Makes Your Heart Move

I sit in a chair and it’s uncomfortable because it’s in a doctor’s office. I have no opinion on doctor offices, but the chairs in them always seem to be very uncomfortable. My therapist made me come here.

It has very low arm rests and the cushion is flat. There’s no design, just a greenish-blue cushion. The doctor tells me I’m sick. She says that it’s malignant and in my colon. I don’t feel anything though, except for the chair.

The doctor tells me that my condition is very rare. So rare that only six cases in the US have been recorded. She instructs me where to go from here.  

I picture a person named Alex having to tell family and friends, calling them on the phone, over lunch, over coffee. I can see that when Alex tells them there won’t be a reaction at first. Their faces become frozen, their vocal chords tighten. Alex responds to this by saying hey, don’t worry, it’s only butt cancer. It’s really just a whoopee cushion I can’t get rid of. They smile. They don’t get the joke and neither does Alex, but they smile.

They are able to speak again. Alex has broken the spell. Well at least you have a sense of humor about it, they say. And Alex says yeah, that’s always a good thing. And they’ll bring their mug to their mouths but won’t sip anything or they’ll laugh and it’ll fade away as they look at their shoes or the phone will become silent as they wonder how to change the subject without sounding selfish.

I wouldn’t blame them or anything if they did. I’d rather hang up and watch a movie than speak to someone who only tells me bad news because they feel obligated to. I know who the real selfish person in that scenario is.

The doctor asks me if I have any questions, and I think about it. I can’t find any so I say no and get out of the chair and leave.

The chairs in my therapist’s office are usually pretty comfortable, but today they aren’t. I don’t know why though.

He asks how the depression is doing and I tell him that it’s going good. I tell him that he was right. The reason I had stayed in bed not eating, not sleeping, not bathing or peeing or pooping, watching movie after movie for four straight days the week before wasn’t because I was depressed, which I thought, but it turns out it was because I was actually sick with a real illness. He says mono wasn’t it? And I talk about how I like the lighting in his office.

The overhead, fluorescent light is always off and he has about six lamps around the room that make a golden light and make the colors in his office feel safe to be around. His voice gets softer. I ask him if he’s likes to watch movies. Not just as a thing he does, but as a hobby he’s passionate about. He says no.

I decide he doesn’t need to know. I don’t want to be that person. He has to listen to people talk about their problems all day. People who as kids sometimes woke up with their step-dad’s semen on their face. People who were kidnapped and beaten until they went unconscious and miss it. People who can’t shop in grocery stores because they would stay in there for hours rearranging the cans and bags and boxes forever and ever until they got thrown out or something. My problems aren’t as bad so why bother mentioning them. It’s not that big a deal.

 I let the guy have an hour of peace for once.

My dad calls me like he usually does and asks how I’m doing. I say I’m doing fine. I tell him about the last movie I saw which was Once Upon a Time in the West. I re-watched the first twelve minutes when Mr. Harmonica is introduced about five times before I went on with the rest of the movie. I want to be someone like Mr. Harmonica. A hero and someone that matters. I have this thrill when the train horn blends with his haunting harmonica sound. I am so excited. My heart actually moves whenever I watch a good movie. They are the only things that can do that to my heart.

He says he doesn’t know which movie I’m talking about. I don’t explain it to him and I say that he should watch it and he says okay. It is silent like it usually is and I don’t know what else to say so I mention that I am sick. He says is it depression? And I say no. I tell him it’s malignant and in my colon. That my condition is very rare. So rare that there have only been six recorded cases in the US. I tell him I don’t feel anything though.

He asks me how long did I know this and I said three weeks and he gets mad at me and starts to yell and say how could I not mention this before, that I’m not fine, that I need medical care. He says how could I even sound so calm with news like this, don’t I care. Three weeks already. Am I scared.

