating parts of the couch. I sat on one end of it with my feet tucked under me, wearing a fleece jacket. Mordred was supposed to go eat with me that night. I had driven straight from work. It took me an hour.
"I played three sports, you know. I was good. I almost took a scholarship out of state." His fists were balled up at his knees. He looked like something out of Grapes of Wrath. And that's not even a joke, because only last week we'd been a Benton and Julie's apartment on 8th and they'd had a bathroom scale. Mordred weighed himself at 109. He was six feet tall.
I didn't even want to think about myself by comparison.

He shook down the sleeves of his sweater and gripped them by the ends with his fingers. He put his fists together in his lap like an eskimo.
"Little do I know, huh?" I pulled at the frayed seam on my jacket. "I'm hangin out with one of the cool kids."
Mordred was getting sentimental and sad. He wouldn't feel that way for long. He'd start feeling angry or something within a few minutes. I didn't really want to fight the battle anymore. I was tired of telling him what he knew deep down was true.
Mordred needed to get up off his bony little butt and do something with himself.
"You wanna go get a hamburger?" His eyes had more light in them this time.
"Sure."

Two hours later he was pissed at me, and probably a little high. I told him not to take that much, but its hard to tell someone that when you've hardly ever taken the stuff yourself.
He sat in the rolling chair in front of his computer. The back on the chair was broken, so he had to hunch forward. He stared at the screen and opened a poker game. He didn't even say anything to me when I turned on the tv.

There were lots of things in Mordred's apartment that were broken. The kitchen smelled like rotten food. The cracked linoleum hadn't been replaced since 1972. The windows weren't draft proof. There was a small pile of ash in the corner of his bedroom where something had caught fire once. The mattress was laying on the floor set on an ancient box spring. There were faded print sheets stapled to the window casings like super ghetto drapes. A globe light fixture was used as an ash tray. The cheaply constructed add-on bathroom hadn't been cleaned since he'd moved in. There were moldy spots all over the ceiling in there because the construction hadn't been added with enough ventilation. I had never seen the other two apartments that made up the old house he lived in. It was built in 1920 and there were parts of it that made it seem old and beautiful. But overall it was a sad sight when Mordred was living in it. The hardwood in his apartment had been painted green, and sometimes, only sometimes, you could hear what for weeks we had thought was a rat trapped in the apartment walls. It turned out to be a squirrel. Luckily Mordred's pot dealer neighbor had gotten curious during a bad trip and saved it from certain death in the walls by opening the crawl space under the house. The place was a train wreck with cheap pale green siding and a yard covered in track marks. Too many people lived there for the driveway to be convenient anymore.

"How the hell did I get here?!" Mordred threw the lighter across the room and knocked over a stack of papers on the coffee table. "This place is disgusting!"
"Tell me about it," I said.
"If I moved to North Carolina like my dad wants, he'll give me a big job in his company."

Mordred was a Patel. One of those Patels. His parents came from India, opened a gas station, opened another gas station, bought stocks, sold stocks, bought houses, sold houses, and were pretty much rolling in it based solely on entrepreneurship. They were retired. They lived on interest and the machine they'd created that was so well oiled it could run on its own now.

"Why don't you do that? Why don't you move? You're not doing anything here."
"I'm supposed to go back to school. I need some more classes."
"You almost finished that Pre-med degree, didn't you? Why don't you just take the two classes you need to be done with that and go home triumphant?"
"I WOULD if I had the MONEY."
"Sorry..."

When I first met Mordred he boasted about how his Dad had given him money for college and he was living off it and having a blast. He bought me drinks that night. He talked about how he'd gone to India on the money, and how beautiful it was.
There wasn't any money left. Instead, there was Mordred who liked oxycontin, lived in a crummy apartment, barely made rent, and begged money off his female cousins. There were many of them, and they all fell for his sweet soft voice.

"I need a job." He clicked away at the computer.
"Yes. You do."
"I wish gambling was really this easy. And risk free. I'd be rolling in it. Look, I just raised my total to like 3 million."
"Did you shop your resume around today?"
"Yes, I did."
"Anything promising?" I was playing with the fringe on my jeans again.
"NO, because I'm not a degree holder yet."
"Why don't you look for something else? To tide you over? So you can pay rent?"
He sighed in frustration, dismissing my question.
"I worked at a flippin pet store when teaching didn't work out the first time. And I was even a degree holder then."
"I'm not working at a McDonald's." Click, click. "YES! Six million. I doubled up."
"...you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. I'm just saying."
He turned suddenly in the chair.
"I don't deserve that, you know. I am better than that. Don't you see? I should be making bank right now. Did you know I used to just get on a plane and go where ever I wanted? Whenever I wanted?"
"You can't do that until whatever you're doing is like super established. Great jobs don't just fall in your lap."
"I told you, I've already shopped around the entire mid-state area. I'd drive two hours for a job like that."
I sat quietly, my eyebrows raised. He was so defensive.
"Oh my God. You are so stupid. You don't even know who I am."
"No," I said quietly, "but I'll tell you what I see."
"Seriously? Oh my God. Get out. Get the fuck out of my house."
"I don't mean it that way. I want to help you!"
"By doing what? You just want to make yourself feel better, that's all."
"Mordred, stop taking drugs, stop dealing drugs, stop drinking, and then see how your life is!"
"Don't you even fucking know why I do those things? Its so I don't have to think about this."
"Well guess what, you'll never get out of it if you don't think."
"Don't you think I know that! It's not like I'm not trying!" He stood up and went into the kitchen. "Besides," he helled back. "I freaking OWN ten percent of my Dad's company. I can do what I want. It just so happens that I wanted to finish school."
"No, you wanted to forget how much your life sucks."
He came back in with a beer in his hand. "You know my brother is in med school right now?" He seemed calmer somehow. "And my cousin owns two Subway locations. It costs a couple thousand to get into that, but once you're in its bank. All the way. Somebody just needs to give me a job."
"You need to find them so they can give it to you, you know. You can't sit here waiting for them to call."
"I KNOW."
"Can I just tell you one thing? You do realize that you aren't entitled to anything you don't earn."
"I earned it all!"
"How?"
"I was there with them when they bought all that. When they started the company. I was part of that. I swept the floor after school. I worked the registers. I deserve what they have, too."
"Mordred, how much does a cashier make? Or a janitor?"
"O my god. I'm not even going to answer this. You're stupid."

He was a seventeen year old brat trapped in a twenty-four-year-old's well developed, if emaciated, body. And his parents had created the nightmare. We stopped hanging out because I was consistently working an 8 to 5 and I couldn't stand talking to him on my lunch break and hearing him yawn and stretch getting out of that nasty bed. Or excuse me, mattress.

"Call me when you get a job. Call me when you don't do drugs."
"You're a schizo, you know that? You are schizophrenic."
"I was trying to help you, but nobody can help you but yourself. I learned that. Its time you did, too. Stop yelling at your mom on the phone and get help."
"I don't need to listen to this shit. You don't even know who I am."
He sounded like a broken record. Berating me for trying to be his friend.

He called me crying two weeks later saying he had gotten a job. He hadn't started yet. I knew he wouldn't. He said he didn't want to move, but he needed to at least move on. A month later he called me and asked me to his going away party at the Indian restaurant less than a block from where I worked. I didn't go. I really wanted him to leave town.

Still, I wonder if he ever made anything of himself. I'm actually not sure he would allow himself to, with that attitude.
Attitude is everything, friends. It comes with ownership and maturity.
Unfortunately you won't ever understand what your parents and teachers say when they go, "You've got a bad attitude, Missy! You need to adjust that right now."
Yeah, you'll think, I'm angry. So what.
Or maybe you'll say "Oh. my. god. You're so stupid. You don't even know who I am."
But its funny, see, because when you say this, you usually don't even know who you are either!
I really hope it wasn't too late for Mordred. But I don't think I'll ever venture calling him to find out.

"Oh, man I wish I could go back in time. I'd take state... How much you wanna bet I can throw a football over them mountains?"

8 Dark Days with Daniel Castillo

Prologue
Daniel Castillo was Guatemalan, 23, and had rock hard abs. He played professional soccer in his home country at the age of seventeen, and I often wondered why he would give that up for a job in framing at a company where his uncle could keep him under the table.
His mother had had five children by the time she was 26 and had raised them all as a single parent after Daniel's father passed way. The youngest of the five hadn't even been a year old when two preists sat Daniel and his brother Luis down at their tiny church on a school day and informed them that their father had been shot in the back. Luis had reacted angrily, and was still angry to date. Daniel had been tender hearted and had taken over as consoler, joke teller, and focused hard worker.
Daniel showed up in the US with Luis when he was only 18 years old. They stayed with an uncle until they found their own apartment. Younger sister and brother Marisol and Javier were sent from Guatemala to attend high school, and when I met Daniel they were all living in a two bedroom apartment that always smelled like warm tortillas.
I respected him and his value system. He made me want to be a better person.

