To: An Ex Boyfriend

To: An Ex-boyfriend,

Sitting in a summery haze, the THC running through my blood smiles upon every cell and tickles each nerve ending to perfect relaxation. It’s times like these I think of you. If that’s not what you’d like to hear, I’m very sorry but that’s what you were to me. You were nothing but a drug, nothing but an indulgence in the self-medication of my fragile teenage brain. I remembered feeling lost the night that we first spoke. I remember thinking, ‘This is it, I have nothing left to be fond of, nothing left to pursue.’ And then, you entered the picture.

It’s funny how life will do that to you. Stress and sorrow enter in through your pores and build you up nearly to the point of breaking. With each step you wonder why you took it. With each breath you wonder why you even bothered. With each word you wonder who even cares to hear it. And then something happens that makes you forget about all of that. You were my something.

It was January; I was in my pajamas laying next to my two-year-old niece who was fast asleep. Why wouldn’t she be? Why wasn’t I? After all, it was long after midnight and the entire world seemed to have a peaceful silence to it. Even the social media networks were dull. On a weeknight at this time everyone was asleep, taking a break from the usual catty chatter that filled the make believe world. Everyone except for you and me.

I remember the conversation clearly, perhaps because the conversation itself was so foggy and the meaning behind every word was up for interpretation. It was about space. Outer space. We were both there and we ‘must have just missed each other’. I assumed you were talking about marijuana. Later I would find out that I was right. You asked me if I wanted to hang out sometime, and never being one to say no, I said I would. I didn’t think you meant right that second, but once again… I never say no.

Your Buick pulled up to the curb outside of my house. I hadn’t changed from my pajamas. The air was dry and cold, but I didn’t really mind. That moment that should have been incredibly awkward, stepping into a stranger’s car at 2am, felt entirely normal. I was comfortable. I was comfortable with you from the start.

The greetings were those between friends who had already known each other for years entwined with the typical facts one shares about themselves during a first encounter. We drove through the streets we had both known our entire lives, content in one another’s company. We should have met a long time ago, but for some reason, fate would have this as our first notable encounter. Back at your house, I waited in the car, unknowing that I would someday spend countless nights tucked away inside its comforting depths. I want you to know that at this point I had no intentions of falling in love with you.

You returned quickly, with a pipe packed full of marijuana. We smoked as we drove farther and farther away from home. Toward the pier. The pier that you had no trouble finding during the dark hours of the early morning, but I could never find again even on the brightest of summer days. We got out of the car, and walked down an almost undefinable trail toward the water. At the dock, we stopped and looked out over the water. It was black and rippled by the wind, the stars in sky reflected on the tiny waves like little glowing fish in the water. It was magical, but not in the Disney sense where it was unbelievable. It was magical in the sense that I could fully understand what was happening and the reality of life’s beauty was settling in my mind.

You started telling me about one of your adventurous, traveling around the more eastern United States; The dangers of hopping trains, meeting strangers, various encounters with drugs, and being homeless. The whole story played throughout my mind as if I were watching a feature length film. As I listened to your voice I grew more and more excited about the adventures our friendship was due to encounter together. You finished your story and I was amazed. I had recently been thinking about how nearly all of interactions with other people were so lackluster that I could never spend a decent amount of time with them. We decided that it was time to go after about an hour and a half of chatting. I threw the cigarette I had been smoking into the water and waited for it to disappear. I was very conscious of the cold wind blowing across my face, it should have been freezing. I should have been begging to go inside and wrap up in every blanket I owned, but instead I was almost sad that we were leaving.

As we walked back down the trail toward the road, you stopped suddenly and raised a finger to your lips. I froze. I was confused at what was going on. I saw your hand slip in your pocket, and you reached down to grab something, a large tree branch, off the ground. After about a minute of frozen silence you advised that we keep walking, quickly and quietly. When we were safely back in the car you told me there was a buck standing no more than five feet behind us. Makes sense, the area is so overpopulated with deer that it’s hard to drive the streets without seeing one, let alone walk through a wooded area. I didn’t see it because of the darkness, and because without my glasses, I might as well be blind. So thank you, if I haven’t already said it, for saving me from a potentially dangerous encounter.

The drive home was far too short, so we sat parked in front of my house for a while, talking more and more about our hobbies, thoughts, etc. When it finally came time to part, we half hugged good bye, and I tiptoed back into my house which was still dead asleep.