I tell him when he says he’s going to drive 1500 miles to see me not to worry. That it’s only butt cancer. How bad could such a funny thing be. It’s like a whoopee cushion I can’t get rid of. He says what does that even mean and I say I don’t know but don’t worry everything’s fine. It’s no big deal. What does it matter.

 He asks if I have been taking any medication recently and I say for the cancer? And he says for the depression and I say that I keep forgetting about both.

He says no wonder why I don’t care.

My dad drives 1500 miles from Austin, Texas to my apartment in California. It takes him two days. He knocks on the door and it takes me ten minutes to get out of bed and the whole time he’s knocking. I open the door and I ask him if he wants to watch a movie. He asks where my pills are. After about an hour we find one bottle under my bed and near the wall and another under some dirty dishes on the floor. We can’t find my depression pills.

He reads the instructions on the ones we did find and he makes me open up my hand and drops the pills in them. He watches as I take them. He does this every day. Makes sure I take my pills.

He says that the place is disgusting and takes the rest of the week to clean up all of the cups with mold in it on my nightstand and in the other rooms, he vacuums all of the crumbs of sandwiches and potato chips on the floors and throws the candy wrappers on the couch in the garbage after he empties it. He asks how long they’ve been here. He sticks moldy banana in my face and I have to keep my mouth closed and he says look at this. Look at how I’m living. He throws the banana at my chest and it squishes against my shirt and sticks there. He tells me to take off my shirt and I do and he puts it in the washer with other dirty clothes. He never stops complaining and yelling at me about it and I watch Lawrence of Arabia three times. My heart moves whenever Lawrence returns from saving the man stranded in the desert. He means so much to so many people and the camels are running, the sand in the desert is so clean, the music is so loud and powerful, and the people are cheering. It is hard to watch it now though because it’s hard to see and it’s hard to breathe and I don’t know if I can move my arms and legs but I almost cry every time.

We get my depression pills and visit the doctor again. The chair is the same one I was in when I was diagnosed. It’s still uncomfortable. My dad asks so many questions that I never think of. What are the symptoms. Is there any way we can fight this. What is the time line. Is chemo an option. What is the illness called again. What caused it. Is there any way he can help. What is there to do. How long will this last.

They decide that I’m going to have surgery in a week and take some of it out of my colon and see what that does. The night before the surgery after my dad watches me take my pills we watch Once Upon a Time in the West and my heart doesn’t move when the train comes and the harmonica is being played, I don’t feel anything. And I get scared.

My dad says why do I love movies so much? And I say they make my heart move, but they aren’t today. He says are movies the only thing that make me feel that way and I say yes and he says that he thinks that that is a sad thing. He says that there are many many things that can make me feel that way but I don’t believe him because only movies have ever made my heart move like that. He says I need to look more.

I lie on a bright table at the hospital. I wear a patient’s gown and my sick butt is showing. I say that if they hear a noise it’s just the whoopee cushion. It’s good that I keep a sense of humor. I cough a lot before I see any doctor and some blood comes out. I rest my head on it. They are about to take me in and stick an IV in me and I yell for Dad and he comes in and asks what’s wrong and I grab his hand and my ass is in the open and I start to cry and I don’t remember the last time I cried, and I tell him I’m scared and that I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on with me anymore.

He says I’m sorry for what? And I say I don’t know. I’m just really scared right now and I don’t want to die. I don’t want that. And the table is wet near my face and the lights are bright and reflect off the surface of the table and the floor and I can’t get away from it and it makes my eyes hurt. I keep saying with my eyes closed I don’t want to die. He says it’s good that I think that because that means my depression pills are working. It’s a good thing that I’m scared. It’s good that I care. He smiles and says now I’m normal.

I start to throb and tremble and cough some more and I can picture my ass shaking in the air and I’m still crying and my teeth start to chatter and I say that I don’t like this, I don’t like this feeling, I want to go back to where nothing mattered.

The surgeons have a hard time sticking an IV in me because I’m trembling so much but they get it and I fall asleep.

