alexander hamilton.
it’s not that i’m lacking sympathy. it’s just that i just do not care. let me repeat that as to make sure it sinks in.
you.
mean.
nothing.
at.
all.
to.
me.
i really didn’t know how else to tell natalie. i wish to god there had been a more eloquent way for me to speak, like, if my words could have been flowery and flowing and full of imagery and figurative language that expressed how i felt in a meaningful and deep way. but. there wasn’t. that wasn’t me being blunt. that wasn’t me being direct. that wasn’t me being cynical. those were my flowery, flowing, figurative words. i simply do not care. beautiful.
she couldn’t take her eyes off of me. it was like if she stopped looking or blinked, then her eyes would somehow catch on fire, and this was her only chance to keep the flame from living. i could see tears welling up in the inside corners of her eyes. maybe she wanted to look away or blink and her body was naturally preparing to fight the flame deluge. she blinked and nothing happened. tears began breaking like the ebb tide. it’s awful to only be happy when she is crying.
“how can you not care? how can you say such awful things? how can you be so…so cold?”
things. there was an s there. plural. i’d said other things, yes. awful? well. yes. i said a lot of things out of vehement anger. honest to god i think i said things just to see if i could make her cry. it worked every time, and i think that made me feel good in a terrible way.
i kept a straight face with an empty stare. if our faces were paintings, mine was a blank canvas and hers was a jackson pollock. i just kept saying things i didn’t mean because i didn’t know how to stop. and now that i look back on it, i think i secretly wanted to be miserable.
“i don’t know.”
i know that sounds like a dumb thing to say, like i should have said more. but that’s what i said. i gave no excuse or reason. i never told her anything. i wanted to keep it all hidden inside and pretend nothing ever existed. and i did. and i was good at that. i did my best to act like i had never felt any recognizable human emotions other than hate and lust. that worked too.
“russ. it hurts so bad, and i don’t understand.”
“i don’t expect you to understand, nat. just get out.”
i only meant part of that. i measured my life in fights. a day we didn’t fight was a good day. there weren’t a lot of good days. i really didn’t expect her to understand. that part was true. but when i told her to get out, i didn’t really mean it. i just wanted to say the meanest things possible and for the life of me i still to this day cannot fathom an acceptable reason why. i suppose i wanted to see how far i could push things without breaking. it doesn’t matter now, it’s irrelevant, but i really think i just hated myself so much that it seeped out in my relationship with others.
you can only do that for so long before the cracks in the ground you’ve built on become ravines.
we always made up before she or i actually left. sometimes she would leave and i would call her and ask her to come back. i’d say things like, “i’m never going to talk to you like that again.” we both knew that was a lie.
she just sat there with her knees in her chest and her head in her knees, sobbing. i said it again.
“get out.”
i didn’t mean it. my love for her was so deep, but my love for myself did not exist.
she slowly raised her head up.
“and give me my fucking key.”
when i got really mad, i’d say fuck a lot. she knew i was mad when i said fuck, because i never never never cursed. and when i said things like, “give me my fucking key back,” she never did. well, she’d run to her keys, take it off the key chain and throw it at me. so, yeah, i guess she did. but she always got it back.
she slowly raised her head and, without saying anything, she crawled from the foot of my bed, slipped her shorts back on, took off my shirt and put hers back on and went into the living room. i stayed lying in bed. i was sleepy and i had to wake up early. a few seconds of silence, and i heard keys jangling then metal meeting my coffee table. this is the part where i would stop her.
this is the part where i always called her back to the bedroom because i was never really all that mad to begin with. i think i just liked to fight because i was so unhappy with myself. and i loved sleeping next to her.
this is the part where i should have stopped her.
but i didn’t.
i heard the top lock twist, then the bottom lock. i heard the door open slowly and then shut.
this is the part where i should have stopped her.
i heard a car door open and shut.
this is the part where i should have stopped her.
i heard an engine turn over.
this is the part where i should have stopped her.
i saw brake lights through the living room window as she backed out of the parking spot next to my car and drove away.
this is the part where i should have picked up my cell phone and called her.
but i didn’t. i just lied there and stared at the ceiling fan. it wasn’t on because she liked having the floor fan on better so she didn’t get so cold.
i really dont know how long i lied there, and i really don’t remember what was going on inside my head.
i just know that i closed my eyes and went to sleep.
now my key ring has two house keys on it.