The First Dark Day.
1) I was sitting in front of the computer at work logging dates into the system and texting Daniel back and forth. He was excited that we had gotten together and said he liked kissing me. Or at least thats what he meant.
"Your lips so nice. Tu eres muy hermosa, mi princessita bella."
Suddenly a text came in from a new number.
"Hey girl whats up?"
I looked twice at it, startled, because I didn't just give my number out to everybody.
"Who is this?"
I kept up a tennis game of text with Daniel, then finally,
"You met me at the salsa club. This is Carlos. You don't remember?"
We texted back and forth. I was perplexed at not remembering this Carlos person. I was also amazed that he clearly spoke better English than Daniel. As Daniel continued to text me at the same time as Carlos the Mysterious, I began to smell a rat.
"I have a boyfriend. Please leave me alone," I texted to Carlos.
"Oh, Daniel?"
I put the phone down on my desktop. Then I picked it back up.
"Who the fuck are you. Why do you keep texting me if you know I have a boyfriend. Especially if you know its Daniel. What the hell is this? Some kind of test?"
Immediately I got: "I care a lot about my cousin. I needed to make sure you were good for him."
Never mind the fact that five months later I learned Carlos, whose real name was Enrique, had cheated on his girlfriend of 4 years more than a few times.
After this exchange I was satisfied, at least for the time being, that I was good for Daniel. I was satisfied that I had passed the test. I was satisfied that he knew what kind of girl I was.

I Should Have Known From That "Test," Huh.
2) On maybe our second or third date, I was driving down Blackman, winding around curves when my phone started ringing in my lap. Daniel and I had just come from eating at a resturant and are filled with new-relationship glee. I pressed the "Answer" button with my thumb, and suddenly realized it was my ex-boyfriend who was scum, but who was moving to North Carolina in another week. I jumped at the realization that I answered his call, then pressed the "End Call" button quickly, and worked to try to turn the volume on the phone toward silent.
Daniel, however, had already sensed the change in my behavior.
"Who is that?" he asked.
"Nobody. Its just somebody who needs to learn I don't want to talk to them."
"Oh."
He stared out the window all the way home. At my apartment, I turned on the tv and crashed myself next to him. He looked blankly at the screen, a dead look in his eyes.
"What is it?"
"I know that's some boy."
"Who? Where?" I was perplexed.
"On your phone. He is your ex-boyfriend?"
"Well... yes. But, I broke up with him. He's moving soon. He won't call me after that."
"You love him?"
"No. Why would you ask that? I'm here with you!"
"I don't know." He folded his arms. "Maybe you have feeling for somebody other."
"I hate his guts, Daniel. I really do. I don't like him at all. If I "had feeling" for him I would be with him. He wants me bad enough or something. But he's a jackass so I'm not gonna go there. I'm a lot smarter than that. He's moving." I said. It was final. "I'm GLAD that he's moving."
"How you feel if I'm with you and some girl is call my phone? How you feel?"
"Fine. I guess. You're with me. I don't care."
"No. No, no no, I don't think so."
"Seriously, Daniel. Its not a big deal."
But it was.
I changed my phone number a week later at his request. Nobody knew about the new number but my best friend Shana, and my family.

Isolation Is Eminent
3) It was 11:30pm, and I had already texted Daniel goodnight. I had been watching late night cable tv and reruns of 16 and Pregnant. I was startled when I heard the phone vibrate. It was a text message from Daniel.
"Why, Barbie? Why you do this things? Why you lie and hide things? Maybe I can't be with you.."
What is it, now? I thought to myself, and texted back:
"What happened? What do you mean? I don't hide anything. I don't understand."
"I know now! I see your pictures!"
Pictures? Great.
"My pictures? Please call me and talk to me about this. I can't text you about something important." I called him. He didn't pick up. I called again. No answer. While I was calling, all these texts started pouring in.
"You have other boys. I know. I see in your pictures. This hurts me. I am feel bad, really bad. Se siente mal, y no entiendo la raison por este juego con mi corazon..."
I texted back. "I'm not playing games! What are you talking about!? Just tell me what you're talking about. Is it my facebook? What is it?!"
"See, even you know, Barbie. Even you know what is bad and still you do."
"Just answer my call. I don't know why you can't answer my call."
"I am very bad. Mucho lloras."
"I don't care! Answer the phone, Daniel."
There was a pause. I called two more times. No answer.
"Barbie why you doing that? Why you wanna hurt me? You have my heart, but you playing with my corazon. You don't care!"
I called five more times in a row. I was really upset then. He finally answered.
"What you doing with these boys?" His voice was low and I knew he was probably standing outside his apartment trying to be quiet.
I thought back. What pictures did I even have on there? I had pictures of my high school boyfriend from like 5 years ago. I had pictures of myself and a guy friend at a formal. It was insane how outdated my pictures were.
"Did you see the dates, Daniel? Did you even look at them? These things were from a long time ago. I don't even talk to these people now."
"You have the picture for you and they, Barbie. Why you have if you don't care."
"I don't... I don't know. I'll take it off. I'll take my whole page down. I don't need it anyway."
"Just I want you and me and nobody other. I don't know what you doing en pasado, Barbie, but you have these things because you thinking good in they. I know--" His voice cracked. He really was crying. "I know you are love somebody before me, but we can start a new life. We need forget all these things."
"I know."

Because I'm Good In Everything!
4) We went through a drive thru to get some barbecue to take back to my mom's house for a family get-together. I hand over my money, almost dropping some. Daniel is in the passenger seat.
The guy behind the window takes my money, and glances past me at the book I have on my center console. Its The Giver by Lois Lowry.
"What you reading there? Is that The Giver?"
"Yes," I say, "I have to teach it this coming week."
"So you're a... ninth grade teacher?"
"Seventh."
"Man, that was a good book." He rakes one hand through his disheveled brown hair. He's sweaty. Its hot outside.
"Yeah. It is a good book."
He shuts the window for a few seconds. I wait patiently, putting my wallet back into my purse. Daniel grabs the book next to me and starts examining the back of it. I wonder how much of it he can read.
"You teach over here at Murray?" the window boy is back with two bags.
"No, I teach at Page Middle."
"Cool." He hands me the bags. "Well, have a good day."
"You too."
I drive off around the corner toward my mom's house. I look at Daniel, because I can feel the discomfort radiating off of him for some reason. He's still analyzing the back of my paperback.
"Why you talking with these people?"
"Huh?"
"Why you say these things? I think this is not normal, Barbie."
"Well. I don't know. He asked about the book. I told him.""--But you don't have to say all these things about your job. I know you are good in everything. You can talk with whoever you want. But maybe you don't know how you look. You talking some guy and he think 'wow, she is so pretty, and so nice, and smart' and because you talking him he thinks, 'yes, i know, she like me.'"
"Come on, Daniel! Its not that way!"
"No. Don't say you don't know this, because I see in your face when you talking these people. You are so happy to talk with they. You like this. I don't know why you can't be normal."
"I AM normal, Daniel! I don't live under a rock!"
"No, its not about this. I don't see why need everybody looking you. You are beautiful and I tell you this. You know this. Why you need everybody tell you this too?"
I swallow my anger. It bulges in my neck like a bone. Is part of him right? Why can't I just shut up sometimes, if it will make him feel better?
"I'm sorry, Daniel. Being able to talk to people is something I got from my mom. You see how good she is with people? She's good with you, too! Even from the beginning. Maybe I'm this way because of her. But..." I swallow again. "I will try to think more about what is best for our relationship."