Movies don’t make my heart move anymore. I don’t feel anything when I watch them and I don’t know what’s wrong with me because I don’t want to watch them anymore. I don’t like being normal.

I throw up three times a day. I do it so much that I don’t bother brushing my teeth every time.

I dream that I’m watching 2001: A Space Odyssey and I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe and a tree grows out of my mouth. I lie on my couch and the tree gets bigger and bigger and I gag and I can’t breathe. I taste the bark and I can feel the roots grow inside my body. It moves down my throat and into my arms and my heart and my legs and I can’t move because I can’t breathe but I’m not dying. The branches grow and tangle and thicken and people start to bud out from them. They hang on the branches by their necks and I still can’t breathe and one of them looks at me and says this is good for you this is good for you and I can hear breathing from the TV but I can’t see it because the tree in my mouth is in the way and up through the ceiling.

My dad trusts me now to take the pills on my own and I only take them half of the time. I flush them in the toilet so it seems like I’m going through them and my dad won’t notice.

It’s been four weeks and the cancer isn’t slowing down. The surgery didn’t work and my dad looks worried. I start chemo.

I do it almost every day and now I’m flushing all of my pills and I’m not scared anymore. I watch Seven Samurai and my heart feels warm and alive again. I want to join in their group of samurais. I want to save the day. I watch it two more times. There is a pile of hair at the end of the couch when I finish.

I cut my wrists and I do it that way because it was the easiest way to try it out. I was wondering. My dad finds me on the floor with blood on the carpet and screams and uses the phone and I’m in the hospital again.

He yells at me and screams and says have you been taking your medication and I say for cancer? And he says for anything. And I say I forgot and he starts to cry and say he’s trying to save my life and I’m trying to end it and why am I so stupid and he slaps me in the face as I lie in the bed that smells like nothing. I don’t feel anything though. I ask him if he wants to watch a movie when we get out and after a few minutes he says okay.

My dad watches me take my pills and makes me open my mouth and stick out my tongue. We go to chemotherapy and I sit in a comfortable recliner as it happens. I’m scared again but I’m too tired to shake and it takes seconds for the doctor to stick the IV in me. I become terrified after a little bit and I feel so tired and I start to yell at my dad. I say that it’s his fault for making me feel so scared. I say everything was fine before he came here and he ruins everything because he feels like he has to do something when really I just want to be left alone. I say I don’t want anybody. I was fine, I wasn’t scared. I was fighting death my own way and now he’s made me naked with my bare ass in the air and nothing to fight back with.

He says that what I’m going through is normal and I say fuck normal and I call him a worm and just as bad as the cancer. And the water in his eyes makes them look bigger and he uses them to look at his watch and he says it’s time. He reaches into his bag and pulls out my pills and makes me take them and I open my mouth and stick out my tongue and I can tell he holds his breath when I do this it smells so bad.

He says that he thinks I knew that Mom was dead before anyone else. That when I popped out I didn’t cry or scream or anything. I was already in mourning. Maybe I knew she had died because when she did I was still attached to her he says. I didn’t cry.

He tells me that when I was six months old I made up for it by crying all of the time. The only way to stop me from crying was to put me in a buggy and drive me around inside a grocery store. He remembers he spent nine hours in the grocery store every week. He remembers where everything was by heart.

I say beans? And he says aisle six next to the soups near the bottom. I say taco seasoning? And he says aisle two, right near the end of the aisle and up top.

I say I was a weird kid and he says now I’m a weird adult and I say sorry you have to take care of me.

And he says it’s okay.

The new medication makes my legs not work. I can’t walk straight and I wobble everywhere. It hurts sometimes. I call for my dad when I need to use the restroom and he picks me up from the couch and walks me there and I pull down my pants as he sets me down.

