this.modern.love
“Fuck obligations, baby, let’s just go to Vegas and stop when we get there. We’ll live there, we’ll stay there and never come back to this fuckin place.”
We’re lying on his bed, soft sheets and sunlight, divided up in lines across his body. His fingers are laced through mine like always, and he curses and spits as he goes on.
“You know what I mean? Fuck everything and everyone. I hate all this bullshit and I especially hate where we live.”
I nod and smile, “Yeah,” I trail off, too distracted by his shoulders, his chest, his closely cropped hair, his fuzzy chin.
He pulls his head back, locks his eyes with mine. “What do you want to do?” he asks me, softer. He takes his other hand and puts it on my hip, sliding it up and down, back and forth. “I want to lay here with you all the time,” he whispers. I’m dreaming now, thinking of all the things I want, all the things I want to do.
“I want to move into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with you in southern California or Paris, France, I want to lose this whole life and start a new one, I want…I want to tie you up and have my way with you, I want to stop caring what the world thinks of me, I want to drink and smoke and fuck with you every day all day.” Regrettably, stupidly, this is not what I say. What I say is, “I want to lay here with you.”
He smiles, this smile that’s so wide and perfect, so pure and genuine, and almost whispers, “Are you hungry?”
I whisper back, “No, not really. Are you?”
“Yeah, kinda. Hey, you want to go to Chipotle soon? I’m craving some of that guacamole.” I sigh, slowly rolling back the other way so I am turned toward the rest of his dark room, the stacks of DVDs, the smell of weed from his closet, the band t-shirts scattered on the floor. He loves Mexican food. Its not that I don’t, but I always get the same thing; a chicken soft taco with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and sour cream. And I love that cheese and sour cream, but my stomach and hips don’t. Actually, they love it too, really it’s my mind looking at my stomach and hips and thinking, you’re not supposed to be this fat.
“I don’t know, maybe,” I say, faintly, and I try to read the title of the DVD on top of one of the stacks. Tromeo & Juliet. I turn back around, suddenly, and I grab his lower back. I pull him closer, and stretch my leg over his. I smile, what I think is coyly, and I lick his skin, right below his lower lip. He smiles and licks me back. We kiss, and kiss and kiss, and finally I pull away and I say, “I’m not hungry.”
He’s reeling from our activity, and I can feel how much he wants to continue, from the look in his eyes to how he presses against me. “Okay,” he breaths, clearly not interested anymore in food, and it begins. We kiss and breathe heavy and take off our clothes and have sex. I have no insurance for birth control, and he hates condoms, so we go and go until he explodes down the center of my body, down my neck and across my nipples. His cum is warm and silky, and I rub it over my nipples. When he orgasms, his face stretches to contain his enjoyment, he looks me in the eye with the intention of killing me, he eats his last meal and is ready to die. We kiss, hard, because we are so happy.
chapter one
“See, I made sure that I wouldn’t say it when we were having sex, because I didn’t want to do that, you know? I just feel like it would make it so…so hollow or something, you know? But I didn’t even think about when I was drunk.”
“Well I don’t think you should say it during sex, but being drunk isn’t good either.”
“I know, I know! I’m saying I made sure I didn’t say it during sex, but I forgot to watch out for when I was drunk!”
“Okay, okay so tell me what happened.”
“Well, on Friday, we went to this reading, and had dinner and then I was like, ‘I really want to get drunk tonight,’ so we went and got beer, and then we get home and Jen and Justin had invited their friends Mariana and Vee over, and we didn’t expect that. Usually its me and him, you know? So we start drinking, and he ends up getting really drunk...Well, not really drunk, but I guess it was the first time I knew he was drunk, and he was just being so cute.”
“This was the first time he drank with you?”
“No, not exactly. I mean…the first time that he was drunk…the first time I could tell he was drunk. I guess every time we’ve been drinking I’ve gotten drunk before he did, so – “
“So you couldn’t tell that he was drunk?”
“Yeah, exactly, so I don’t know, he was just being drunk and so adorable…you know how people can get drunk and act all cute.”
“Um…I guess. It depends on the person.”
“Yeah, I don’t know, I get that a lot. Anyways, we were both being all cute and went up to my room, and we were watching this movie, and…it was right after sex! Shit, I really don’t know what I was thinking. He was sitting at the edge of the bed, and I was lying down, and I was just looking at him and I was like, ‘I love you.’ And he was like, ‘I love you too. I’m so glad you said that.’ I don’t even know why I said it, I mean, I don’t even know what made me think to say it. I don’t remember what I was thinking, I was just looking at him and it came out. I love you.”
“That’s sweet.”
“Yeah, but it’s sort of weird now, you know? Because, now I feel like we should say it to each other all the time but I feel more awkward about it. Like, I think it was because I was drunk. You know how you’ll have sex with some guy when you’re drunk and then the next day, it’ll be really hard to talk to him?”
“Ha, ha…um ya sure.”
“Well – you know what I mean right? You’re sluttier than I am.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s because you were drunk when you got to know him and the sober you is like a stranger still.”
“Ya, exactly. The other night we got really high, and he stayed over really late, like 12:30. And then I was getting ready for bed, and I saw he called me at 12:47 and 12:48, so I called him back to see why he called. He was just like, ‘I forgot my glasses but I’m pretty much home so I’ll just get them tomorrow.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay, well good night.” And he says good night and as soon as I hang up, I’m like, I should’ve said I love you!”
“Yeah, do it next time. Well, hey I gotta go now, okay?”
“Okay, that’s fine. Hey, why didn’t you answer me calling you earlier?”
“Oh...well, that’s sort of why I have to go. I was in the library looking for gynecologists; I need to call them now. I want to get in like this week instead of waiting like I’ll probably have to do with Dr. DeCosta.”
“Oh, well…what’s wrong?”
“Well, it’s sort of itchy down there and I want to get it checked out.”
“Like, when you pee or all the time?”
“All the time…it’s like I have a bug bite down there or something. I can’t help but itch it. Bug bites feel so good when you itch them.”
“What? That sounds a little weird Missy.”
“Why?”
“Well, bug bites are good to scratch, but where it is makes that a little sexual.”
“I know, I know! But…you were the one asking all the questions!”