I Can SHOW You
5) It is Sunday afternoon and I am pulling out a pair of gym shorts from my dresser to change into after church. Daniel has come home with me and we are about to go to his cousin's house to watch the Barcelona v Real Madrid game. I am pumped. I am starting to love soccer for the same reason's I was always told I'd love it. A) your man loves it, and B) the players are hot. As I turn around from pulling out the shorts, I find Daniel right behind me. He looks me right in the eye and then jumps onto my bed, landing face first into a pillow.
"What is it?" I know him too well. "What did I do?"
"You... you still have some things."
"What?"
"That picture. In your clothes." His voice is muffled from being facedown in the pillow.
I pause, and stiffen. In my rush to hide all the things in my apartment that were "pasado" related, I had stuffed a lot of things into my sock and pajama drawer. There was a huge package of pictures of Miguel Morales and I, a homecoming picture with my first boyfriend when I was fourteen, and a rather large picture of myself and Russ Walker after prom my junior year of high school. Please bear in mind, my twenty four year old self was now standing in front of Daniel and I felt BAD about having these pictures.
"I just haven't had time to give it to my mom."
"You want to keep this picture?"
"Well... its a good picture.""I know this! I always know this! I feel it in my body, maybe God tell me, I don't know. But I always feel this that you have feeling for other boy. Now I know! You lie to me, Barbie. You told me you are finish with this pasado, but now I see. Now I see!"
Thats when the rage came."God damn you! You don't know who I am by now?! You think I hold back?! I changed my phone number for you! I deleted my facebook for you! I do all these things for you and just because you find some picture from TEN YEARS AGO in my sock drawer you think our relationship is a lie?!" I was seething. I picked up the picture, swiping my hand so that a pink pair of shorts covered up the walgreens envelope containing Miguel's pictures.
"Why you so angry? Don't shout. I do not shout. Why you crazy like this every time."
"Because you don't understand! I can't make you understand! I don't know what I have to do to show you!?"
"Just be with me!"
"I AM with you!"
"And don't lie! Don't hide secrets! Sin secretas nuestro amor es perfecta." He sat on edge of the bed. "Tu eres el amor de mi vida!"
"Y tu eres el amor de mi vida tambien, pero, Daniel, necessitas tengo confianza en mi. Please please trust me."
"I trust you, Barbie, but you always doing these things. Always you hide some little things. Why you hide from me if you don't care for him. Look now! You hiding him with your clothes! Why? So you can get him out and look and think 'oooh, he so nice...'"
"No! No, no no!!!" I picked up the picture, frame and all. I walked with it into the living room. "I don't care about this! I don't give a shit about him! I can show you! I can SHOW you!"
Daniel had followed me. He watched, flinching, as I brought my hands up, fingers gripping the bottom of the silver frame, and slammed it glass side down, onto the edge of my kitchen table.
The sound of the glass shattering into a thousand tiny shards on my carpet was the only thing that shocked me out of my rage.

Stupid Frozen Pizza
6) It had snowed all night. It was still snowing that afternoon. Daniel had been caught at his apartment. I was snowed in at mine. Southern snow is different from northern snow. Ice generally coats the road underneath southern snow so that driving can become nearly impossible, even when salt trucks run on the hour.
I was watching Judge Judy chew out a guy with too many piercings when I decided I should go to the store to buy some snowed-in food. I was particularly in the mood for freezer pizza. A cripsy crusted totino's pepperoni sounded mouthwatering. The grocery store was right across the street. It would be a quick and beautiful walk.
Daniel had been texting me off and on all day, pausing to tell me what he was doing. "What are you doing?" He texted.
"Cleaning my apartment," I texted back.
I would buy some more Lysol at the store as well. I had run out, and my bathroom was disgusting. Most significant was the fact that apparently Daniel, and all males really, couldn't keep his pee in the toilet. I had disgusted myself by many an unwiped gift in the past week and had decided a deep clean was necessary.
Something in the back of my mind told me not to let Daniel know I was walking to the store. I wasn't consciously lying to him about it. There were just some things he didn't need to know. He was the worst kind of worrier. He worried in ways that made me feel bad instead of loved.
By the time I got across the street and picked up a basket at the market I was covered in wet snow. I loved it. I picked up some Lysol, some pizzas, some freezer mozzarella sticks, a candle, some cereal, and a carton of milk. I was looking at some granola bars when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.
Thinking nothing of it, I opened the phone.
"Hey!" I was sunshine.
"Hola Barbie hermosa, what you doing?"
"I'm..." Suddenly I remembered I hadn't told him I was at the store. Play cool, I said to myself. "I went across the street to get some cleaning stuff. I ran out."
"In the snow? Its cold, Barbie."
"Yeah, I'm wearing two coats. Its really pretty out."
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned quickly to see a man wearing a cap and a big black puffy coat. He looked like he'd walked to the store, too.
"Where did you get those frozen pizzas?" He asked, gesturing to my basket.
I pressed the phone into my shoulder. "Oh, uh, they're in the middle. Two aisles over."
"They look really good. Pizza sounds great with all this snow, huh."
"Yeah, these are my favorite," I said.
"Thanks," he said, and walked off.
I put the phone back to my ear.
"Hey! Hey, who was that?" There was concern in Daniel's voice.
"I don't know. Some guy looking for pizza."
"Where are you? What you doing? You said before you were cleaning, why you always lie!?"
And he hung up.
"Shit." I said, and I put all my things down. I called him back. Once, twice, three times.
Texts started pouring in again.
"Why you lie so much, Barbie. Why you hurt me? You say you cleaning your apartment, now you out with boys. What is this love if you lie to me. You break my heart. I can't be with you no more. You BREAK my heart."
"I'm at the freakin store Daniel," I started texting as fast as my frozen fingers could go.
"You say you in you apartment. Pero todo es mentira. Eres una mentirosa, la verdad. Porque tu me penas???"
"I know you worry about me! I didn't want you to worry!"
"No mas, Barbie. This is goodbye, la verdad, no mas for us. I hope you find a good life with these boy."
"Damn it! Why you do this? Todo tiempo you think I lie. I'm not a mentirosa! I tell you the truth! I'm at the store! You can't trust me?!"
I called then, probably five times. I picked up my stuff and carried it to the check out. I called him all the way through the line and walked outside with three big bags of stuff I had no desire to use.
He had turned off his phone.

Flirting With My Eyes
7) On the way back from a beach vacation we stop at a Cracker Barrel. Its my favorite long-trip food and it always makes me think of speech and debate, where we used to stop at Cracker Barrels on the way too and from tournaments because they were generally easy to access from the road.
"Here is your macaroni. Double order." The waiter puts down our food with a scrape, makes sure we're set, and then heads to a table two rows behind us.
"Yummy yum yum!!!" I squeak before picking up my fork.
Daniel smiles. "You like macaroni."
"Yep!" I dig in. "You like chicken fried chicken."
While we eat, and I re-enact part of Bill Murrays dinner from What About Bob, I listen to the conversation going on just behind Daniel. A guy with a crew cut is discussing his leave from Iraq with the waiter. Its interesting to hear him talk about it. He mentions that he's on his way home from the base right now. The white haired old lady seated opposite him beams with pride. I wonder why no one else came to get him.
In the car, Daniel is silent for a long time. I think nothing of it. I'm just as ready to be home as he is. We drag our things into my apartment from the car and I flop down on my bed, glad to be back.
"What happened at the Cracker Barrel today?"
"I ate macaroni, and it was awesome. Did you like your chicken? I noticed you didn't eat much of it."
"It was good."
"Oh my god, are you feeling sick? I've seen resturants undercook their stuff before. Do you feel all right?"
"I'm fine," he says. He comes and sits on the bed with me. "What ELSE happened at the Cracker Barrel."
I sit up, and turn to face him. What, now?
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't worry about it."
Daniel went home. He said he didn't feel so good after all. He had a headache. He was really sick.
Two hours after he leaves, I'm watching tv and my phone starts vibrating.
"I saw you today. I know what you did."
"What?"
"I saw you looking at him."
Immediately I feel caught, but I have no idea what in.
"Him? Him who? What are you talking about. Just tell me." I place the phone on my lap and stare at it, waiting for him to respond.
"I saw you looking at the man with food. You flirting with him. With your eyes. I know you are good in all these things, Barbie, you are very pretty. But please. Only I say do not do these things in front to me. That is make me very sad. That hurt me."
"What? No no no. You are being stupid. I don't understand why you no trust me."
"This is not no trust. This is what I see. I know this because I see.""What did you see?"
"You looking him, he looking you, then you look away, he look back. Its like flirt, Barbie. Its bad in front to me. Now I know I really lose you!"