I wake up in the middle of the night and I hurt all over. My dad runs in and asks what’s the matter and I say nothing, I’m just scared. He asks me if it was a nightmare and I say I forgot and he says do you want to watch a movie? And I say I don’t. I say I don’t want to die and he says me too and that he’s glad I don’t.

The doctor gives me two more months to live and I tell my dad I don’t want the pills anymore and he says he isn’t sure. And I promise him I will be different and he says as long as I still take my depression pills for him and I say okay.

We throw away all of my left over pills and a month goes by we are watching a lot of my favorite movies but my heart isn’t moving anymore and I feel scared and anxious.

He sees me trembling and says am I scared again? And I can’t say anything. It’s worse today than yesterday and he asks me if I feel anything else and I can’t say anything. My eyes aren’t working anymore and I can’t breathe very well and I feel hot all over. He wants to know if I want to go to Death Valley tonight and picks me up and puts a jacket on me. He drives an hour and a half and when we get there the sun is setting. He helps me out of the car and we go out in the middle and he sets out a blanket on the sand and he lays me down and I look up and I can only see a little. The sun is gone now and I see a ton of blurry stars and he says that there are more stars than normal and he says it’s because the light pollution in this area is so low that we can see more. We sit without talking for a half hour and he says I just wanted to bring you here for a special reason and he says just wait for it so I wait and cough and wait and hurt all over. He tells me go to sleep which is easy to do I am so tired.

I dream that I am in a buggy at a grocery store and it isn’t moving. I start to cry. Everything is so still.

I wake up and look up and I can’t see anything. I hear someone say there is this huge dense band of stars in the middle of the sky. They says it’s the Milky Way. That I am looking at it straight-on like a Frisbee and that’s why that part of the sky is so dense with stars. I keep trying to see and all of a sudden I can see everything around me. I see the small mountains on the horizon and I see that the stars aren’t just white, but some are blue and purple and it makes the sky colorful. It’s so bright and soft and it feels safe. I can see the Milky Way moving from left to right in the sky and I realize that this is the only thing that I will ever see that will look bigger than the earth. It’s so big that I start to actually see the earth rotating. I can feel it too under my body and I start to feel it inside me and it makes my heart move so much. I feel like I am part of the earth and looking at the Milky Way up in the sky making the earth look so small makes me feel so big and I feel important and I don’t want to die and I feel better than ever. I don’t cough anymore. I don’t hurt anymore. I watch it for years and years. It gets really cold sometimes and sometimes it gets really hot but I still watch it all the time. A tortoise burrowed underground tries to come to the surface of the sand, but I block its way. After a few months it does it again. I say that I’m sorry but I can’t move right now. Another year goes by and a goat or a sheep or a deer with huge antlers walks up to me and says aisle four next to the instant potatoes and I say thanks but I don’t know why. It makes a loud sound and it hurts my ears for a little bit but then it makes me feel better and it’s almost like the Milky Way is making the sound. The deer or sheep or goat lies down next to me and rests it head near my hand and I want to pet it but I can’t.

So I just keep watching the sky for even more years and the antlered animal dies but I feel like I am the earth and my heart is moving more than it ever has before.

I can feel the earth move now and it makes me feel so big and meaningful. I wonder if this is what Mr. Harmonica or Lawrence or the samurai feel like.

And I’m not scared anymore.

©2012

Like a Fish in Your Hands

Her greatest fear was to feel alone and unwanted. So it was a lucky thing that she had a boyfriend of five years, them having met her junior year of high school, and it was okay that he wasn’t as affectionate as she would like, because, in fact, she kind of liked that, for she would always turn away others who gave her too much attention and appreciation because who really wanted all of that? Even if he didn’t remind her that occasionally that he loved her (actually, he had only said it seven times since they’ve been together and they had been the most heart-felt I Love Yous she had ever experienced, always always for her and at the right moments for he could read her so well, but she wished there were more) it was only because he had fears of his own and she respected that and loved him for it and that’s always a good thing to do.

