Conflicted Love Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Loneliness. The word itself doesn't sound bad, it just sounds like thousands of other words. Not a fun word like 'labradoodle', or an uncomfortable word like 'panties', just an average word. But no collection of letters could denote how wretched the feeling really is. It's a feeling that everyone fights with now and again, everybody has moments where they feel abandoned and vulnerable. Left alone to discover the traps and wrong turns of life, alone. However, most people, normal people, soon recover and realize that they aren't alone, they have support. Of course, not everyone recovers.

I'm lonely, and I always have been. I can't think of a time where sadness and loneliness were the predominant emotions in my life. As a child I guess I was weird and unapproachable, not that I was willing to approach anyone else. I spent most of my time, out of school, alone. My mom worked two s****y jobs, and my dad had moved in with his girlfriend a few weeks before my fifth birthday. The most vivid memories I have of grade school was sitting alone at lunch, and crawling around the floor, pushing a Hot Wheels car over the ridges in the carpet made by the vacuum cleaner. 

In my life I can remember five close friends.

Third grade, I made a friend, his name was Michael Campbell. He was a few years older than I was, and lived in the cul-de-sac at the end of my street. His friends didn't like him invited an eight year old to play in their middle school street hockey games. However, Michael stuck up for me, he told his friends to leave me alone, and that if I couldn't play, he wouldn't play. I don't know what happened to him, after about 6 months he stopped talking to me. When he'd ride past my house on his bike he wouldn't stop to ask if I wanted to play basketball, when I walked by the hockey games he didn't wave me over. We just weren't friends anymore. 

When I was in eighth grade I met Jerry Gant. We were on the football team together, we hung out after school every day. We'd play video games, or pretend to work out while making fun of his younger sister. We were so close that the entire school knew us as inseparable, if only that'd been true. One day, in October of our sophomore year his older sister was killed. The car she'd been driving had lost control on the interstate and slammed into a median, Jerry fell apart.

In the subsequent months Jerry started drinking more, and hanging out with me less. Instead he chose the friends who could get hold of alcohol and drugs. We drifted apart in the three months after his sister's death, until we got into an argument, I don't remember what it was about, and we stopped speaking for a few weeks. One day, I remember it was a Thursday during summer vacation, I had decided that i'd text Jerry, I'd ask him if he wanted to go see a movie on Friday. As I stood in my kitchen, cooking a frozen pizza, my phone rang, and I picked it up.

"Honey?" It was Jerry's mom, and you could hear the tears in her voice.

"Yeah?" it shocked me to hear her like that, I'd only seen her cry once, at her daughter's funeral.

"Honey, I have some news. Jerry was at work this morning, and he went to the bathroom." she paused, inhaling deeply. "He passed out," another pause, "he died, sweetheart."

'No way' was all the voice in my head could muster, my mouth couldn't muster that much. I stood there, my whole body vibrating and my heart descending into my colon.

"It'll be alright, sweetie." she tried to console me.

"Uh…uh…yeah." 

"Be strong, alright?" I could invasion the tears rolling down her face.

"ok" I whispered with all my strength.

After she hung up the phone I just stood in the middle of the kitchen until I crumple into a pile. I didn't cry, that would come later, I just sat there balled up on the kitchen floor, staring intently at the wall, but seeing nothing. At his funeral a few days later I said goodbye to the only friend i'd have in high school.

Upon finishing high school, I dated a couple of girls, was cheated on by a couple of girls, and was dumped by a couple of girls. That was the extent of my social circle until I was twenty. Then I met Jon Tucker. I'd met him during one of my sporadic semesters at the local community college, where I pretended to be moving towards a career. 

We got paired up for a project in our Psychology class, and became quick friends. We were friends for five year, and he introduced me to most of people I'd be friends with until present time. In fact, the few people he didn't introduce me to, I met through people he did. This was the time that I was the least lonely that i'd ever been. I had more friends, and more people who actually seemed to enjoy my company than i'd imagined was possible. I had parties to go to on the weekend, dinners during the week. It was pretty great for a kid who spent his childhood alone with one Hot Wheel.

the problem with friends is that once you find out that they're a******s it's too late. Generally, you're committed, you're their friend, and you're in deep, if you're loyal. Jon had a temper, was pompous and condescending. He threw its when things didn't go his way, and he wouldn't step off his bully pulpit until his wishes were met. Even so, he was the most popular person in our circle of about twelve friends. I was his favorite, he liked me the most, he confided in me the most, and he hung out with me the most. Some of the other guys hated it. So the night that Jon locked me and Katelyn out of his apartment, where we'd been drinking at 5am, because he felt our smoke breaks were too long, all of those friends dried up. At least I was left with one friend this time. 

Katelyn had been a friend of a friend, twice removed, and we'd met at one of the parties, I fell for her instantly. She was gorgeous, long black hair, charming smile, and eyes that could seduce a sailor. I was a month after we became good friends that I, drunk off my a*s, asked her to take a walk outside with me. The New Year's Eve party was echoing along and between the apartment buildings, as we sat down at the end of the block. I told her she was great, I told her that she was amazing, and I told her that I loved her, she responded with a creaking 'eeh'. She said more than that, but that was all I needed to hear. Everyone who has heard that 'eeh' knows what it means, and on top of that, she told me she had feelings for Jon.

People don't realize you don't have to be alone to be tragically lonely. Try being best friends with a woman who is your everything. Then imagine being the erosion she tells about all the guys she hooks up with. Imagine watching as your best friend treats her with complete disregard, simply as a walking vagina, yet he's still better than you. That's the start of this new downward track of loneliness that i'm on. The difference between this one and the last times, this one's faster, steeper, and I don't think i'll survive the fall.

Reviews

[Open Your Mind Before Y..]

"People don't realize you don't have to be alone to be tragically lonely"

Love this line. Pure gold, right there.

I like your style. Haven't quite deciphered if this is a personal book, or if it's fiction (i don't know where the genre is lol). If it is true, I'm sorry about Jerry, that sucks. Life has a way of kicking us in the a*s sometimes, repeatedly.

[SquinklaPsyOps]

You’re a very good writer. i really like the flow you created with this chapter.