Torres, Ramos, Hernandez, Ochoa, Castillo...
8) Spain was playing Germany for a place in the World Cup finals. I was stoked. I loved Spain for Barcelona and Real Madrid. I loved Fernando Torres. I loved Sergio Ramos. Besides, all the German players were ugly. I was sitting with Daniel and his mother and sister. His mother had been visiting from Guatemala. We sat on the floor leaned up against the couches that were so dirty they creeped me out. Daniel sat behind me on the couch, flipping through a booklet of starred world cup players.
"You like Torres?" Marisol asked. She was sixteen and very quiet, but she had opened up a little more lately.
"Yes, isn't he cute!?" I pointed to him on the tv screen in front of us. "Doesn't he have nice freckles? Like Daniel!" I reached up and squeezed Daniel's leg beside me.
"She likes Chicharito, too." Daniel said. I nodded.
"I do." Marisol and Mrs. Castillo widened their eyes and smiled in approval. "And Ochoa."
They laughed.
"You know what it is? These players are like Daniel. They have long noses, and dark hair, and dark skin. That's what I like. Mmm." Marisol looked at Daniel and then back at the commercial of Guillermo Ochoa blocking kick after kick after kick.
"I see what you mean. The nose." She said, and giggled with me.
Outside after the game, Daniel was especially quiet.
"You know about the dark skin and nose like you say?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"Middle East mans and Arabs have this. They are everywhere here. Latin people. I think you don't need me very long."
"Oh god, Daniel. Come on. I was just talking about the soccer players. I said they look like you!"
"But..." He kicked some rocks on the gravel drive. "I am not beautiful like those people. And I know what you like. And you are good in all these things. You talking good with everybody."
"I am so fucking SICK of this!"
"Why you angry? Why you being so loud. The people, Barbie, they can hear." He gestured to some kids playing two houses down.
"I'm mad because we talk about the same things over and over and you never change anything."
"Its because I see! I know what you want!"
"I WANT you to trust me! I want you to know that I want only you!"
"I trust you. I know this. But I don't know for future, maybe you change your mind."
"THEN YOU DON'T TRUST ME! Don't you see? Don't you even KNOW what TRUST is?"
He was silent, putting a finger to his mouth and shushing me again. "I can't talk to you like this. Every time, you get crazy. You can't talk about nothing."
I checked myself. "Okay. I can talk."
He looked back at me, and put his hands by his sides.
"What about your aunt and uncle. They have trust. They are married. They are in love. She doesn't have to go to every single soccer game like she's attached to his hip. They are married, they KNOW they will always be together."
"Yeah that's what I want."
"THAT is trust, and you don't trust me."
"No, I think what you are call trust, nobody can have. Nobody can say, 'oh, okay, you can go with your friends, i don't care.' My aunt don't go out with friends at night and leave my uncle."
"Did I say I wanted to do that?" He shook his head.

Epilogue
We chased our tails. It had been ten months. By the time it was over, I had self sabotaged and hurt myself terrifically. It was an internal ache of being told you're not good enough by someone who clearly wanted more than anything to love you. It just wasn't going to work out. I kept thinking, I adjust this, I tweak that. But none of it was good enough.
Those dark days with Daniel Castillo were a life lesson that was extremely hard-learned.
Don't fall in love with someone who doesn't love themself.
Duh.

Ruled You Out

I text: you'd never sleep if you ran a club like that.
He texts: i rarely keep now
I text: Oh u rarely keep? You go bad? Haha im with you. Im in a perpetual sleep walk until about 6pm.
He texts: i have a lot in my lately....so i been brain dead
I consider what went in the blank, then text: Hah. You need sleep. You should take some benadryl.
He texts: I can sleep enough when I'm laid to rest
I text: Problem is u never are huh.

(10 minutes passes. During which I realize that he wasn't actually talking about not needed benadryl to sleep and that he could sleep well enough when he laid down and tried, but that he was saying he could sleep when he died.)

I text: Oh. yea. Just realized u meant dead. Duh.
He texts: Lol I was like ....uh

I check "unconcerned by miscommunication" off my list of Rule You Out. Its one of those sneaky boxes you don't want to check because you feel insecure about caring about a conversation that the other person is engaging in apathetically.
News flash: They're not too cool for you. They just don't care.

Thus, they are totally not worth the effort. One should not have to work to get someone to notice them.

Furthermore, based on this one teeny tiny exchange, I can see the cocked eyebrow that would come at me from across the room when I do something "uncool." Heaven forbid this be explained to me, and laughed off. Instead I'll sit there feeling small after realizing my error. The ten minute silence, the cocked eyebrow-- they are designed to make you feel small.

Don't take that shizz! Put it on the list of Ruled You Out.

The Ones That Get Away

Loud music was blaring as we crossed the parking lot.
"You girls be safe tonight," a waitress called as she got into her car a few feet away. The only lights outside the place were on what could be called a porch, though at the time it appeared to be a drunken round table discussion of which college was best. A guy in a plaid short sleeved shirt was swaying a little too much while explaining the indesputable greatness of Ole Miss. Two frat guys wearing black and gold baseball hats stood, arms crossed, smirking at him.

"Well if this isn't a dive..." I trailed off, and stepped onto the porch.
"I know. But its Neal's dive. So we're going." Regina pulled open the door.
Immediately I could smell the stink of five thousand cigarettes and the unmistakeable stench of bar. Cigarette flavored yogurt, I thought to myself, yogurt thats been sitting out for too long.
We wound our way to the bar, dodging several tramp-stamped co-eds.
Ten minutes later, I had already been approached by two middle aged men trying to talk to me about teaching, and we were making a dash for a table. The karaoke was loud. as. hell.
"That's Neal." Regina said. "That's him singing."

I would like to say that I understand Regina's fascination with an overgrown, overconfident, manchild whose bushy eyebrows eclipse a beady eyed gaze, but I don't. Was I being harsh? Sure! But Neal had broken Regina's heart in a few places.
I enjoyed Regina's friendship so much because she reminded me of myself, and we had the same sense of humor. It had been a while since someone who was a totally and completely illogical choice for me had been able to break my heart, but it had happened. They hadn't looked like Neal, but it had happened.

He was standing on the middle of the 4 inch platform that qualified as a karaoke stage. He was wearing a white button down shirt with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, some black pants with black dress shoes, and his tie was undone and dangling around his neck.
"God, he looks like something out of the Wedding Crashers."
Regina hiccuped a quick laugh, but her eyes were glued to Neal's face. He hadn't seen us yet, and I wasn't sure what it would be like when he did.
Regina had only ever told me about her relationship with Neal. I'd never met him. Though all three of us had been in high school together. Regina and Neal both graduated the year after me. Though Neal had been just as much of an oddity as he was now, I had always marveled at how he had managed to become semi-popular. He was charismatic, there was no doubt about that. He was hilarious, which was always a plus. And he had apparently been under the influence of various illegal substances nearly the entire time he was in school. Regina, on the other hand, was active in student council, active in the debate team, active in the German club, and was now jet-setting, donning a superior attitude, and teaching various English classes around Austria. Yeah, that Austria. The one in Europe.

I looked up at Neal who was belting out Bohemian Rhapsody along with some other innebriated male individual. He was cracking jokes, enjoying the smoky, eye watering limelight. Regina was enamoured with him seemingly needlessly. I found it fascinatingly unnatural. He was the cookie she couldn't turn down. She knew it would be gone in a while and she might even get heartburn because the balance of the ingredients was a little off kilter, but she just couldn't resist a taste.
Thats exactly what happened when we went in that night. Possibly on both accounts.