But he had a job working as a technical communicator in Texas just, as he would say, emailing a lot of people and looking at a bunch of logos all day (he wouldn’t really say much about it, telling her how boring it was) while she was stuck in Mississippi working on her English degree and writing essays that only one person would read (and read once) and going over books that she appreciated but didn’t necessarily like all that much, and their separation scared her, but luckily they were able to video-chat every day on her laptop computer, and sometimes after a few or ten minutes when he would tell her he had nothing else really important to talk about she would just sit sideways on her futon in her empty dorm room and rest her head on the palm of her hand and just watch him as he surfed the internet and occasionally look at her and smile with genuine love, and that was all right because they were able to sit with each other in silence and that’s always a good sign of love, so he didn’t really have to say it to her.

That’s not to say that there weren’t any problems, though, because there were, and that was a good thing because a good relationship needed a problem now and then for the couple to go through together and reach out of the other side as stronger, but once when she went to England for a study abroad trip and he came along because that’s what you do he treated her with the same played indifference as he did in the States and so when they visited Warwick Castle he could have treated her as a queen and him her king (of course it being all pretend, but exciting and romantic just the same) as on-lookers would observe them and quietly wish they were in the same position with their lover, but he didn’t do that—he just walked around and looked at the stone walls or played with the rope that divided the restricted areas and the appropriate ones as she wondered if he was even there with her and most egregious of all, he wouldn’t even hold her hand because they all might see and he was afraid of that for some reason, but, to be fair, he did hold her hand the rest of the night in their hotel room to make up for it, which she thought was very sweet.

And there were more problems like how she would tell him all her secrets or embarrassing stories and idiosyncrasies such as rocking her head back and forth to fall asleep (she thought it as some kind of odd sleep disorder, and she never did this when they were sleeping together—she didn’t want to disturb him) that would always cause her hair to knot so tightly and that’s why she always kept her hair short. Or of all the times when she was bullied as a young child, the worst being the time when, during lunch at her elementary school, she sat at a table with some other kids she wanted to get to know and they all responded by leaving and sitting at the table nearest to her (for they cared enough about her presence to leave her, but not enough to go any distance) leaving her to eat her rectangular, spongy pizza and milk all by herself. Or even that one time when she was sixteen (only one year before they had met and fell in love) she stayed at this boy’s house (a friend of a friend of a friend…) on a trip so she didn’t have to pay the hotel expenses, and how he was so insistent in an aggravatingly obtuse way to have sex with her that she just let him do it to get it over with she guessed, knowing that maybe her sleeping in his bed is what caused him to think she was up for it, but she was damned if she was going to sleep on some couch when there was a bed nearby, and he wasn’t entirely that bad a guy she thought, his place was clean and tidy enough. But as she told her boyfriend these things, he wouldn’t tell her anything, the most personal thing about his past she knew of him being that when she and him first met, his parents went through a nasty divorce and were trying to rope him in the middle, forcing him to take a side or get out all together, the latter he sadly agreed to do, a decision she supported, and she thought now that maybe what he went through with his parents was the reason behind his lack of affection and his desire to avoid all things intimate and vulnerable and that was okay and entirely understandable.

And that didn’t mean the sex wasn’t good, because it was great, actually, when they were together at his small house in Texas (it was she who would always take the eleven and a half hour road trip once a month) and it was during those times when he would actually welcome vulnerability. It would usually happen like when he would be working up stairs and she would be reading her assigned reading for the weekend downstairs, but just not able to really get through any paragraph without looking at the ceiling and thinking about him and why he wasn’t down there with her and feeling so unwanted and alone that she would go up to him, grab him by his arm, and walk him to the bedroom where she would always throw him down on the ground (he liked that) and jump on top of him, taking his clothes off and starting to kiss him all over his body until he started doing the same to her, and him caressing her back, her stroking his leg with her foot, him kissing her breasts, her nibbling his earlobes, him sucking on her neck, and it was during this time when she felt most happy and loved and open and cherished, and afterwards she would ask him if he wanted to come downstairs and watch a movie and he would always say yes, I’m tired of working, I’m sorry I’m not with you as much as you’d like, I really am, I just want to sit with you and do nothing and that response would make her whole body tingle, a pleasure that exceeded anything that came before.