“Ha ha, ya you’re right. Okay, I’ll talk to you later baby.”
“Hey, I like our talks. We should start doing this every Monday.”
“I think we already do.”
“Okay, well I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye Missy.”
chapter two
On my way back from class, Chase text messages me; “I can’t wait to taste you tonight. I’m getting pretty excited right now just thinking about it.” I smile amidst highway traffic and a screaming sun, and type back, “You are so sexy.” I think of earlier, when I bought a chocolate pudding to stave off hunger until my lunchtime at 3:30, and just eating it made me think of Chase. How he would watch me eat it. I had written him, telling him how I was thinking of him, and ended with “Can I lick pudding off your nipples baby?” Just as I sat down to my last class, a calm afternoon writing class, sitting between the longhaired goth and the tattooed, scruffy poet, he wrote back, “I would love that. I want to lick whipped cream off of your nipples and snatch.” My whole body shivers with everything trashy novels are made of.
I reach work, sweating and shiny as I catwalk across the parking lot. The sun alternates hot and cold; I can’t tell if it is summer or fall anymore. As soon as I walk into the building my body temperature drops 5 degrees and I hurriedly shrug my sweater on. As soon as I enter my office, Kathy smiles at me. When Kathy first started working here, I thought she was a lesbian, all short hair and pants suits.
I say hi to Kathy, busily typing away on her computer, creating an estimate or instant messaging old co-workers, and sit down at my own desk which faces hers. I have 28 new email messages and my eyes immediately go to Chase’s. Almost every day he forwards me an e-mail that’s subject is “Morbid Fact du Jour.” It’s exactly what it sounds like, and is sort of an easy example of our own morbid sensibilities. The first one he sent me was a story of a man who was found dead in his apartment of illegally owned insects and reptiles. The animals had begun feeding on his corpse, and the imagery of the article was the most morbid e-mail to date.
In this one, all he writes is, “It was really hard for me to leave last night. I didn’t want to be away from you. When I’m alone, I feel a little empty. Do you feel this way too, or is it just me?” I sigh, smile, and immediately push reply. Chase wears his heart tattooed across his forehead, while I keep it close, quiet, and only let it out occasionally through the false sense of security that is blog writing. I type out, “o baby i love you. This message is so sweet and ...vulnerable. I don't know about empty, but I do feel better having you around...like I'm more whole when I'm with you. I wish we were still holding each other and laying in my bed….”
On my way home today, I kept repeating a poem in my head. I was making it up as I went, but of course it was about him.
I keep smelling
Clove cigarettes
And a flame burning on either end.
Which reminds me of that time we
Ate spaghetti like Lady & the Tramp,
Coming closer and closer to the end.
Or the time
We stuffed Ritz crackers piled high
With peanut butter and marshmallow
Fluff
Into each other’s mouths.
And that’s where I stopped. A part of me feels that it sounds like a break up poem. Like I’m reminiscing of a past relationship, a relationship I left that I’m still in. I’m not, but I feel like things are changing. I told Chase this the other night and he got nervous, started telling me to stop looking so far ahead. I told him I couldn’t help it, that’s what I do.
I’m a constant reflector, and I can’t help that. Last night, while I was waiting for him to come over, my ex-boyfriend called me. I hate to call him that, because I feel like it reduces him to one assumed form that I should no longer be talking to, and because he was my friend for years before that. Nevertheless, he is what he is, and he called me and asked how I was doing over and over. He wanted to hang out, but my schedule consists of work and Chase, and I don’t feel comfortable passing up either to hang out with him.
So I told him I was busy. Not only that, but when he mentioned he might not be in town much longer, I said, “Well, wherever you go, be sure to keep in touch!” And he hung up on me. And I spent the rest of the night thinking about why he did that. Maybe I was a little rude, maybe I should’ve reached out more, but where the fuck was he the two years after we dated? All the times he called me and I wanted to see him, all the times I told him I loved him, why doesn’t that matter? And while driving with Chase to the ice skating rink, where we wobbily slid across the ice for half a lap before I denounced the activity, I thought to myself, did he think I would be in love with him forever? It was an interesting realization, and it sort of ended there. Chase’s insecurities sometimes get the best of him, and I want to put all my energy into making sure he knows how much I love only him.
And after running around in the wind, doing errands and grabbing dinner, we came home and eventually snuggled up in my room, away from loud leather couches, playful kittens and the vacuum cleaner, and we held each other. And I kissed him, licked his face, and he made sounds that motivated me to continue. And while I was on top of him, writhing, licking and breathing heavily, I felt amazing. I felt healthy, like when you just ate a really light and delicious lunch, and I felt clean and soft, like I had just bathed. Chase always makes me feel sexy, but it was a combination of these things that made me feel even sexier.
chapter three
Today at work I actually had 5 minutes to breathe, or in reality, shop online, but the calming rhythms of the scroll and click made me think of Chase. Earlier I had been searching for an e-mail from a couple months ago (a regularity in my job that constantly haunts me), and came across one Chase had sent me when I had told him a woman interested in renting our house wanted to buy one of my paintings. He had written, “Baby I am so proud,” which made me proud, made me glow. Sometimes my body just craves contact with him.
The following Friday, we went to a show in Maryland with his best friend and former band mate, Sean. It was after a long and troubling week, in which I traveled to and from New York in one day and moved everything I owned 5 minutes down the road. I was tired, but excited, and after I fell into the warm buzz of drunkenness, the night became about my love for Chase, music, and beer. We kept smiling at each other, just so happy to be there together, to be experiencing something we both loved so much.
In between sets, we would all talk about various things, and I, being in the state I was, would go off to the bathroom occasionally while Chase and Sean stood there and talked. Always, when I returned, their conversations contained certain words that made each one sound explosive and interesting. First, it was “…and I’m just kinda nervous, you know, cus I’ve never done this before. It’s such a big thing.” Certainly scandalous! Really it was just Sean expressing his nerve-wracking thought process to the start of filming a movie.