"Oooooh, hey!" Neal was crossing toward the bar, where we were standing along the wall. Regina had an eye lock on him like a missile cruiser, and I was trying to play it cool. As more and more short skirts and perfume piled in, it was becoming immediately apparent that I might be too old, or too cool, for this bar.
"Um, hey!" I shot back at Neal like we hadn't come there looking for him.
"It's so good to seeee yoooooou," he leaned in and hugged me. Could he not see Regina? I turned and she had moved somewhere. Now I was standing there blocking the aisle by myself. It was weird, too, because I had never really said more than a few sentences to Neal in my entire life. I hadn't seen him really at all since high school. And now he was greeting me like an old friend. Oh well, I thought to myself, I feel like I dated him myself after all the crap Regina's told me.
"Its good to see you too," I said. "Hey, she's here with me, you know." And I motioned toward the rest of the place, because I suddenly didn't know where she was right then at all.
"Ooooh. Yeah." He grinned and kept staring at me. Weird!
"We're here together. Regina and me." My eyes shot across the room trying to locate her so I could bail. "She wanted to come by and see you."
"Cool. You guys sit down, I'll be over there in a sec."
Awkwardness averted, I moved toward the tables. Everything was aglow with red light from a neon sign in the corner. Regina was sitting at a table sipping her beer. I sat with mine.
"He's trying to buy our drinks, you know." Her eyes were seriously glued to him.
"Really?"
"But we already paid." She looked straight ahead. "I bet I can get him to buy something else." There was some sort of determined look on her face. It was bizarre. She was clamming up, I could tell, because she was trying hard to look that determined. This was a trait in Regina that I was starting to recognize. Anytime she was uncomfortable she would do something that implied the exact opposite of discomfort. Something like the haughty gaze she was working up now.
I chuckled.
"Oh, come on, Regina. Are you in love with him or something? I mean, we're all the way out in frat-ville on a flippin Tuesday. Its after midnight and we just got here."
"No! ...yes." She giggled with a high pitched little yelp.
"But you're going back to Austria. You don't even live here. Are you just in love with him because its nice to be in love?" I asked because in-love-for-the-sake-of-the-anguish was a game I was fairly good at playing. I liked it. It wasn't risky because you expected failure.
"No, actually. I think-- well, Neal is the only person I would consider staying for. I would stay here. For him."
I widened my eyes in half-mock surprise. "Whaaaa? You!?"
"I know, I know..."
A drunk guy in a baby blue polo stood up and took the mic, professing his love for a brunette in the corner who was covering her face.
"No, Regina, not you. You don't even live in the US any more. You're here on vacation, remember!"
"For the summer, yes. But I would stay here for him."
"Dude," I said, dismissing it. "Don't give him that much power. He doesn't even deserve it."
"Oh I know."
We both looked over to see Neal coming towards us. He pulled up a chair, and sat in it backwards. A portrait of nonchalance.
"Whats crackin?"
He had terrible dental issues. Still, despite his beastly qualities, he exuded a nearly unmatched level of confidence. Regina and I remained poised.
"Nothin. We've been out," I said.
Neal's eyes were immediately on Regina.
"So you came to see me?" One of his eyebrows did a little dance upward.
"Maybe. I just hadn't seen you in a while."
"Well its really good to see you, you know." He moved the chair toward her and she smiled shyly. It was hard to tell under the hardass act she was pulling, but I knew her well enough. It was indeed a shy-smile.
"How can you stand this place?" I blurted. "We're sooo over this scene, you know?"
Neal laughed a little before pointing to the dj next to the karaoke station. "I know Crystal well enough that I can pretty much sing whenever and whatever I want. I know the bartenders. I get stuff for free. Its fun."
"You come here a lot then."
"Sure." It was back to Regina with him. "So what were you guys talking about before I came over?" He was leaning in a bit. He was sweating from his vigorous singing.
"You." Regina was attempting coy.
"Yeah, cuz I saw you last week at the phone store," I added.
He flapped his tie at me. "Yep. Still workin there."
"But we didn't come out here because we saw you at the phone store."
"No?"
"We came out here because we wanted to sing karaoke," Regina continued. Not so much coy now.
"Well I'm glad you came. Its very good to see you."
"Oh, Neal, honey, you just have no idea what we've been up to, do you? Or what we've been talking about."
Neal smiled. "You should fill me in."
They sparred back and forth. They were really saying nothing. Regina sat straight and stiff as a board in her chair, playing coy. Neal played along with his lazy ease. He almost seemed accustomed to it. The whole verbal dance could have gone on and on if I hadn't stood up and got right down in Neal's ear.
"What are you doing? What are you saying!" Regina yipped from her chair. She was grinning though.

"Okay," I said, "I'm only going to say this once. Maybe its because I'm a tad drunk or because I'm sick of staring at your faces while you crack this very un-witty banter, but bottom line: news flash: Regina is in love with you. She just wishes you were a better person." I was looking down at Neal then, watching him process this with some awkwardness. He was gazing around the room and listening, and felt put on the spot. I knew that. But since I felt no emotional connection to him whatsoever and it was kind of fun to watch him squirm.
"I know she is," he finally said. "And I'm a work in progress."
"Hey, aren't most of us in progress?" I replied.

Regina and Neal sat snug on one corner of the table.
I scanned the room and came up with nothing. It was a whole lot of drinking, smoking, "accidental" ass smacking, and cozy couples that would probably claim they didn't know each other by the end of the week.
We walked to Regina's car with Neal. He kissed her good night. They said something too low for me to hear. I tried the passenger door handle three times before Regina regained consciousness and unlocked it.
"Wasn't that so funny!?" She gushed.
But I was thinking about relationships. I was thinking about distance, and age, and the things we do for other people. I was thinking that Regina would never in a million years stay home for Neal. His jokes and charisma were not even enough to find him some cool friends. He was 24 years old hanging out with a bunch of college freshmen who didn't really glance at him but to laugh shallowly before they took another shot. G-o-i-n-g nowhere.
And maybe I wasn't going anywhere either. Maybe I'd sold myself short a long time ago, like Neal, and had made bad decisions and couldn't possibly fall in love with some Austrian teacher like Regina. Then again, I reminded myself, Neal was the one who didn't want to be with Regina. He was the one who made it hard to commit. Regina, like me, practically begged for commitment when she found something she actually wanted. The thing was, we always wanted what we couldn't have.
To Regina, Neal was one of the ones that got away.
But as I looked down at my phone, the number on which I had changed maybe four or five times in the previous twelve months, I knew it could be a lot of things keeping Neal and Regina apart.

If anything, there were three pieces of information I'd learned in the last few years.
Those were, A) Timing is a bitch, B) The ones that get away don't always want to be chased, and C) Sometimes the ones that get away don't deserve to be chased.
As we drove into suburban south Nashville, Regina continued gushing and speculating about her encounter with Neal and I wondered to myself about who might consider me one of the ones that got away.

Lavery: The Story You Never Heard, PART II

To view Part 1, click here.

There was crying. There was anger. It was like a bad lifetime movie. Frame by frame, the next twelve hours clicking away until I found myself in my own room at home surrounded by garbage bags and toiletries and bed linens and dorm room clutter. My grandparents were even crying when they came to see the wreckage. They took the pink chair I'd once kissed Mark on and took it to their basement. I didn't tell anyone but Ellie and somehow the entire campus ended up finding out. Maybe it was because I was the only female news anchor for the morning announcements. Everyone knew my face.
Now they could all smirk to themselves and wonder where it had been.

An hour after my deans office meeting I had gone up to the production set to let my co-anchor know I wouldn't be coming anymore. I spotted him in the hall before I got to the door.

"Hey, what happened to you? Why did they send Amelia?"
Amelia was the girl I'd beaten for the anchor bit. Broadcast was her life and her southern belle perfection had been a little ruffled when I'd won it. After all, I was only a lowly English major with a background in speech and debate.
"Amelia's here?"
"Yeah, she's in there right now putting her mic on like nothing's wrong."
"You didn't send for her? Dr. P didn't send for her?"
"No she just showed up and was like, 'well I guess I'm back, huh.'"
"Dean McDonald must have sent her."
"What? Why?"
I looked at the ceiling, and then back at him. "I got kicked out today."
"Woooah." He laughed a little. "You're serious?! What happened?"
"Its a long story. I hope Amelia hasn't heard it though because the whole campus is going to start buzzing."
"Yeah. I hadn't heard anything." He made a face. "I'm sorry that happened. Whatever it is. I really am. You're cool, you know."
"Well..." I failed at holding back the tears behind my eyes. "I didn't really belong here anyway."

Where did I belong? Isn't that what you're supposed to ask yourself in college? The truth was that I'd known I hadn't belonged there from day one. My entire life I'd been looking through the window at Lavery kids, and I'd never been able to touch them. Lavery was a private religious school for grades K through 12. The university offered a hefty scholarship for undergrad students because their enrollment was down. They were strict COC kids, Church of Christers. And they ran in packs like wolves tearing at things they didn't agree with. It always seemed to me that their numbers afforded them the comfort to say whatever they thought, which was sometimes something nice and other times something completely self righteous, bigotted, or closeminded. Sure, those times were few and far between, but I felt so outside from them. They looked at me like a disease.

Frankly I don't blame them now. My level of anger about life in general was driving me toward seclusion. I wanted to be OTHER. I wanted to be DIFFERENT. I just didn't always expect them to react so violently toward that.

Had Lavery never happened at all, I would no doubt be a different person. I might feel less guilt. I might feel better about myself. I might define myself in a different way. I might never have been able to be comfortable with kids who had made the kind of mistakes I made there. I might have some day gained the ability to look at my misfortunes and not be angry. Maybe I would have come at God, even, from an angle other than hating myself more than mud. No one likes a broken girl, I would say, so I'll be the angry girl instead. She's more fun.
And she was, but she was self destructive.
Thats when the cognitive dissonance started. Thats when I started trying to pretend I OWNED what happened at Lavery.

"I'm not as good as you think, you know."
"Really?""Yeah." Insert sly grin. "I got kicked out of school once."
"You?" Insert suprised laughter. "For what?!"

I was damn good at fitting in with the wrong crowd from that day forward. They ate me alive in ways that Lavery never dreamed of. I secretly hated myself for every move I made. I don't even think I was aware it was happening, but the self worth barometer went so low it was underground.