Her graduating year, did prove to be trying, though, being separated from him, and she became more and more confronting, as his refusal, his outright refusal it seemed, to open up and just talk persisted, asking him what she really meant to him and if he was on the same page of the relationship, of their lovely history, their fairy tale, as her, her page being (she wished) happily-ever-after, but only getting the damsel-trapped-in-the-tower response as he did his best to avoid answering the question in any honest and vulnerable way.  But that was okay, too, for she would help him get through his intimacy issues—she had to--even if it meant that she would feel a little distant from him in the meantime and as long she still wasn’t so terribly and awfully alone.

There was one very tough day, after she had asked him if he really did love her and he replying with an I can’t do this right now, please can we just please talk about it later, tomorrow perhaps? which prompted her to become so angry that she slammed her laptop computer monitor so hard in place that the screen broke and something like black ink oozed under the cracks, and she cried for the first time ever in their relationship, her tears running down her neck and onto her collar where her shirt would soak it up. That same day, though, she would find herself extremely lucky because after she had cleaned herself up, she struck up a conversation in her African American Literature class with Gabe, a boy she thought was quite handsome actually and interesting as he talked about his favorite Korean dishes that he would sometimes make at home, and this conversation went quite well, she thought, as his invitation to his place to try some bulgogi (it only sounded bad, he told her) that Friday ended their meeting and ended her bad day on a nice note—a new friend on a bad day, she thought. How wonderfully lucky!

Gabe was a real treat, she said to him, and as she chopped green peppers and he prepared the marinade, they discussed several things like how when he worked his first job at a local pizza place, his ring finger was flattened to about half a centimeter when it got too close to the machine that spread all the pizza dough and she talked about her first job at a library and how the stereotype of grouchy grandmas bossing everyone around was true, saying she’d never been shushed more in her whole life. And they watched old cartoons on television while they waited for the beef to marinate, which led to conversations about their childhoods which, lucky enough, was very similar, him being bullied throughout school as well, but physically more than anything else, and he told her about the time he was pushed down a dirt hill, without warning, while walking home from school (a sudden experience that he said would later trigger his frequent bouts of anxiety) and his head hit a large rock which caused a small seizure and left a large scar which she could see if she wanted and of course she would and rubbed his head with a smile on her face which he leaned into but was unable to connect to because she had immediately sat back up and away from him, from Gabe, flattering Gabe, and told him about her boyfriend and how nothing really could happen between her and Gabe. He sat back embarrassed and said without looking at her okay that’s fine with me we can still hang out and of course they still would, and he got up to check the marinade, which, luckily, was ready and his attention on the beef took care of the tension between the two.

As she took the bus back to her residence hall, she became scared and worried about how she was so unaware that she might just had been leading Gabe on, his invitation obviously being a date for him—how did she not see it?—so when she arrived and started to chat with her boyfriend about her day, about her new friend and his seizure, about bulgogi, she asked him once again what he thought of her, she wanted just an I love you or not even that just an I cherish you, to just please please tell her something, that she needed it, until finally, moving his face to the part of her monitor so that she could see him clearly, without obtrusion from the cracks, that he loved her and that he was sorry and didn’t say it as much as she wanted, that it was just hard and how he was, and she felt so much better and so happy that she wasn’t alone and that he really did want her that she watched him surf the internet for another hour as she fell asleep with the computer light illuminating her dry, but recently raw and rough, face.

