Chapter 11 Tragic July Osculation

"There is a sense in which we are all each others consequences." Wallace Stegner

I was back in the city for an evening, flying out the country in the morning, on the pre-mentioned european escapade; but I asked him, at 2330 if he would take a stroll with me. I finally found him in the back parked between my old house and his, swinging on the swing set, coyly. He’d brought my favourite tea - green- he’d remembered. We talked for an hour, about the last things I’d said to him in a rather longwinded and intense message about his lack of integrity for treating me like chop liver this summer:

« I just let you have the win on that one, I was going to text back: How’s the weather »

« Yeah, I just sent it, listened to Miley’s Wrecking Ball and cried myself to sleep. »

« Because of Miley Cyrus or because of me? » I could tell he was faking the concern alighting his face.

« I didn’t actually cry. »

We talked about how I’d almost been engaged to Oliver at one time and how he’d started working out like crazy after we broke up - some kind of male phenomenon. Because: I totally broke up with you because you weren't muscular enough. Idiot.

“I can’t imagine being married, it’s not happening any time soon”

“Don’t say that, thats when it always gets people.”

“I’m one of those very odd people who mean what they say, mostly.”

“That takes all the fun out of it. You’re great at interpreting subtly in conversation, why do you need things spelled and out vice versa. Why don’t you just do things? You're really robbing yourself of experience,”

« I’m sorry I don’t fight an incessant need to be ambiguous and clandestine like you seem to. I don’t want to leave room for an ambiguity that will absolve me of all responsibility of interpretation. Sorry. If someone finds me cryptic its either because I have a different pool of general knowledge or I’m smarter than them. »

« I just don’t think your capable of living in the moment, you just live in your head. You miss the experience of living, of making mistakes »

my head, the sanest place to be apparently. 

“Why? Because I didn’t just throw myself at you when I first met you? Because I don’t find that the view of someone’s ceiling is the best way to get to know them? It’s people like you, who confuse feeling with sex and think youth is all about being selfish and in the moment. People like you. Being able to think for myself and not being a slave to my urges and emotions doesn't make me  unable to experience the best parts of life. When I fall in love it will be because my head and my heart say yes not because my vagina does, you people are ridicules. » He was silent so I continued:

« No I think it’s interesting that you're so enigmatic, most people are averse to appearing so slimy but you seemed to have evaded that feeling altogether. »

« I don’t think enigmatic and slimy are synonyms »

« No not necessarily, but you seem to do them justice »

« Like poetic justice? »

« I hate you »

“I know”

We found our way back to his car and he told me that « Life of Brian » was the best Monty Python movie but The Quest for the Holy Grail was his favourite » This didn’t make any sense to me.

He started to banter with me about the inevitability of grey area again, because I think I might always be one of his favourite people to argue with. 

“Life is not black and white, its game and thats what makes it so fun.”

“There are white things, and there are black things, and sometimes they get mixed.”

“And what is that mixing called?” He asked, as if he thought he was clever and had cut my point off at the knees.

“Stripes.”

He chucked: “You don’t get it.”

« No, no  I understand that ambiguity is an inextricable part of the human experience, and that in many cases right and wrong are nothing more than a conglomerated ball of confusion. That being said, I don’t feel the need to add to it. Maybe things are grey like you call them, but let me tell you something. There is cause and effect, ends doesn’t always justify means. There are actions and consequences and you can’t weasel your way out of them. Not making a decision is in itself a decision, capiche? People who avoid making choices because they don’t want any consequences take away necessary boundaries and they are indisputable cowards. »

« Something, something something grey area…. something something dark side. » I had stopped paying attention and instead felt the urge to put my hand over his mouth.

I just missed out on the part of adolescence that made us think grey area was ok. Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand that part of the beauty of life is ambiguity, the inescapable notion of grey our generation incessantly peddles cannot be confused with the ambiguity of life in general. We’ve all been told that we are too young to be in a real relationship, too young to have any idea what we want to do with our lives, to an extent this is all true. True, but the paradox is that adults are mostly just older children and experience doesn’t necessitate wisdom. The backslide of this paradigm is that people aren’t willing to jump into anything whole heartedly, commit to something because better things may come along, so we live in this ‘grey.’ It’s like the Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock never even happened.

« We’re just too different, sorry my diatribe is over, promise. »

« Yes, because I'm from this metropolis and you're from, wait what little town are you from, and you love biochemistry and I only like biology. We both like poetry… »

“You don’t read poetry because you like poetry, you read poetry because other people like poetry. Maybe it will help you get something you want. It certainly helped you get me, for a time. How does it make you feel? Anything? Do you even know? What does it tell you about life? You don’t know? You don’t care to know? Then stop. Don’t tell me how alike we are. Like its a book we’ve both read and should talk about. You're never gonna read the same book as me, because your hearts never really in it. Go find what you like, what your really passionate about that has absolutely nothing to do with anyone else- then come back and find me. Don’t tell me we have anything in common. The most important thing to have in common with someone is honesty, character, and maybe a love of coffee- but I can’t stand people who pretend.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.” He sat on his car trunk, immobile and unaffected.

« You can't just go around acting like you don’t care »

« Well I don’t » He said it obnoxiously, with a cruel smile.

« Oh » He could read my face, every fragment of sadness in my amber eyes. His face softened.  “You know, sometimes people want something real. People run and they want to be chased, but not all forms of leaving are equivalent to running. I think at some point when you know the person doesn’t love you back you just have to walk.”

“Your analysis of body movement is fascinating and exhaustive.” I ruffled his hair and smiled at him in the darkness. 

He reached up, as if to take my pulse, like he had to prove that he could, because he wanted to be a doctor if you remember and pulled me forward to kiss him. We kissed, it was terrible, because I was so disenchanted with him. I could never forgive him for being himself and I could never stop loving him for it either. It was the worst kiss ever, not physically but emotionally because it held within it the distinct feeling of ominous loss. There was nothing in it. I didn’t want to miss him. I had convinced myself that it wasn’t going to work between us, that I hated him in every sense of the word. 

It was over in a minute. I knew that it had been wrong, but it also made me realize, the closeness, our conversations, how far I had fallen, and I wanted to kiss him again with fervour to try and ameliorate what had created a rift between us.

I wanted to kiss him again, but I am deathly afraid of spiders and one made an appearance on his car. He didn’t save me. He was resigned. He apologized for kissing me later - because I think he knew how he felt, nothing, but he didn't want to say it to my face. Coward.