Six years later, I know better. Mark got married two years ago. We talked for a while after, but got frustrated with each other. Eventually he called me, high, one day and told me that he didn't know what I wanted from him now. I wanted a friend. I wanted acceptance. It all stung so hard, and it stings a little still. I scoff, too, sometimes, at the religious shut out that Dean McDaniel gave me when he 'immediately suspended me from the university.'
I felt for a long time like he was immediately suspending me from whoever I'd thought I was before. Like he was defining me: YOU ARE BAD. YOU ARE NOT LIKE US. YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE WHERE YOU CAN INFECT US WITH YOUR BADNESS. Maybe I was diseased with free thought, I don't know. All I know now is that I shouldn't have let him define me so easily. I shouldn't have sunk into the palm of his hand.

Mark had kicked a trashcan over in the Dean's office. Mark had told him that he wished he'd gotten really hammered instead of what happened, because they'd keep him for that. And it was true, a kid named Toby Bannister had gotten a slap on the wrist for having beer cans in his trash at the dorm. I didn't need to be quite as dramatic as Mark, but I should have resisted internalizing the labels.

"We actually own nothing in this world. We don't even own our bodies, or ourselves. It belongs to God. The only thing we own is what we do in this life."

Zyan said that last week and I cringed. But there is so much good I can do. He's right, we do all make mistakes. I guarantee you Lavery kids end up coming to God on their hands and knees just like I did eventually. Circumstances might have been different. But, we'd both have made it.

I guess I don't think about what would have been because it doesn't matter any more. Zyan is right. I hold my future in the palm of my hand, and I shouldn't let anyone else manipulate it but me. The past is the past. And if someone won't let me move on, they don't care about me enough to be worth my time.

Remember that, kids. You can't let things like Lavery get you down.

Lavery: The Story You Never Heard PART I

You know, I don't even think about it now. I have no concept of what my life would be like if Lavery hadn't happened. If you had asked me before whether I could even see that happening to me I would have said no. But it did.

Something was being forced into the door knob and the handle turned suddenly.
I tensed and did a kneejerk dive over the side of my bed.
"Shit."

I mean, if it hadn't happened, and I had gotten on that plane in the morning and flown to LA, what would have been? Would I have finally met the right coach and gotten myself a transfer? They remembered me at those tournaments and had been pursuing me actively after the previous year. Texas Christian, The University of Alabama, a few grad assistants at Western had even asked me about going somewhere I could actually be coached. Would my disgust with the 04 elections and all the ignorant elitist remarks have finally gotten to me and made me want to uproot?

"Mary, listen, something happened tonight. I can't-- I'm not supposed to go on the trip any more. I'm sor--"
"What happened?"
"I can't talk about it now. I have a meeting in the Dean's office at 2. I'm not supposed to talk about it until then."
"Geez. I hope you're okay. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I guess."
"What are we supposed to do with your ticket?"
"I don't even know. They called my sponsor. He's supposed to do something about that later. Don't worry."
"I don't like not knowing whats going on here. This is not normal."
No shit.

I could have been a better me. I could have kept myself from so much. It wasn't anybody's fault but mine, though. I knew what I was getting myself into when I went to that right-wing cult of a school.
Its just that so much that happened after that was directly related to me defining myself by that moment. It was like nothing had happened before it. And everything that happened afterward hinged on this one fact.

"How did your meeting go?"
I was ripping down posters. My eyes were hot and swollen.
"How does it look like it went?" I snapped. I shouldn't have snapped at Ellie. She was a good roommate. She was the best roommate I'd ever had.
"Oh my god..."
"Watch out," I said, swiping my hand over the dresser and wiping everything I touched into a black garbage bag, "don't say that too loud, El, or they might send you away too."
"I can't believe this." She put her bookbag down on the floor and stood there, watching me like a whirlwind around the room. "When do you have to be out?"
"The end of the weekend." I picked up a program from the talent show I'd performed in. It sickened me, and I let a couple tears out. "I just-- I don't want to be here anymore. People are starting to find out."
"From who? Him? Is it just you that's going or is it him too?"
"No, we're both out." I crumpled the program and threw it into the wastebasket. "I mean... I really didn't think they'd do it, you know. I thought they'd give me counselling or something. I probably need that anyway. Wouldn't that be logical? Wouldn't they want to give the screwed up girl on the cusp of being bad a second chance?"
Ellie just stood there. "Do you want me to help?"
"--but nooooo, they want me out. I'm not good enough. I never was good enough for these stupid people. Well guess what. Everybody in this stupid place can laugh now because they were right. I'm a liberal. I like to feel things, so sue me. I'm not a dried up lilly white page out of the Bible!" I ripped the last poster off the closet door. "I voted for John Kerry, damnit!"

I had waited for the resident director for thirty full minutes before we were able to head over to the Dean's office. She looked at me with these sad eyes. Pity, I thought. She wants me to think she pitys me. She's so good and wholesome and I'm the broken one. I'm the one who needs help.
I sat on this seventies style green couch in the lobby waiting for the jury to be out. The girl behind the desk there was a student and I knew she recognized the deer in the headlights look on my face. She could sense something was going down. Ten minutes later Dean McDonald stepped out of his office and picked up something off the printer. I thought nothing of it.

"These situations are... difficult."
He sat behind his huge desk. There was a purple sash and a rather large crown of thorns on the wall behind his desk. He was staring at me, hands together, fingers pointed in an arch. Here is the steeple, I thought. There was a glossy picture of his happy family angled halfway between himself and my chair. How perfect, I thought. I might have felt more sarcastic if I weren't ready to crawl on my hands and knees to keep myself at the school. Not even that! They'll send me off campus. I'm okay with that.
"You see," he continued, "My sister experienced a rough time in her life too. She got a boyfriend. She did some of the same things you've done. And she... wasn't so lucky." He paused and looked to another picture on his desk. "She ended up pregnant."
The resident director next to me let out a sigh.
"Even if this was experimentation like you claim." lie. "Even if this was the first time for you," lie. "We can't let you think that this kind of thing is okay."
"I know its not. I'm so sorry." The director grabbed a box of kleenex and held it out. My nose was running like a faucet and I realized that I was crying too. Despite my urge to chuck it back at her, I pulled a tissue out, making a little whooshing noise. I balled it up and focused on its soft edges.
"The fact that your parents have divorced, that's hard. Your long term relationship ending, thats hard too. You are young, you know. Lots of us go through hard times." You have no idea. "How long did you know this boy? From last night."
"I knew him last year... we were in the same class together. So. I've known him a year or so but we only started dating like two months ago." I was still crying. I hated myself for it.
"Two months. Thats all it took for you to be ready for that kind of step in your relationship?"
Is there an appropriate length of time? I thought.
"You kids just don't get it. You can ruin your life in a total of five minutes." Or forty five. "You can get pregnant. You can even send yourself into eternal damnation just for those few moments of pleasure." He made it sound like porn. He spat the word pleasure like a bad taste in his mouth.
"I understand this is a hard time for you. We understand that. We hope that you seek counselling and we can even help you set that up. But we cannot let these kinds of things go unpunished here at Lavery."
"I completely understand," I gripped the kleenex into a hard knot, my nuckles white, waiting for what was next.
He pulled the piece of paper out of a drawer in his desk and I got this sick pit in my stomach.
"Our principles are very high at Lavery. We pride ourselves on that. We hope you will come back, apply for re-enrollment, and come join us again in fellowship. But, for now, we are going to immediately suspend you from the university."
Immediately suspend you from the university.
The words were like rocks I couldn't swallow. I felt like I couldn't breathe. He said some other things, he held out a pen. I stopped crying suddenly, as I began signing my name. This cold hum set in along my entire body. I was electric. I was drained and pumped up at the same time. Numb, but buzzing with static.
If I pass out now, I thought, what will they do? We stood up. It was over. It was all over.
"This can't be just a phase for you. You need to understand the weight of this issue and turn from it. God will always forgive you."
But you won't. I thought.
"We'd like to see you out by the end of the weekend," he said.
"Do you want to call your parents, or do you want me to do it?" I had completely forgotten the resident director until then, and I hadn't even thought of my mother.
Oh God, my mother.

I said goodbye to Mark just outside the parking lot of my dorm. My mother was in the car, and for whatever reason I felt a little ticked off at Mark for the whole situation. He was wearing a light yellow polo shirt and some khaki shorts. His light blue eyes smiled, eerie and calm at me.
"When do you go back to LA?"
"My mom's buying me a plane ticket for Sunday."
"Its funny, right?" I laughed a little.
"What is?"
"The fact that you're going home to LA when just yesterday I was supposed to go."
"Yeah. Irony."
"My mom's over there." I knew she was shooting daggers at us. Probably blaming him for all this.
"Oh. Yeah. I'll call you, okay."
"This really sucks, you know that?"
"Yeah. I know. Fuckin bitches."
"I just want to get gone."
"Okay. Well. Bye." He hugged me, and that was the last time I smelled his cologne. The last time I saw him wave. The last time I saw him, period. He disappeared behind some bushes and it wasn't until we were halfway down the street toward my house that I crumpled up and bawled like a two year old. It was really all over. I would never see anyone there again. I wasn't even allowed on school property. It would never be the same.