I was excited that we had met; I was excited that we had hung out at two o’clock in the morning. I was excited. I couldn’t wait to tell my friends the next day.

I met with my friends, asking if anyone had heard of you before. One of them knew that you were a drummer, one of them knew nothing, and a friend who was new to our group had said ‘OH MY GOSH! Why didn’t I think of that before? You two are perfect for each other!’ Apparently the two of you were very good friends, but I stopped her immediately, explaining that I only wanted a friend out of you, and that I definitely was not interested in anything more. Funny, isn’t it?

And then we started hanging out more and more. We started texting all the time, I was never really one to text in class, I thought it was disrespectful to the teacher, but I would spend countless hours everyday neglecting to pay any attention to the teachers’ lessons. I would sit there impatiently, waiting for you to answer me. And one day you surprised me, asking me if you could pick me up from school early. Being the rebellious teenager that I am, I said yes. And we drove and drove. When we arrived at your school, Pennstate Abington, I was very confused. But after sitting through one of your classes, and typing a paper while you gave a speech (you did I great job, I remember how excited you were about it the days leading up to presentation day) we got back in the car and started driving toward Philadelphia. Soon enough we arrived at the WellsFargo center where it was opening night for the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus. I couldn’t have been more thrilled. THAT night, was Disney magical.

I don’t know which I enjoyed more, the circus that night, or the car ride home. We really got to know each other over coffee and the drive. I told you things about my family that people who have known me for years don’t even know to this day. I trusted you. I still trust you.

Moving forward to the night we spent ‘watching’ your little sisters. Or, watching the most absurd horror movie we could find on Netflix. Do you remember? That was the night you asked me to be your girlfriend. My head was on your shoulder, we were playing with each others’ hands and talking more and more seriously as teenagers were being murdered in the background. And when you asked me to be your girlfriend, I started tearing up. I didn’t want you to see, so I just kissed you instead. I seriously have no idea how it escalated to that.

I was with you after everything. The day I got my wisdom teeth out, I drove all the way to West Chester to see your band play. My mouth was swollen and ached with every clash of the symbols. But I loved it. Any time I could spend with you, or near you, was perfect.

How about the time in your basement when we made the lights dance (the reference is only for you, for the sake of possible publicity)? Or Saint Patrick’s Day 2012? When I watched you code for hours because I was purely fascinated by the end result, do you remember that? How about the time everyone could have sworn I was on drugs, but actually I had just gotten A LOT of blood taken. Do you remember talking about perfection, because we felt it?

It was late at night and suddenly I was upset. I went out your back door to smoke a cigarette and you came and sat with me. You noticed that something was wrong and I started crying. We talked it out. I was insecure up until that moment. You told me that you thought I was perfect. You loved my hair, my eyes, the way I laughed and smiled. You told me that I was the most beautiful girl in the world. And that you loved me. That moment is still with me today. Just knowing that at one point in time I was perfect to you is all I need to keep my chin up.

I’d like to take a step back for a moment, one night you dropped me off at my house, I stayed up for an hour debating whether or not to call you. It must have been around one in the morning, maybe later, when I called you to tell you “I am totally and completely in love with you.” I was relieved when you said it back. But I want you to know what I was thinking before hand; when I was debating letting you in on the fact. I took a long time to write it out and arrived at the conclusion that I HAD to say it. I was thinking it then, and it wasn’t the first time the thought had crossed my mind. I decided that since it was more than a thought, it was a feeling, it was true. You don’t make up feelings, you feel them. And that was how I knew it was right. That was how I knew that I really was in love. I’ll always love you.

Now I don’t mean to be that horrible ex girlfriend who spends the rest of her life drooling over you and trying to ruin any chance at a relationship that you’ll ever have. No. I hope that whatever direction you go, you’re happy. I think the reason that we aren’t together is because we’re too dangerous together. We could really do anything and we would have. That sort of power is too dangerous for the rest of the world. So for their sake, I guess we’re better off apart.

But the few months that followed our break up, I have to apologize for being so crazy. I can’t honestly say that I remember it all, I had a lot of amnesic episodes during the time because I had no idea what to do with myself. I was really broken. But I’ll always remember that hot summer day when I met you at the park. It wasn’t right from the start, we sat across from each other, not next to each other. Lovers stay next to each other because they want to be equals, they want to take on the world together. When people fight, they face each other; they want to get ahead of the other, they want to tackle the problem face on. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t hug, we didn’t even say ‘I miss you’ though we had been apart for quite some time. And when it was over, we left together. I walked with you down the street to your next stop on your long list of places to be that day (you were always very busy), and as we said good bye and turned to go our separate ways, I shrunk up. I was no longer the brave confident girl that everyone knew me as. I felt like a child, crying the whole walk home and sitting on the front porch in broad daylight, bawling my eyes out before working up the confidence to step inside and face the world again. It felt like a movie, where the protagonist gets her heart broken, somehow permanently losing the one she loves. I knew it would never be the same after that.