The second time, I overheard “…well, she told me she liked me back but I think she was just saying that.” This one I needed an answer to. Surprisingly forthcoming, Sean told me simply he had a crush on a friend of theirs, Angie, and had for years. I don’t know what came over me, but I was drunk and the jealous gene that runs in our family, that I bury down deep and my sister, Missy, wears on her sleeve, overcame me and I turned to Chase and said, “Did you ever have a crush on Angie?” And instead of saying what we all hoped him to say, to firmly shake his head no and say, “I have never loved anyone except you!,” he told me that it was a long story and that we could discuss it later.
After the show ended and we drove home, and we got lost and I peed on the side of the road, and Chase went and got McDonalds because he hadn’t had dinner, after we ate disgusting fries, and got two cokes accidentally, we were laying in bed and I brought it up again. And he told me the dreaded story, the one I didn’t want to hear and yet couldn’t help but ask.
In hindsight, it wasn’t that bad. But in my drunk and insecure mind, I was already in that rabbit hole, and the only way out was down. He told me he had liked Angie, and that they had had something. Short and meaningless, but it had occurred, and the idea made me nauseous. He insisted he was over it.
“But are you really?” I whispered. It was late, the next morning late, and I didn’t want to wake his family, “How can you just turn something off like that?”
“Baby, it wasn’t a big deal. She screwed me over, so I decided to forget her.”
I was silent, thinking. “I just don’t understand how someone can do that. You liked her, how can you not still like her, even a little?” I was grasping at straws for a prize I didn’t want. I was reveling in my self-destructiveness.
Chase sighed. He was getting impatient, didn’t like this game anymore. “Because she’s a fuckin bitch!” he whispered as loudly as he could, “She played me, she was with another guy the whole time. That’s how she is! She was like that with me, and she’s doing it to Sean now too.”
I was done. I faced him; I turned because I wanted to see his face for the first time in this poisonous conversation. I felt his chest, felt how defeated we both were. “I just- I can’t…I hate being this way Chase, but I just love you so much. I don’t want to be fucked over, and with my ex, I just –“
“I know, I know.” He held me, held my face with his hand, my body with his. “Sometimes I got jealous with you hanging out with him.” I nodded. I knew that, I could always tell. “I just don’t want to lose you,” I whispered, so softly now from the sleep overtaking me. “Never,” Chase whispered, “I’ll never leave you. Good night baby. I love you.”
“I love you.” It felt like an omission from a dream.
The next morning we woke up together, stretching and sleepy. He called in sick, we laid in bed, and we talked about how hungry we were.
“You want me to make you breakfast?” he asked, and I’m in love all over again. How did I get this lucky. “Yes, eggs!” I am so excited now, excited for breakfast, excited that I have Chase, excited that this is my life. “Oatmeal toast too?” he asks, smiling because he knows he is spoiling me. I nod enthusiastically. He goes downstairs, and I lay in his bed a little longer. I stare at the ceiling and I think of him, I think of us, and I wonder about the validity of fate.
chapter four
My fingers smell of cigarettes, of that musky, rough smell of tobacco and nicotine, and I hold them up to my face and sniff. I love that smell. It is almost the end of the day and Chase and I have plans tonight. It has been six months. Six months since that first date, since the dinner where I drank too many gin and tonics and we awkwardly hugged at the end, and things just keep getting better. I think back to the third, fourth and fifth month mark, and how I was resisting. Not because I didn’t love him. I wanted him, needed him. It was because I was scared.
Now my fears are more based in losing him, though I guess that’s where they originated all along. I want him to know every nook and cranny of me, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally. I want him to describe, with his eyes closed, my worst moment, what my hips look like, exactly how I felt when we had drinks with my co-workers. I need him to not only know all of this, every stupid, wonderful, disgusting, embarrassing, evil thought or action, but to love it. To need me too.
The whole day had been slow and uneventful, my boss out of town, and the holiday season approaching. I create Post-It art, make a small sculpture from a paperclip and tape, but the highlight of my day is Chase’s e-mails.
At 9:45 a.m. is when I get my first taste, and of course he doesn’t disappoint, writing, “I missed you last night. A lot.” Even after so many days, so many hours, together, he still makes me swoon. I write back,
“i missed you too. it felt strange not even really talking to you all day yesterday.”
“I wish I had more money I could spoil you with...really.”
“you should ask for a raise - i just hate seeing my baby being taken advantage of.”
“You make me feel wanted.”
“i always want you. in fact i want you right now. hehe, my inner thighs miss you baby.”
“I'd give anything to have you lying in my bed naked next to me. I just want to feel your body. I don't know how the fuck I scored such a sexy girlfriend.”
Back and forth, we create a smorgasbord of sex, desire and love, he the big “I” and “i”, the little one. The sexiest thing is that we don’t try. And maybe it’s our honeymoon stage, maybe it’s that we are not yet bogged down by shared bills and responsibilities, but everything is light and covered in silk.
The silk stays on my fingers, in my mind, when I go home and change, and wait for his call. I told him to come over at 7, and as I’m trying to create spin art using the modern day, no mess, children’s equivalent, I notice its 7:10. I need batteries for the spin art machine anyway, so I call.
“Hello?”
“Chase! Darling, are you on your way?”
“Uh…ya, I’ll be there soon.”
“Well, you know, I did say for you to be here at 7, Chase, and you are 10 minutes late!”
“Oh, I am, huh? Well, what if I told you that I was at your house…right….now! Come let me in baby!”
I run upstairs from the basement, the phone still pressed to my ear, my mouth. “Are you really here, because I don’t hear the dogs barking.” I tease, grinning like the fool in love I am. Chase procrastinates, stammers for time, “Well, you see –“ I can hear his own mouth grinning widely, purely enjoying this exchange as much as I. “I’m really just pulling up to your house right about ….now or so, I mean I was pretty close before.” I have reached the first floor and I bound over to the door like a kindergartner on my first day of school. I peer out the side window and see him on the far side of the street, just stepping out from his Sunset Blaze Honda Fit. He loves his car, snickering at the color’s name, and exclaiming whenever I cringe at a tight parking spot, “Baby, what car are we in?” And then my parents call him “Peachy” for his interesting car color and he hates it.