Dean McDonald had absolutely no idea about what a "phase" he had created for me. It was my fault, sure. But whatever phase I was going through hadn't hit full swing until I had Lavery under my belt.
Even I had no idea what Lavery put in motion.

The Unthinkable Impossible

He is sitting across the table from me wearing a black dress shirt and gray slacks. He's come to visit me for lunch in the caffeteria below my office building. His willingness, and even insistence, on doing this is new to me. He's assertive, and can even be forceful, but sensitive to my every need. Even now, as I sip steaming soup from the cup in front of me, he responds to my burnt tongue before I even have time to grimace.

"Be careful with that."
I swallow quickly and dab the tip of my tongue to my upper lip.
"Yup. Its burned. Man, I really thought I'd waited long enough!"
"You're an impatient little angel, aren't you," he smiles wryly and stands up, straigtening his striped tie. "I'll go get some ice."

I resist the urge to slurp more scalding soup and look up to find him holding a piece of ice out in front of me, one side pinched firmly inside a napkin between his thumb and forefinger. He smirks at me.

"Alright, open up."
"I'm not sticking my tongue out for you in the middle of the cafeteria."
"You didn't mind it in the middle of the parking garage."
I flash a sarcastic smile, "That was different. No one could even see my tongue."
"Or mine, huh?" He grins back, a faint glint in his eye.
I glance around the room to see if I'm causing a gushy scene yet. I always hate those people who use too much PDA at inappropriate times. I can almost hear our high school speech coach in the back of my mind yelling 'Hand check!' toward the back of the bus. Luckily no one seems to notice us. Though I wonder if the older woman wearing the oversized sweater is really reading.
"Come on, now." Lorne reaches across with his other hand and gently cups the side of my face. The gesture is so soft, and so much like a kiss, that I relax instantly. He's looking at me with this sweet intensity.
"Now open your mouth." He leans in, and places the melting piece of ice onto my tongue. He puts the napkin down. I close my mouth around the cold, slippery shard. But his hand is still cupping the side of my face. He hasn't broken his gaze into my eyes. My stomach is in a twisted knot of fluttering butterflies, and a beat passes before the left corner of his mouth twitches up in quiet amusement and he drops his hand to the table again.
"How do you do that?"
"Do what?" He looks down at his hands, crumpling the napkin into a tiny ball.
"Oh, never mind." Make my heart stop. Make my breath catch. Make me make you the center of my universe.

I've got it bad, and I know it. When he looks at me sometimes it's like I'm falling down a deep dark tunnel and the only thing I can see at the very bottom is him.
I can't have him know that, though. I have to maintain control. 'Making a hot guy your bitch is the ultimate unthinkable impossible,' my friend Treva always says. I look at Lorne. He's not just a hot guy. I could never even pretend to want to 'make him my bitch.' Treva cracks me up, but she has no idea what this feels like.
He's so attentive. Its almost like he can read my mind. Or maybe I've just been reading too many Twilight books. Besides, Lorne is not a vampire.

"What's wrong? Youre so quiet."
I spit my ice into the soup cup and it puddles away into nothingness.
"I'm just amazed I guess. Youre..." What is he?
"Perfect? Sexy? Impeccably dressed?"
"Wow, confident much?" I laugh. "Just-- I'm glad you came."
He throws the paper wad at me and it bounces off my shoulder next to the soup. "I'm glad I came too."


Lorne's teeth are large and white and perfect. Like movie star teeth. When he smiles at me, they glint out from behind his full lips. His nose cuts a straight line down the middle of his face and his eyes are deep set and very dark. He has claimed to me that they are black, but I've seen them in the light. They're dark brown. Sometimes when he's concentrating on something Lorne will furrow his brow and set his jaw in a way that makes a muscle stand out right along the bone. I love that muscle. It comes out when he's anxious or uncomfortable.


"Why would you say that? Do you not want me here?"
I had told him he didn't have to come eat with me. He was staring intently at me outside near the fountain in front of my eleven story office building. Cab drivers kept eyeing us from the roundabout at the hotel next door. I turned my attention to a crack in the sidewalk.
"Of course I want you here. Its just that I..." I sighed and ran a hand through my hair.
"Leigh." He tipped my face up and looked right into my eyes.
Mesmerized by his touch and the intensity of his gaze, I stared back.
"Leigh, you don't have to change for me. You don't have to pretend, or try to be funny, or cute." He smiled when he said it. "I want you exactly the way you are. Don't do or say what you think I want to hear. Be you. Be the person I'm falling in love with."
My breath caught and I inhaled quickly, flushing warmth down the length of my body. Geez, I didn't even have to touch him!
"You're falling in love with me?" I looked away for an instant.
"Yes." I looked back. He was painfully beautiful. "And nothing else matters to me. Every day of our lives until now has gone away. I don't care about it. We have found each other now, and we can begin to live."
"Oh." I breathed. I needed to breathe. "I want you to be real."
"I am real."
"I want this to be real." I inched closer to him. "I've been so disappointed and so hurt."
"I would never." He reached out and wrapped his arms around me. I stood there in his embrace, pressing my cheek to his tie, smelling his cologne, feeling like I wanted to cry. "I'm sorry it took you so long to find me. I'm so sorry for all that pain."
"You weren't there. Its okay. It was my fault."
"Its gone now," he whispered. "Be happy with me."
"I am."
We stood there like the world couldn't touch us. Like all the badness couldn't creep in. He touched my hair and kissed the top of my head. And I believed him. I really believed every word of it.


Why can't it be true? Are we not programmed like emperor pengiuns to mate for life? Like wolves? Like swans? Like the beavers or even the termites? Genetically, we crave that validation. One plus one is two. It is as involuntary as breathing to seek our other halves. But we exist in a world where all the sweetness is gone, all the softness. The romance of life is dead. Logic has won over and broken us apart, ripped and teared at our innocence. Still, because we are like lost children, we ache for that which our minds have robbed us. We are emotions, and we don't know where to put ourselves. We sink in the quicksand of missed connections until we accept the assumption that we will die, slowly filling our lungs with bitterness.

Is it not beautiful to fight? To take your weight and climb with everything you have, knowing that each fall will be harder than the last.


"Its okay," he said. "I'm here. You're safe now."

Quotable Quote

"...and then we stopped. Because, apparently, Jesus really ruins the mood."

I'm a Romantic Sucker

Don't worry,
I told him,
as the light danced
heavy and awkward
in his eyes;
I'm here,
I said,
I'll always be here.

w o r d s

w o r d s
delicious little things
roll around your tongue
taste sweet and succulent
and drip desire
and devilish
dreams
like whipped cream
lick and
suck and
taste and
delicately drown
in crisp and cool
and calm you
cut you
kill you with their honesty.

they're smart and sexy
if you let them be
or sneaky
snake inside you
coil and curl with
key strokes

three of them can save you
slice right through you
make your body sing
erotically
erroneously
enveloping

the

strokes of pens and pencils
carve and climax
clink and rattle with the
weight of
what
you
have
to
say.

Lonely Girl + Company Luncheon = Date Night

Apparently my company's had a good quarter.
Monday was giant cake day.
Tuesday was fruit and veggie trays.
Wednesday was bagels with cream cheese.
Thursday was cookie cake day.
Today is Friday.
Today is a department luncheon at Maggiano's.
Maggiano's is a fancy Italian resturant that I've never even managed to go to on a date.

So, since I'm probably not going to go on a date for the next fifteen years, I put on a clingy black wrap dress cut just above my knees. I carefully straighten my hair and part it to the side so that it flops over one side of my face, like a silky curtain. I wear peep toe platformed heels with little black ruffles along the toe. I am now four inches taller.

This luncheon is my date night.

Now, if only we could skip coming back to the office, drive off to a spectacular lookout and lay on the hood of our cars staring out at the rolling hillsides and puffy little trees. If someone could hold my hand and sigh with me while the cirus clouds roll overhead and the wind stirs the leaves along the pavement.

Then, then, it would be a good date.

First Kiss with M. Night Shyamalan

I had never sat on the back row at a movie theater before. There was really no point because you couldn't see as well. Anytime someone opened the door, they let all this light in from outside. Not to mention the fact that the glowing red EXIT sign above the doorway was going to annoy me the whole time.

I guess it didn't really matter though. I had already seen the movie.
It was October 1999, I was fourteen years old, and my mom had just dropped me off at the Nippers Corner movie theater to see a matinee with a boy. It was my first date. Ever.