I spent countless nights laying in bed unable to sleep, hoping that maybe if I wished hard enough I’d someone how be wrapped in your arms again like the nights I missed so so much. The only thing better than falling asleep next to you was waking up still locked in your embrace. I think that sleeping with someone is one of the greatest ways to show love. And I don’t mean having sex, I mean sleeping. When you’re asleep, your bodies are spending time together, and your minds are in the same place. When I think about spending eight hours (though we were lucky if we got 5) with another person it seems like a long time, but when you’re asleep the time passes like the snap of fingers.

It was nice having something routine. Our morning routine of coffee and a walk around the park. Or a couple walks around the park. I remember always debating if we could make it around one more time before I had to be at school. We always could.

I’m sorry if I’m boring you with all this talk about things you have already lived through. So I guess I’ll try and get to the things that you WEREN’T there for. The aftermath. The horribly destructive aftermath.

It’s a good thing that I wasn’t in school when this happened (though even when school did return, I spent most of my classes writing terribly depressing poetry about you) because I was a total wreck. I’m not usually one to cry, but I cried everyday. Sometimes multiple times. All of my friends tried to help me, but it was no use, so they just sat there and cried with me. Even your friends were on my side. But I think it’s only because we shared friends. They told me that you never lied and told me how you were a horrible person (don’t take it personally, they were just trying to console an upset teenage girl) but every time they said a bad word about you, I seemed to get more and more upset. You weren’t a bad guy. You were the best guy I had ever known.

I’m still not over you, I’ll tell you that now, but what helped me through it the most was my summer camp and the trip to Vermont I went on with The Girls immediately following. From that point on I tried my best to impress you without directly speaking to you. I wanted you to be jealous of all the incredible things I was doing and how I was hanging out with your friends and building relationships with them while you were hours away at college. I guess that was kind of immature.

When I thought that we could be friends again we started hanging out on your school breaks. I loved seeing you family (they’re awesome. Sometimes I still miss them) and I loved talking to you about the future, even if it was no longer our future, but two separate paths. Everything was going fine, until Thanksgiving. We stayed up all night researching different drugs on the internet and then watching movies. We stayed up until seven o’ clock in the morning. And then we kissed. And then… well we hooked up. That completely destroyed any shred of sanity I had in me and drove me crazy until you came home for Christmas, for my birthday. I still stayed over your house, we still hung out, but we never kissed. We never spoke about Thanksgiving again.

I'd love to continue to reminisce about our entire relationship since the day we met, but then I know this would no longer be a letter, but an entire book devoted to you. So I guess I'll leave you with one last memory, and one last awful, desperate, ex-girlfriend kind of rant.

It's March now. Nearly a year since I was your girlfriend, and we were having a bittersweet Saint Patrick's Day at your parents' house. This year, it's still early in the month. I'm in an apartment in Philly, talking on the phone when suddenly the door in front of me opens and I'm staring you in the face. You're perfect. You're still perfect. I hung up the phone mid-sentence and said hello to you. You were calm as always. I hope I didn't look like I was freaking out, but I was. My heart was pounding as I raced down the steps to let my best friend inside. I told her you were here, and almost broke down crying except for the fact that I was too happy. I was too happy that you were here with me, and even if we weren't in love anymore, I could pretend we were for one last night.