I watch him make his way up the shiny black driveway, fitted brown jacket, blue Ramones beanie, and black rimmed glasses; his uniform for winter. As he walks the sidewalk, I close my cell phone and open the front door. He walks in, big smile still on his face. I give him my flirty smile, pull him closer and say softly near his ear, “You’re late.” He smiles more, kisses my lips for our ‘hello.’ “I know,” he whispers, “how can I make it up to you?” I smile more, making us this gooey, happy mess of smiling faces, and kiss him harder, more intricately. “That’s fine,” I say, and lead him downstairs.
We spend the whole night curled up on the couch, watching "Sopranos", periodically visiting the bottom of the outside stairwell for a cigarette and a smoke. It was our new routine, something he had created out of his love for HBO series, and while I was slow to catch on, by the time we delved into the 4th season, I was amazed. Between every episode we would marvel and rave at what Tony had said to Carmela, the sad state Christopher always seemed to be in, or Paulie’s snicker-inducing phrases. I was always cuddled under a blanket, my head on his shoulder or chest, our fingers intertwined, like always. The night was uneventful but nevertheless enjoyable, comforting, happy. This was how we had come to be, loved and loving, happy with the company we tended to keep.
After I made him leave so that he would get to sleep at a reasonable hour, maybe somehow fighting the fact that we were always tired, every night during the week, I went to bed myself. I throw together a microwavable lunch, washing off my face, picking out an outfit for the following day, and undressing down to my skivvies. I crawl into bed, pulling the blanket this way and that so that it would cover me smoothly. We had had sex in that bed since the last time I slept in it, and the tangled covers were proof of the hurried, distracted mood we were in. Suddenly, my phone goes off and it screams the Pixies’ “Gigantic,” the heightened volume due to the alarm I set for the morning. I grab it as fast as I can, and seeing that Chase’s lovely face has popped up on the front display, open and say, “Hey baby, what’s up?”
Chase sounds slightly distraught and sighs. “Baby, you’ll never believe it.”
“What is it?” I ask cautiously.
“Well, you know the bowl you got me when you went to New York, the really cool one? When I was taking it out, I fuckin dropped it from my jacket and of course it lands right on that pair of wire cutters that were in my room, remember?”
“Yeah,” I am heartbroken for him; it really was a cool bowl. “O baby, that’s awful, so it broke?”
“Yeah, the mouthpiece did, so now its all sharp and jagged. We really have to go to a head shop now so I can get a new one. We could just go to Charlie Brown’s.”
That Sunday we had planned to do some lighthearted apartment shopping, but most of the places, according to their Sales Offices, were closed anyway. “Yeah, okay, let’s go Sunday,” I say. I can hear him smile on the phone.
“Ok, awesome baby. That’ll be fun, right?”
I nod, yawn. “Yes it will. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay baby, I love you.”
“I love you”
“Goodnight”
“Good night Chase.”
chapter five
On Sunday, we wake up in his bed around 10. Today marks the day we set our clocks forward to gather more sunlight, so really, it is “11.” It does not feel like 11, and therefore, becomes an “11.” At around 12:30, we finally get hungry for lunch, so we leave, with sushi on our minds. Chase has recently discovered that he loves sushi. I am more wary of how easy it is to get sick of it, so when we are close to our destination, I test the waters.
“Hey do you still want sushi?”
Chase is nonchalant, “Yeah, do you?”
I shrug, “I don’t know…you want to go to Ciro’s instead?”
“Ciro’s?”
I realize that is the Italian place by my house, which is not where we are. “O, well, you know, the Italian place by Michael’s.”
Chase nods. “Yeah sure.” No big deal. I fall in love with him all over again. “Really, its okay?” I ask. Whenever I get my way with him, I have a small fear that he is secretly cursing my control, filing it away in his “Reasons to Hate Her” folder. I guess I’m full of irrational fears such as that one. “Yah, its okay,” he agrees, “Wanna have sushi for dinner?” I smile. “Yes of course baby.”
After lunch, we go back to my house and hit a patch of laziness, sitting down and not wanting to get up. The daylight savings time change has seemed to stay with us. Finally, around 3:30 or so, we make our way out into the world again. Armed with directions, cold beverages (soda for him, water for me), and full packs of cigarettes, we begin our mini road trip. Charlie Brown’s is an hour from our town, buried, as the website describes, “in the heart of West Virginia.”
It is a sunny day, which improves our mood instantly on the road. The drive is long, but feels short, as we pass little towns into farmland. We pass rolling hills, and I marvel aloud at the sea of green that surrounds us. It is beautiful, and as always, we are happy.
We are anxious that we will miss it, as it is a tiny shop right off Route 9 that looks similar to every other house we pass. Thankfully, Chase sees it, and we pull into the parking lot. The brightness of the outside makes the inside even darker, and we stroll in to the adult convenience store. At the front, a display case shows off a variety of glass bowls, bongs, and one-hitters. Chase and I squint and search for a cheap, good looking, glass bowl. It doesn’t take him long before he finds what he wants.
“Do you see anything you like?” I ask him.
“Yah…I like that striped one right there.” He points at the glass in the direction of the one he wants.
“Oh..the turquoise and orange one?” He nods. The woman behind the counter is talking with some people who have just walked in, and I wait for her to look up at me. She does; I ask her, “Can we see one of these?” She walks over, opens the back of the case, and begins pointing until Chase and I both say, “Yes that one.” She hands it to me, and we look it over, noticing the detail. “I like the gold flecks,” I whisper to Chase. The quietness of the store makes me feel I should keep it that way. He nods in agreement; the woman walks over to the cash register, sure that we are going to buy. Chase takes it and places it in front of her. I comment that it is small, and Chase nods; I guess this does not matter. He asks for cleaner as well, and the woman directs us to the shelf behind us for 420 cleaner. It is strange to me that a product intended to clean a tool that is specifically labeled for tobacco use only would be called “420.”
After the transaction is complete, we walk back out into the bright sun, and get back on the road. “Do you think that people really use those for tobacco?” he asks me.
I think for a second. “I really don’t know,” I say, “Probably not.”
“So you think that that woman who works there smokes too?”
I shrug. “Maybe.” It’s an answer that we can never really know for sure. We drive on for a few miles, smoking cigarettes and watching the trees.
“What are we going to do now?” I ask him.
“Christen the bowl of course,” Chase replies.
