Chapter 15 In Celebration of E.L. James - 50 Shades of Shut the f**k up

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night. Hosseini

 Six months later it was time to get the tires changed on my car, so I visited Gracie in the part of the city. Whenever she saw me I think there was something in my face that made her think of him, maybe a perpetual kind of sadness, or maybe it was my bitter sarcasm, nothing she would say outright. I was writing a paper, sitting at her kitchen table waiting for my car to be finished. 

« Do you miss him? » Grace asked, avoiding eye contact from across the kitchen, piling plastic bowls so as to not be imposing, the question sounded so off-hand, hardly even curious. I sat up in her chair, back stiffening at the word him  

I  glanced long-side at her, and she saw me through her peripherals, an easy sad half smile pulling the left corner of my mouth.

« No » I answered, pausing like I’d made up my mind to say only that, but instead quietly and stubborn as always whispered: « You can’t miss someone who didn’t actually exist. » She

« How do you feel? »

« Like the unwitting victim of Ocams razor. »

We didn’t bring it up for the rest of the evening. I went for a walk. Every time I was here, I could only think about him, have arguments with him in my mind. 

That evening I was in His part of town getting my tires changed.  I was walking, looking down at my phone changing to a Pink Floyd song, when I looked up and it was him.  Speak of the devil. He saw me and strutted up, casually smiling. I found it cloying to be honest. 

My finger snapped up and I winked and clicked my tongue at him. What was I doing?

« Did you just Johnny Bravo me? »

“Potentially…”

« Well… hey kiddo, what brings you to my side of the tracks? »

I couldn’t take it: the audacity. I loved this human and he treated me with the regard of a lost puppy. I looked up at him and firmly said:

« No. » How articulate of me.

« No? What? How’s life? » I could tell he was feeling rather nonplussed. 

«No, you don’t just get to talk to me like there was never anything between us, as if you're actually interested in my life, as if you care. I know you don’t. I don’t do this, this social nicety crap, you’ve treated me like garbage. You picked her and in a thousand lifetimes you’d make the same decision, not that it matters because I wouldn’t not pick you, not in the same amount » She was elegant  and beautiful and I looked more like a slightly chubby disney princess

« Anything to get a double negative » He was stunned and I’m sure he thought I was insane. I was. 

« Yes, I know how absurd this sounds -its not like I enjoy being crazy- I’m not like this, I don’t just love people for no reason, I don’t just run around telling them, but I love you and I hate you and I’m fighting the urge to quote Pablo Neruda, thats how much - and I don’t care that you don't love me, I don’t care that it was only a fling for you - because that isn’t how this works, at least not for me. I’m so happy for you, happy that you're happy with her and I don’t believe we have claims to people - but it was real for me - I’ve thought about you every day for a year. I just  thought you should know. And one day I will meet someone, and he will not make me forget that you ever existed, and might not have a dimple on the left side of his face, and he probably wont quote Shakespeare. But he will love me and I will love him, with a heart that will remember how. And when I’m with him I wont bring you up, not because I’ve forgotten you, but because we are  so enraptured that you wont cross my mind, and if you do, you will no longer be worth mentioning. But right now, I hate you. » And that was the last time I would tell her that. 

I turned and walked away as quickly as possibly, breathless. Leaving him standing there.

I texted Gracie and immediately asked her to come pick me up.

Are you ok?

No, apparently i’ve had some sort of nervous break-down.

There are many songs written about the slow process of getting over someone. I’ve heard people mention DABDA, running, outrageous amounts of ice cream; but, I’ve always been a black and white girl, (also a white stripes girl) and so it went like this. I was sitting one evening on my living room floor, after I had turned 21, I always have paradigm shifts post birthday. But I digress, I was sitting on the floor doing homework. He’d been on my mind that day, just like any other. But when I thought of him while I was sitting there, I started laughing, manically one could say. It finally all clicked. 

He had been right, and he had saved us, both. To speak candidly, no matter how romantic our start had been, if we would have been together, I would never have stayed. In all fairness neither of us would have. Not that I’m flighty. But how could I stay with an empty shell of a human? I wouldn’t have, I couldn’t have, and he’d saved me. I would have been so unhappy and I would have left, to go off into the world and do the great things that I’ve always been meant to do. This most likely wasn’t his reasoning behind pushing me aside, but it was the result. And that was it, the war raging between my head and my heart was over and my head had won. Not to say I’m heartless, but my heart just didn't hurt anymore. So I said thank you to him, not that he’d ever understand why and I was done with it. It was an odd feeling, but my heart no longer seethed in the shallow prison of my chest. In my beginning is my end T.S. Eliot once said. 

Not to say that there aren’t times, even still, that I feel a hollowness in my chest. I am half way certain my heart long ago packed a duffle bag with the little feelings I had left, after all the pieces of it I’d given to those that I’ve loved -to Jay, to Oliver (both with stories and gouges of their own), and to Him- and limped off to hide itself from me so I could do it no more damage. I haven’t been able to find it since.