David Warren was a junior at Overbrook. I was a freshman. Less than five months prior to our movie date, I had been a middle school student. David was tall, pale skinned and blue eyed. He had dark hair that he bleached in the front. He was built like a teddy bear, with cheeks that puffed a little bit when he smiled. He grew a goatee to combat this quality, a feat that I had never seen a boy do so close to my age. But again, I had only been in high school for a little over two months.

David had confessed to my good friend Shana that he had a crush on me when we were at a speech tournament on the TSU campus. I had been frustrated with myself for not getting high marks on my performances and didn't even notice when Shana and David were giggling and pushing each other toward me.

Instant messenger and the speech and debate class I visited on occasion to practice my pieces provided a backdrop conducive to flirting, and before I knew it, I had followed David into the middle of the back row at a showing of The Sixth Sense.

"Does't that light bother you?" I asked, pointing breifly at the glowing exit sign.
David looked at me in what could have been perplexity before answering, "Not really."

We sat there, hands placed awkwardly on our knees. I remembered being scared the first time I saw the movie, but now I couldn't keep my mind off the fact that I was sitting next to David. A junior. Who had a goatee. None of my friends had been on a date like this before. If you cut out the part where my mom drove by and dropped me off, it was like a real date! Like tv! Like the movies!

David reached over suddenly and grabbed my hand. I almost recoiled thinking he didn't mean to, but realized my error and let out an audible and surprised little "oh!"

"You didn't tell me it would be this scary," he whispered in my ear. His breath was kind of hot.
His hand was much softer than mine, and warm. It might even have been a bit moist. He squeezed, and moved his thumb back and forth over mine. Every movement was so small, yet it set off little butterfly explosions in my stomach.

As the movie wore on and got scarier, dead people cropping up just about everywhere, and David seemed as distracted as I was. He kept turning his head to look at me. He leaned into my shoulder a little bit and would turn his head real slowly.

What the hell was he doing?

I looked away and he'd move his head back, but I knew he wasn't watching the movie. I turned and looked at him first this time. Was I gazing dreamily enough? I felt so awkward! He caught the movement at the turn of my head and turned his to meet my gaze. He leaned in just the tiniest bit.

This was it! I knew it! He was gonna kiss me!

--I turned away again. Maybe I was delusional. This was our first date out. Why would he wanna kiss me. Then, I thought, hey, I'm at the back of a movie theater. We're obviously not watching the flick. I better stop being lame and do this thing.

I turned back to him.
He turned back to me.

There was blue light from the screen illuminating the side of his face, because he was turned fully toward me. What an awkward position. My fingers were falling asleep from leaning and maintaining my hold on his hand.

We leaned toward each other, me ever so slightly. I didn't want him to think I was asking for it. I'm not presumptuous, I said to myself quickly, I'm along for the ride.

His face hit mine and he smelled like... boy. He smelled like warm breath. His lips were on mine and it sent a little jolt of energy like a wave all the way down the length of my body. My fingers were still numb but I could tell he was stroking them. What awkward brilliance! I thought. He really likes me!

Then he opened his mouth, and like I knew what I was doing, I did too. His tongue went into my mouth ever so slightly. Holy crap, I thought, who'd have known someone else's tongue would feel like that. All cool and wet and hard? Spongy, even. His goatee wasn't a problem, but when I kissed the sides of his face they were scratchy with stubble. His little blue eyes peered out from under his brows expressionless.

We made out for a good 15 or 20 minutes. It was the same thing the whole time, our hands firmly planted on my side of the arm rest. I laughed at his reaction to the end of the movie. He looked at me and mouthed "oh my god, really?" and we giggled like school children, which of course, really, we were. All I could think about was would-I-ever-get-to kiss-him-like-that-again?

When we saw my Dad waiting outside to pick me up, David finally let go of my hand, smiled, said he'd see me at school, and walked off toward his car. My hand was all warm and soft from being held in his, and I stared at it as we drove home, having little to say. My mom sat on the edge of my bed, all smiles, and asked me how it had been. I held back my grin and said that "a certain Drew Barrymore movie did not apply to me anymore."
Thats exactly how I phrased it, too. I've never forgotten that part.

I could not say, any more, that I'd never been kissed. My mom has since said she might regret letting me go to the movies with David.

He lost his interest in me quickly. The very next week at school he kept saying the same thing over and over, "Do you think we're moving too fast? I mean, really. Do you?"

And what the hell was that supposed to mean to me?! I had never "moved" at all!
"The pace. At which. We are going. Right now. Is fine." I felt put off by his angsty request. It was almost like he felt bad. Like he regretted the whole thing.

We hung out for a while, he took me home from school a few times. I gave him a christmas present. It was a fancy leather bound journal. "So you can write your songs in it," I said. I knew it was a crap gift for a guy. But I couldn't decide what you got your sort-of boyfriend. He never said he was my boyfriend. In retrospect, I think thats what he meant about "moving too fast."
I forced myself not to be disappointed when he told me he didn't want to "hang out" any more. Instead I got angry. I had signed up for an overnight speech tournament because I knew he was going. I knew it was 3 hours away, and I knew that school buses were great places to get cozy.

We weren't cozy. He didn't sit with me, and he called me over to him just long enough to let me know our "hanging out" days were over.

"I'm... going back to my seat," I said, and I did. I'm used up, I told myself. It's started. You are a piece of paper with a hole in it. You've been hole punched. I thought to myself. I remember thinking that so clearly. I stared straight ahead at the drivers big rear view mirror. I didn't cry. There wasn't anything to cry about. This is so stupid! I thought, and I got so angry. I was angry the whole trip.

"Why are you mad at me? Why are you mad?!" he kept asking. Over and over, every freakin day we were there.

I don't know why I was so mad.

Maybe its because he'd played me, in a way. Maybe it was because he should have known I was young. I was little. I was dreamy and I didn't understand him not following the natural progression. He hadn't given me anything for Christmas. He hadn't called me very often. He didn't want to eat lunch with me at school. He didn't call me his girl friend. I think, now, that I was mad at myself for getting played and thinking it was acceptable.

Ten years later, I'm 25. I still get played sometimes. Too many times. Occasionally I'm still "along for the ride," like I told myself I was in the movie theater.

If I had only known then,
years before all the bad crept in,
what I know now.
Maybe I could have saved myself from something.

But, you know, when you're fourteen, and you're fake-watching an M. Night Shyamalan movie with your junior crush, you're not really thinking about the future. It escapes you. Come on! Its your first kiss!

What You Should Already Know

There are some things no one ever tells you. They think you should already know. Like its common sense or something. But the older I get the more I realize:

Common sense is not common. And its not a sense.

This is what you should already know.

No matter how cute he or she is, no matter how much money they have, no matter how much you have in common, no matter how much you think you'll never find anyone like them, no matter what religion they are, no matter what people think of them, no matter what people think of you, no matter how sweet, adorable, sexy, delicious, confident, benevolent, chivalrous, or christ-like they may seem.... DO NOT, under any circumstances, allow someone to make you feel like shit.
Nothing you could ever do in the future, nothing you have ever done in the past, should EVER be held dangling above your head by someone you love. You do not deserve to be treated like anything less than human. You deserve better than that. You deserve compassion. You deserve respect. You deserve to feel important. And you deserve this because you are important.

There are tons of things that people compromise in life for the sake of relationships and the bare bones of "getting along." That's true. And necessary. But your feelings should NEVER be one of them. Do not compromise your happiness for someone else's. Do not fool yourself into believing that you are happy when they are happy barring all reason. Romance novels and love songs are designed to make you believe than you have to "give it all, or nothing at all..." This is a lie. Every last atomic molecule of your body belongs to you and your God. Never sacrifice yourself for someone else's enjoyment. You may think you want to, but know that this is a trick of mass media, hollywood, and the widely accepted sexual revolution. Bottom line, people who truly love you do not like to see you cry.

Here's something else you should know:

It is impossible to convert a selfish person to become an unselfish person. All this taming-of-the-rogue, 3-nights-with-a-scoundrel, I-can-make-him-better bullshit is a waste of your time, money, and effort. Its a waste of your emotions. Do not fool yourself into believing he will change for you. He might even say he wants to. Well, F Y I: HE WON'T.

What you should already know is that people are supposed to love you with as much force and as much strength and as much faith as you love them. And if you think this kind of love doesn't exist its because you don't have enough faith in yourself. Trust me, the minute you stop believing in yourself, the wolves have already descended. No joke.

Respect yourself. Good people will respect you for it, and they will love you because they want to know you. Not just a new and shiny extension of themselves.

Don't wait. Your life can be lived to the fullest only when you reclaim yourself. Take back the wheel. I mean, really. Who's driving your life? You? Or the forces you're too weak to resist?