And we do. Sushi is pushed back again to be Monday’s dinner, so we stop at Chili’s for a cheeseburger and chili. Later we fade into our same routine, "Sopranos" and all.
chapter six
“Chase, can I ask you something?”
It was the second night in a row that I had felt this happy, cuddled and close in the same corner of the couch, laughing, joking and kissing our way through bad TV and episodes of “Big Love,” the next chapter in our saga of HBO series.
“Yeah?”
I sigh. It’s big and it isn’t, and of course I’m second-guessing myself already. “Well, actually no, never mind.”
“What? Just say it!” he insists, his voice tinged with the annoyance that anyone feels when you play this game.
“Um…” I’m looking down, away, anywhere but at his face. I feel like a shy 12-year-old talking to my big crush, and we’re stuck in that friend stage. “Is it naive to think this could be it?”
He pauses; obviously I shouldn’t have said anything.
“Well, I don’t really think about stuff like that,” is his diplomatic answer.
“Yeah, I know,” I agree, but I want him to know where I’m coming from. “I guess it’s just that – well, I just think you are so perfect for me, you know? I mean, I love how we can be so silly together, and we make each other laugh, and I think you are so cute…I don’t know, I feel like you just fit so perfectly with me. But then I think, that’s dumb! I mean, I’m so young, we’re so young, this couldn’t really be it. There’s so much more stuff to do, you know?”
“I know, I feel the same way. But I try to focus on what’s going on now, rather than worry about all that shit.” I nod. I just hope I feel like this when we’ve been together for years. No no no, why do I always get stuck here?
Chase is still talking. “But I do love you a lot. I think about you all the time, and I have so much fun with you when we’re together. And I don’t feel complete without you around.” I nod, agree. I just hope I feel like this forever. God damnit, why must I do this? Is it the difference between male and female DNA? When I focus on the future and worry about it too much, Chase always asks me, “Are you breaking up with me?” And it’s the farthest thing I have from my mind – I’m talking about how much I love him now, why would I want to give that up? But sometimes it’s all I can think of, and I’ve learned now that its something I have to bury, to hide, so I don’t scare him. I don’t even know why it’s so important to me, its not like I’m trying to plan my life. I have no plans other than ‘Don’t Die’, so really, everything’s open.
We go back to being happy lovebirds, laughing at autistic children (more specifically, the girl in Autism: The Musical who cannot voice an original word but rather repeats every question she is asked, like a human parrot.), cringing at the cliched dialogue of The Number 23, and kissing each other’s noses, lips, cheeks, faces and even ears in between. I feel romantic. The next morning is another story.
I wake up, alone, to the horrible sound of some cat in heat calling out to me, or the impending doom the beep, beep, beep of a truck backing up instills. I turn it off. I go back to sleep. Five minutes before I need to leave for work, I awake and spring up with the energy of someone who cannot be late. My clothes are waiting for me, so I grab them and begin to dress. Being alone most mornings, I have worked out a system of putting on back-zipped dresses without help. Of course, this morning, my system backfires and the zipper ends up splitting. Stress abounds as I work to escape from the now defunct dress while trying to find another dress that fits the tights and shirt I already have on. Needless to say, I am late. To top it all off, tonight is a night I do not see Chase usually, because he has band practice from 7-10:30. All we have are our emails.
I write to him, still seething from the morning,
“i want to claw out the throat of everyone. i want to suffocate a small animal. i want to maul your face, scratching and beating you until you are literally a ‘bloody pulp.’ or maybe i just want to smash a watermelon with a mallet.”
He ignores my violent outbursts, writes back,
“I’m so in love with you. You’re my beautiful baby doll.”
He truly is what separates me from insanity.
****
The weather is getting sunnier, sort of. It’s the kind of days that starts off bright and beautiful, and end with gray skies and wicked winds. It is one day before the start of Memorial Day weekend, the start of BBQs, parties, lazy days, a parent-less house, sleeping in with Chase, a 3-day work week, and then our short, but deserved, trip to the Outer Banks, North Carolina. It is hovering over my head, just out of reach, but first I have to endure the sad truth of time.
I watch the trees bop and bounce from the wind outside my window, marvel their greenness. I do a crossword puzzle on People.com, check my email constantly. I look at the time; it is 4:36 p.m. and I am losing it. I don’t even have the heart fluttering realization that I will get to see Chase tonight; it is again a band practice night. He no longer works at a job with constant email access, so the emails have become scarce, occasional. On days like these, though, I can’t refrain. I write to him,
“i miss you. i really hate that i'm not going to see you tonight. i would say, if you get out of practice around 10, come over!...but i know that’s not gonna happen. :( i'll just have to bide my time until tomorrow. sighhhh... i wish you would get a real job so you could pay rent with me so we could get our own apartment. hmmm??? i'm tired of not being able to sleep with you every night.”
I contemplate going outside for a cigarette. It seems like a viable option. I notice a set of labels that I have ignored all day. (Part of my job is to label postcards – junk mail essentially – and send them out daily. Shitty tasks like this are what make my life oh so realistic.) I should probably take care of those first. It’s 4:44 now. At least its almost 5, and once you get to 5 it’s the home stretch. O look, an email from Chase!
“I hope i get out early tonight. i really do.
i want a real job as well just so i can pay rent. i feel like i've
been letting you down and it really stresses me out. it seems like our
plans of moving in have been foiled by me. ugh.”
Chase is full of self-hating assumptions such as these, and I wish I could save him from it. The perils of an optimist-realist dating a pessimist. All I can do is assure him.
“you shouldn't feel like that...i can't afford to move out right now anyway. i just really want to! i make $1600 a month though, and let's see...$90 car insurance, $50 phone, $120 for gas, $300 for food = $560. Paying rent and utilities, I'd probably only have $300 left over...and that’s not enough to pay my credit card bills. Motherfucker!!
i need a raise. or maybe i could just win the lottery. or find a pot of
gold! don't feel like you've foiled our plans. life has foiled our plans.”
Sadly, the whole exchange has only cost me 5 minutes. That’s it; I have become so bored, I’m going to do work.
