“Please pick up that trash” come a mechanical voice behind me.
Ugh! Ever since the world has become super eco friendly and health conscience, it’s been hell on earth. A little litter never hurt anyone.
Ok that’s not entirely true but while cleanliness is close to godliness, the removal of anything with the slightest bit of dirt or heck, even color is overkill. It’s enough to drive a person to shame. Or rebellion, which is why I am not picking up this smuggled candy wrapper. I’m asserting my independence and leaving it right here on the sidewalk. I mean, it’s just a little litter.
I look out my window and I see him. Sitting at the edge of my dock again. Waiting. He’s always waiting. Patiently for me to come to him. To make a decision. To be the woman he needs. But I don’t know if I can. Not yet anyway. This small town is all we’ve both ever known and while he loves it, I feel constrained by it. I chafe at the familiarity and the constant expectation from me to live down to my family’s reputation. The only person who has ever believed in me is him but that’s not enough anymore. I need to leave this place so I can finally start believing in myself. I have to leave here to find me. He doesn’t understand that right now. Maybe one day he will but until then, I close my window and turn off the light.
Once again the fog is closing in on me as I try to make it home from work. It’s the only consistent thing in this godforsaken town. Fog and rain. Actually it matches my current mood. Gloomy.
I just found out I wasn’t accepted to the London School of Economics. I know, it’s ironic that I’m complaining about the fog here when I desperately wanted to be in the fog on the other side of the world.
But that’s my prerogative. I’m allowed to wallow as I trudge home. It’s not that I don’t love my family and my home here in Maine, it’s just I want something bigger for myself. Even if I fail, I want to say I tried.
So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll give myself until the end of this gloomy, foggy walk to pity myself. But as soon as I’m home, it’s time to regroup and figure how how the hell I’m going to blow this popsicle stand, also known as home.
If he wasn’t going to love me, he wasn’t going to love anyone.
That’s what I have to tell myself to justify how much of myself I gave this man. So much of me for him to tell me he needed space to figure out what it was he truly wanted.
If he wasn’t going to love me, he wasn’t going to love anyone.
I have to keep repeating that to myself otherwise, I don’t think I can will myself out of bed in the morning. There are only so many affirmations that I can repeat to myself before I face the cold truth that maybe it is me.
But that’s a truth for another day. Today my truth is, if he wasn’t going to love me, he wasn’t going to love anyone.
“I don’t know why. I just couldn’t help myself.”
My jaw drops in disbelief. I’m standing here looking at the man I thought loved me. After finding out he’s been fucking my cousin he hits me with ‘I don’t know why. I just couldn’t help myself’.
“You couldn’t-“ I don’t even finish.
The more I stare at him the more I realize how much of an idiot I am. With his week chin and slightly dumpy posture I can see now that I’ve been punching down.
He is so beneath me that it’s ridiculous. I think the thing that upsets me most is that my mother was right.
About him and about Cassie, my faithless cousin. That is what stings the most because she’s been living with me for the past few months while she gets back on her feet. I told her she was welcome to anything in my apartment. I just didn’t think to exclude my boyfriends dick in that statement.
Lesson learned.
“I think I just met the happiest person in the world!”
“Why do you think that?” My boyfriend asks me absently as he continues to flip through his New York Times. Honestly who still gets an actual paper newspaper anymore. But that’s him, old school til the end.
“It was a guy, a pretty attractive guy, honestly.” I add a little inflection to my voice hoping he’ll get the hint.
“Uh huh” is his only response.
“He was walking through the park, stark naked.” I finish excitedly.
At that his head snaps in my direction. I bet the news paper isn’t so interesting now is it?
“Naked?” He asks. His attention now solely on me.
“Yes. Naked, with a shlong practically to his knees. I could barely take my eyes off of it.” I say with a little laugh.
“Oh really.” His eyes are slits now.
“Yes. I’ve never seen anything like it. Thank god you don’t have that problem” I say with a shake of my head. I’m barely containing my laughter now.
“Wouldn’t want that” his response is short. That how I know he’s getting irritated. Andrew is an arguer. Some of our best sex comes after some particularly heated arguments. But when he is really about to lose his temper he gets quiet, like now.
“But anyway, before the cops came and took him away, for public indecency of course, he told me how happy he was and how freeing it was to live without the constraints of clothes. He says he’s never been happier.” I’m getting excited all over again thinking about it.
“He recommended a nudist retreat that I should go to. So I can understand how freeing it is to live that way for a while. He told me to give him a call in about 30 days. That’s when he’s supposed to get out of county lock up.”
I finish this by bouncing excitedly on our sofa. Andrew hasn’t budged.
“Let me get this straight. You met a naked guy at the park, stared at his dick long enough for him to invite you to an orgy after he gets out of jail” When he says it like that, it sounds ridiculous. “And you want me to what, kiss you on the cheek and wish you fun while you’re on your way out to a gangbang? He finishes with a frustrated grunt.