I was already rolling hard; kind of drunk and all sorts of high. And I walked back in the room and blew another line. This would ensure my happiness for the rest of the night (and maybe it would tempt you to do the same). I breathed in deeply and handed the rolled up ten dollar bill back to the boy with the drugs. I was floating. Everyone around me was the gravity keeping me in the room. If I wouldn't have been able to see everyone else with their feet secured to the floor, I swear I would have flown out of the room. We all prepared to go to the party now. Walking down the streets of Philly with all of my friends who I hadn't seen together in a long enough time, the cold air hitting all parts of my body felt like springtime. I felt perfect. You looked at me and started complaining about how cold it was outside, and I had no idea what you were talking about. I offered you my blue peacoat, saying all that I wanted to do was take off all of my clothes. It was really that great. You declined the offer because you already had your own jacket and because I needed to keep mine on in order to conceal the vodka I was hugging against my chest. It was that sort of night. We approached the party, you could tell from far away that a lot of illegal activity was going on inside. We walked up to the door and received a warm greeting; all of us did. I wasn't expecting to be welcomed by these people as if I was one of their own, but they hugged me and stuck a red cup in my hand. It was a different world inside. People everywhere. Infinite stimulation. I made my way to the basement, which was again, an entirely different world. It was dark except for the black lights and few strands of christmas lights. The music was loud and I could feel it dancing through my veins. Before I knew it, my cup was full and I was dancing away. That night I encountered you many times. I thought we wouldn't see much of each other to be honest. But I saw more of you than anyone else. Maybe that's because I was always aware of when you were around me, and when you weren't, I was thinking about how you should be. We danced, and I loved you dancing right there with me.

When we spoke, you seemed to be genuinely interested in me and what was going on in my life. And, even though I didn't feel like I was begging for help or reassurance, you kept telling me that everything was okay. you told me that you were so confident in the person that I am that I'll be able to do anything I put my mind to. You constantly reminded me how incredible and strong I am. Hearing you say that only made me trick myself into believing that this was the beginning of something other than a drug induced accident. But this is where I'd like to pause the story for a second. I want to tell you about how wrong you are. I know that I won't do everything that I want to do. I know that I won't be as successful as your mind is setting me up to be. You see, I met you at the perfect time because you were able to turn my life around. When we were dating I saw YOU, and I saw how motivated YOU were. I changed, becoming a great person apparently, because I wanted to be more like YOU. I wanted to impress you more and more everyday as we fell deeper and deeper in love with each other. I wanted us to be so powerful, calm, and perfect together. Now that we're apart, I've lost that desire within me. So I'm sorry to say, you're wrong. I won't do the great things that you promised I would.

But anyway, I'm just going to skip ahead to the last part. When we got home. 'Home', a generic word, meaning the place we would try to sleep for roughly an hour. It was about 5:30 in the morning and we were all half dead and laughing about who knows what. Our friend spilled water on my legs and it was the first time I had understood what cold was all night. I laid down in the bed and immediately the remainder of the cup or bottle or container was poured down my back and legs. I was soaked and I didn't care. With a final 'F**k you, I love you man.' Two of our friends left and offered for you to go with them. When you declined, fire works started shooting out of my heart. That meant that I would get to spend the whole night with you. You couldn't imagine how happy that made me. I thought that just maybe, this was the beginning of something new. Or a continuation of where we left off.

So I laid down next to you, shivering from the water and the lack of insulation in the Philadelphia apartment. It's funny how we'd end up together isn't it? I took one last look around to make sure everyone was here. And we were. Two on the floor, two on the love sak in the corner, and two on the bed. That was was you and me. Even though my body was coming down from all sorts of abuse and it was closer to sunrise than sunset, I wasn't tired. I was only thinking about how this night wouldn't leave my mind for weeks. Out of no where, I felt your hand drop next to mine. I thought that maybe you had just fallen asleep, so I froze, for some reason, thinking that any move I may make would wake you up. But then I felt you grab my hand. As my fingers traced the curves of your palm, running up and down your fingers, I remembered everything. It was like the moment your life is supposed to flash before your eyes when you die, our entire relationship was on a film roll flickering on the walls of my brain. I always loved your hands. Do you remember that? And how sometimes we would just play with them, getting to know how they felt together.

Anyway, that night I might have gotten an hour of sleep (broken up into three twenty-minute sessions of course). But how could I? The love of my life is holding my hand in bed next to me! I watched you asleep, like I used to do. And I started crying, knowing that this was one of the happiest moments of my life, but when we would both wake up in the morning it would be all over.

And it was.

I promise this is it. I love you with everything that I have in me. I have never stopped loving you and I wish that I knew what I could do to make you love me again. I would go anywhere, I would do anything, to be with you. If you could give me one more chance, I swear, I would make it right. If I could somehow, show you how much you mean to me, and how absolutely crazy I am about you, I'd do it in a second. I miss you. I miss you so goddamn much. I want to be us again. I want to be perfect. I want to be unstoppable. I want to be okay. We were all of those things.

Baby, I love you.

Why don't you love me?

Always,

Paige Geneva