I paste labels on postcards, and stamp the postcards, then print out more labels, and use those on more postcards. I check my email every 5 minutes, not because I am OCD, but because emails need to be answered the moment you receive them. Otherwise, they pile up, and suddenly you’re faced with several demands at once, and you’re so afraid you’re going to forget one that you print out the emails in an attempt to save your memory, but sadly, not the trees. This is probably not something that could happen now, considering the awful slowness that suffocates me, but the email reflex has become a habit. I’m full of them.
I do my timesheet, another arbitrary, time-wasting, activity. At 5:55 p.m., I sneak out. I wish Chase was going to be at my house to greet me. I sincerely wish there was a pot of gold I could find and provide me with a life I can’t afford. All I want is a hole in the wall. With central heat, cable TV and a washer and dryer. Why does that feel so unattainable?
After mind-numbing traffic, I come home. I pick at leftover pizza, and gobble up a chicken potpie, despite my constant promise to start eating healthier. The rest of the night is uneventful. I watch TV. I clean my room. I finish reading the Spin magazine I got in the mail yesterday. I take a shower. I go to bed early. At least I’m a little bit closer to my 3-day weekend.
Time passes, we go to parties and get drunk, come home and wish we had our own place. Saturday night, Memorial Day weekend, my parents had all but promised they would be departing to Virginia Beach, allowing Chase and I to do the most innocent thing we love to do and sleep near each other. Well, they lied. When I came home early from a party I wasn’t sure I had wanted to leave and heard from my brother, Devin, that they had not left, that they were not leaving, and that our plans were ruined, I was seething. I seethed in the basement while Chase and I watched TV, listening for the garage door. When I heard it, I raced up the stairs, sure that I had the upper hand.
Tom, my step dad, came in first, hands up, apologizing.
“I’m sorry, we didn’t know how long it was going to take. Have you ever bought a car? Do you know how long it takes?”
I don’t care. No one has ever been forgiven that easily by someone as angry as me.
“I left early because you guys were so worried about Devin, said you couldn’t leave him alone for one second! And now I hear that you guys have been gone for hours with him alone…that doesn’t make any sense! Why did you make such a big deal about it when you guys didn’t even care?”
Tom rolls his eyes, but it’s a regular reaction from him so I brush it off.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he sounds defeated, “it took us a lot longer than we thought. Don’t you remember how long it took to buy your car? We’re sorry, there was nothing we could do.”
“You could’ve let me know!” I am not losing this battle.
Tom throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t know what else to say besides I’m sorry.” With that, he walks back out to the garage, no doubt to warn my mother.
She walks in several moments later, an apology already on her lips. It’s the same old argument of we-didn’t-know-how-long-it-would-take, and I realize that parents will always have special circumstances and will never be held as accountable as you would be by them.
I’m desperate now, knowing that that’s the end. Chase and I go another night alone in our beds. Maybe not.
I almost whisper it, “Can Chase spend the night?” In fact, I do whisper it because my mom asks me to repeat myself. “Is it okay if Chase spends the night?” She rolls her eyes too, and puts her head down, shaking it from side to side. “Ask Tom,” is all she says, and I know what’s going to happen.
But I argue it anyway, and lose to the excuse that his moral fiber is what rules the house. Halfway through I start crying with as much dignity as I can, and walk out when the conversation no longer means anything. I go downstairs, where Chase is waiting.
“What happened?” he asks, the same worry and fear in any guy’s voice when they see a crying girl. I plop down on the couch, shaking my head as more tears spill out.
“I asked if you could spend the night, and then got into this whole argument with Tom about it and he was just like ‘Its my morals, I don’t think its right’ when all I want is to have you next to me. Sometimes I just get so scared without you there, you know?”
Chase nods.
“And I just wanted you around, cus this basement is so big and dark and I start convincing myself of all this crazy stuff and I just freak myself out, you know?”
Chase is rubbing my back, my arms, just nodding along to what I’m saying.
“But I’m just so sick of this. I’m tired of not having the freedom to be able to do what I want. I just want to move out SO BAD, but I can’t because I don’t make enough money and I’ve got too many bills to pay.”
Currently, I’m crying hard, hyperventilating, basically freaking out.
“And so its just this fuckin thing where I can’t move out because of all my expenses, so I can’t have any say in what I do, and I just can’t stand it. I’m so fuckin tired of having them looking over my shoulder all the time. I just want to get out of here and I can’t!! I feel like walls surround me and I can’t climb over them, I can’t get out and I’m so tired of feeling trapped!”
Chase is still rubbing my body, kissing my skin. “Baby, you just feel hopeless right now. Everyone gets that way sometime, you just have to take a deep breath and let it go. Someday we’ll get our own place together, I promise. Don’t worry, okay?”
I nod, and hug him. I’m still choking on my tears, so I don’t speak to try and calm down. “We can still stay up late right?” he asks with a smile, and I return it. At least tomorrow night I will have him in my bed. My Chase.
chapter seven
North Carolina comes and goes. We went to the beach, we ate seafood, but my fondest memory of the trip was when Chase and I got drunk in our hotel watching “Deal or No Deal,” yelling at the TV screen and giving each other sloppy kisses. Afterwards, we had sat on our balcony in the dark, smoking cigarettes and watching the ocean light up periodically from the storm. Being alone with him and having our own place, our own bed, our own lives, made me think over and over in my head, we should move here. We should give up everything and live here and never go back.
Time passes, days repeat. Another three-day weekend is upon us, this time for the 4th of July. Originally, Chase’s tour was to start on Independence Day – and by tour I mean in the poorest terms possible, no stadiums, sometimes not even stages, and always only held together by the love to play music – but it fell through and instead he is only playing one show. The place is a half hour from our town so we go together, ignoring my new GPS when it tries to send us to the toll road. Thankfully it “re-calculates” when we go our own way and it eventually leads us to where we want to go.
The day is gray and rainy and I realize when we get there that I am dressed for the holiday and not the weather – a red and white halter sundress with white flip flops. Once we arrive, I become an even bigger outcast amongst the hipsters dressed in dark skinny jeans, geometric patterned dresses and v-neck t-shirts. I ignore it and stay close to Chase. His band mates arrive an hour later, after we have sufficiently lounged around as couch- and wallflowers. One of Ryan’s bandmate's girlfriends, Caroline, is carrying something, and when she sees me she bubbles over with gratitude. “I’m so glad you’re here!” she exclaims, as one of the guys takes what she’s been holding and she pulls out a cigarette. I pull out a cigarette too; Chase leaves to help the guys. “Yah, I’m glad you’re here too,” I say, “I don’t know anyone here except Chase.”
She nods, cigarette in her mouth, lights it and takes a drag. “Me too! I knew it too, and I kept bugging Riley to ask Chase if you were going to be here, but he kept forgetting. I figured it’d get clique-y.”
Caroline is the sweetest, most stylish thing. We only see each other at shows, but always when we get there, you’d think we were such good friends. We’ve even done the whole exchanging numbers thing, but who wants to be the one to call first?
We stand there for a while, talking about various things, then decide to go inside to the basement, a long room with a couch on one end and a space on the other waiting to be filled with instruments and people. We sit on the couch, and watch the handful of guys play with the audio, set up CD’s for sale, then pull out some exercise equipment from God knows where and start working out for entertainment. One of them pulls out their balls from the side of his shorts once he realizes he is being videotaped; Caroline and I giggle and turn our heads away.
Later, we decide to go back outside again. The guys have set up their stuff and are smoking. It seems everyone there is a smoker. And wearing trendy clothes. At 6 p.m. we go inside for the first act, an Asian kid who raps over repetitive beats he probably made in his basement at three in the morning. After his 20 minute set, people pour back out to the backyard, cigarettes and lighters in hand.
“That sucked,” Chase whispers to me.
“I don’t know, I think his lyrics were pretty good. He’s not a good rapper though, his delivery wasn’t good,” I’m being honest, but I also don’t want to bash this sad kid with dreads, who Caroline had laughed to me was “a total dork” in high school. Chase shrugs, “I couldn’t even understand what he was saying.” I shrug back, “Yah, his lyrics weren’t that bad.”
The next act is a girl who sings with that raspy-ish, “honest” tinged voice and plays a keyboard. Her lyrics are little poems I could imagine myself writing when I was depressed and dreaming of death. At one point, while she is playing, she strikes the wrong note and it throws her singing off. She laughs softly, “Sorry, sorry about that.” She goes back to playing. Chase leans over to me, “Oh, so she’s human.” I look at him quizzically, something I’m sure I do often. “Did you think she sounded like a robot?” I ask. He smiles, shakes his head. I hope he loves my ditziness. “No, because it was so perfect. You know, she messed up.” Oh. I nod; Chase is more musically educated than I am, so I was not aware of the perfection. “She shouldn’t have just stopped like that though,” I whisper. He nods, grabs my hand and squeezes it.
After the girl is done, and its time for Chase’s band to set up and go, some tall blonde girl runs up to Chase and hits him in the shoulder. “Oh, hey Belva,” he says passively.
“Hey!” She’s a jumpy thing, grabbing Chase’s shoulders and his back. “Where have you been dude?” She grabs the top of his head, scruffs his hair. “Oh my God, you are so bald!” Her shorter, quieter friend, Jessica, smiles, shakes her head at Belva. “Hi Chase. As you can see Belva is still a bitch.” Belva hits her, but it’s all in good fun. Oh, how much fun it is to be so touchy-feely. “Belva, this is my girlfriend,” Chase is finally introducing me, the girl who is standing right next to him that she never noticed. “Oh, hi.” She barely acknowledges me. Whatever. Chase needs to get ready and I need to find Caroline.
The closer it gets to the show, me and her decide to go inside and get a good spot, right at the front. Their first song is a surprise that Chase would not divulge even the smallest detail about to me. On the set list, it is simply “Star.” It turns out to be the “Star Spangled Banner,” bringing a little patriotism to this left wing crowd of president haters. The rest of their set is fun, and we all bounce and move to the loud music. After the show, Belva runs straight up to Chase immediately, which burns me up to no end. Even I rarely do that, she shouldn’t be allowed! I can’t help but wonder if I’m being clouded by the fact that she is just a girl showing any interest in him. After a few minutes, she is gone and I go over to talk to Chase.
“You guys were great!” I say, and kiss his sweaty face. “Really, you think so?” he asks, “We kind of fucked up the first one. I couldn’t even hear Riley!”
“Its okay, you were good. It was really a good show. Even the banter in between songs was good.”
Chase smiles; this is something we’ve discussed before. It used to be awkward, but the more they play together, the funnier it becomes. “Really?” he asks and kisses me on the forehead, then starts packing up his bass. He’s borrowed someone’s bass amp and I ask him “Is the next band using that?” He looks over at it. “No, I’ve gotta move it or something.” Call me a groupie, but seeing him play always excites me. I feel like being a good girlfriend. “Want me to take your bass to your car while you take care of the bass amp?” I ask. His eyes light up, “Sure! Baby you’re the best!” He hands me the bass, in its beautiful hard case that I bought him for our anniversary, and his keys. I walk out, passing Caroline and some guy I’ve seen before at shows.
“Is it raining?” I ask as I’m walking by. “Yup” they both say, and I moan. “Why did I have to be nice and say I’d take this for him?!”
I walk up the back stairs through wet bushes that brush too close, and walk through the wet grass in my flip-flops, getting wet and cold all over. Thankfully, Chase’s car isn’t too far away and I load his bass into the back seat. Slowly I walk back around the side of the house, walking under a large tree hoping for some cover from the rain. Suddenly, I hear my name being called over by the driveway. Chase is running toward me and when he gets to me he wraps me up with his arms so tight, kissing me all over. It feels so good after being cold and wet, and I hug back. “Here, come with me,” he says and starts walking back toward the street. “No, Chase, I’m so wet! It’s raining!” He smiles and leads me by hand. “I know, it’s okay,” he says softly, “Riley’s giving me cigarettes.” We walk over to the street, and after too many seconds of rain in a sundress, we start to walk back. “Let’s go this way,” Chase suggests, and we go around the other side of the tree, right through mud. In his slip on Chucks with no laces, Chase is not affected by this, but I am. “Mud?! Chase!” I cry out, “We should’ve gone the other way!”
“Oh baby I’m sorry.”
We walk a little further, down the stairs, standing under the deck like everyone else is. We join Caroline and the guys in their corner. I light my last cigarette and tell Caroline about the mud. “At least these shoes are so old and beat up I don’t even care,” I say. “Yah, all my flip flops have foot imprints on them,” she agrees. I notice a little bit later that Belva and Jessica have found Chase, and they are all talking far enough away that I can’t join them. At one point, Chase makes eye contact with me, trying to get my attention. “Hey, when did you get your nose pierced, the first time?” he asks. I don’t know what they’re talking about, but I’m sure I’ll find out later. “I think it was in the summer, around August,” I say. They’re both fanning and fawning over Chase’s tattoo, his newest one, and Caroline overhears. She kind of laughs in my direction, and I roll my eyes, shrug my shoulders. They’re friends, what can I do?
Later, more people have gone inside and Chase and I get a chance to talk.
“So, you were talking about me?” I ask slyly, and push him softly. He’s oblivious; “Nah, they were asking me when I got my tattoo and I knew it was when you got your nose pierced.” Oh. With Chase, it’s almost never what I think.
“Well, she sure likes to touch you, doesn’t she?” I’m still being sly, flirty. I don’t want to sound mad, just amused.
Chase smiles sheepishly. “I know, and I don’t like it.”
I smile devilishly. “Yah? I don’t like it either.” He laughs and grabs me.
“I know! But I ask her to stop. Didn’t you hear me? I said ‘Please stop touching me.’ She doesn’t listen.”
“But you sound all playful when you say it, like ‘please stoppp,’” I tease.
He pushes me lightly, laughs. “I do not say it like that, I said ‘Stop’!”
We go in for the last show we’re staying for, a ska band called Elephant Appreciation Day. Their first song is a cover Chase knows and he sings loudly when they stop playing music and everyone just yells the words. Their third song is a Beatles song, and I sing along to Chase who doesn’t know it. (He’s not a Beatles fan.) Their fourth song is a Blink 182 song, but it’s so overdone that we acknowledge it but don’t sing along. Their last song, Chase grabs me and starts doing a two-step, and we start ballroom dancing in the back row to the loud, fast music of the ska band. It’s sweet and surprising, and I kiss him over and over, something I do when I can’t express my love in words. At the end of the song, I whisper, “You have to dip me!” And of course, he does.
chapter eight
I’m in love.
I’ve fallen in love
Fallen flat on my face
I’m so crazy about you
That it’s all I can say.
Chase and I have done it. We’ve made the big move. Bigger for Chase; he’s never been out of his parent’s house before. Big for us both because neither of us has ever lived with the person we love.
Leading up to it, nightly we would whisper to each other “I can’t wait to sleep next to you,” “I’m so excited to share a kitchen with you,” “Baby we’ll have so much freedom.”
After a night of drinks, among other things, with Chase, Sean and others, I came to the realization how much I wanted to be around him. “I never want to be more than 20 feet away from you,” I told him. And it was true. Living with him was the answer.
Moving day was stressful and rainy. The rain of course added to the stress, as Chase and I tried to figure out what to do about sleeping there.
“Maybe we shouldn’t sleep there tonight. Maybe we could just wait until tomorrow to move your bed over,” Chase said, cigarette in hand and an edge to his voice.
“No!” I cried, “I will not go another night sleeping at my parent’s house! I want freedom now!” Chase rolls his eyes. “Baby, it’s raining. We can’t move your mattress in this rain. My dad said the weather would be nice tomorrow, so lets wait until then.”
I’m sitting on the passenger side, arms crossed, thinking of how much he sounds like he’s trying to back out. I know its just sensible Chase, but there’s no way I’m not sharing a bed with him tonight. “Hey!” I suddenly have an idea. “My parents have an air mattress we can sleep on tonight, how about that?” Chase nods slowly, watching the road. “Okay fine.”
When we get to the apartment complex’s sales center, the woman who had first helped us is there, talking quietly in her office with a man who looks like a truck driver. Chase and I wait in the building’s “living room” of sorts, its brick fireplace inactive and glass knickknacks mismatched. Inside, we forget the rain and become giddy again, knowing we were moments from having a place together. We joke about the decor, teasing each other and touching whenever we can. Finally the man leaves, and we walk into her office, ready for our place.
After we paid by individual money orders, and did the exchange with keys, we drove over to Building 8, running the whole way. When we get there, it is instant gratification. The place is spacious, with a breakfast bar and fireplace, and I twirl around the living room carpet, taking it all in. Chase grabs me mid-twirl, and squeezes me so tight it hurts.
“We made it baby,” he mumbles into my shoulder, “We’re here.” I smile so wide at his excitement and try to move, to give him a big kiss, but he holds on to me so strong. “I know,” I mumble back. “I can’t believe we’re finally here.”
********
It’s been years and Chase and I are still together. We’re still so in love, holding hands as he drives me to work. We talk daily about our plans to move to California, perhaps Huntington Beach. Many others will move with us, but for us, it is our trip. Our quest to the life we have longed for.
“I’m sure I can get a job as a screen printer pretty fast out there,” Chase tells me, “Every time I search for jobs in that area on Craigslist, there’s always some one looking for a screen printer.” Getting a job is my biggest worry. Anyone who hears about my big life change always asks, “What about your job?” The job I’ve had for years and always hated? Yes, they paid me well, but for anyone to argue that I stay solely because of it is an idiot. Or didn’t know the level of disdain I had for it.
“I think my biggest asset is that I will take any job,” I sigh bitterly.
Chase shakes his head, “No, no. You always say how much your work loves you. Being there for as many years as you have will look good to other employers!” I shrug. “This economy is shit,” I say, “though Kris says that there are a lot of jobs available in her area.” Kris was an old college friend who had made the move to the L.A.-area a few years before. “Sean says he has $6,000 saved up but it’s not enough,” Chase says. “I don’t know, sometimes he’s wrong about things.” My eyes widen. “Not enough?!” I cry. “I hope he’s wrong, and I hope I get a job in the first month we are there.”
“Don’t worry,” Chase says soothingly, rubbing my shoulder. “We will make it. If we have to, we can move in with my grandma until we are able to have our own place. And then we will live our dream.”
“Together!” I exclaim, and Chase smiles his famous grin and kisses my forehead.
“Forever, baby,” he laughs.