Even still, though, she found herself in even more compromising situations as she would find herself being called up by Gabe (he always wanted to see her) asking for her company, and she would always always accept and be with him because that’s what good friends do. It was all fine at first like when they walked a hiking trail and he was so self-conscious, but really cute about it, of his sweating (it being the summer still in Mississippi), which he said he did more than most people, but she made sure he knew that she didn’t really care about it and that further down along in the hike she’d be just as gross, ew as he was (him smiling at the ew), but they never did go further because only a half mile into the hike they found several used condoms in a pile the size of a small basketball, so they went back to his place and talked and laughed about whether the pile was the effect of one couple or several members of some cult which for whatever reason chose that spot in the woods to throw away the evidence of sexual activity that was against its principles, therefore always always kept as a collective shameful secret.

And it was still fine, when the weather got colder, and when he asked her if she wanted to go to a football game with him, and even though she didn’t really enjoy watching football, she figured she would have a good time with Gabe, and when arriving at the stadium, with apologies abound, he had realized he had lost the tickets, and when her, being relieved but annoyed and frankly disappointed at his carelessness (an immature quality for sure), brought up the idea of just going to that one theater with the rocking chair seating, on her of course, and when the movie they saw wasn’t good at all, he thought, but she liked it enough, and when they had a small debate on its merits (him thinking that it’s notions of love was utterly ridiculous and unrealistic, the constantly fighting protagonists only finally coming together and forming a nice and loving relationship when they found out they had a mutual love for The Cure,  and her saying that what’s the point of watching it if not to get away from realism), a debate that got quite heated, but only so much as it could given the fact that they both had smiles on their faces the entire time and thought it was a satisfying and revealing conversation that made her think how lucky she was to have such a good friend that she could disagree with and it be okay.

But as the friendship went along, the longer she spent time with Gabe, and the longer her school year passed, the longer she craved holding his hand as they walked through the autumning trees, hugging him whenever they met each day for lunch, watching him as he worked on a paper for class, cuddling with him on the couch as they watched the fourth episode of Law and Order in a row. These thoughts didn’t worry her that much though, because she was in love with her boyfriend, and it was perfectly normal to have tender feelings for others every now and then, especially when they were as good to her as Gabe was. It was natural. And it wasn’t like she had those feelings all of the time. Only when Gabe was around.

But that’s not to say that he didn’t have problems, because he did, and that was okay because everyone has their own problems, but some of them she just couldn’t get past sometimes, like his unsecure future and lack of care or even any thought about it, as he just liked to take one thing at a time and think about the obstacles as they came to him, not about the ones ahead of him (he would be graduating the same time as her and he hadn’t even thought of looking for a job yet), or his annoying annoying way of making some lame joke to try and break some of the tension whenever she would get frustrated with him which would only cause her to get even more frustrated or how much of a child he really seemed to be as he was utterly and constantly self-conscious and anxious over very simple and, quite frankly, she thought, unimportant social interactions, like this one time, while walking together on campus, he made them go out of their way to reach the cafeteria because the normal route was covered in societies and clubs begging for members and he didn’t want to be put in a situation where he might sign up for something he didn’t want to just so he wouldn’t hurt their feelings and that made her so frustrated that the next time he called her she let it go to voicemail and forgot about it the next day. But all these things weren’t so bad, really, because he was a good friend and was good to her and she was going to get past his annoyances because that’s what good friends do.

One day, a week before finals when he had asked her if she wanted to come over to his place to give him company while he studied, and she had brought over her laptop, and, while Gabe was lying on the couch catching up on his reading of Lolita (absolutely loving it, and telling her that she should read it, which she considered, but never really intended to do), she had started a conversation with her boyfriend (now able to see him completely with her mended monitor), messaging him instead of speaking aloud so as not to disturb Gabe, and asked him how his day was going and other small talk questions, which he responded with one word responses and said he was entirely too busy to be talking right now if he could talk to her later? And her messaging, sure Hon, I love you, and the ultimate despair she felt when he replied uh huh and smiled and turned off his computer camera and as she sat there looking through the now black monitor with tears silently falling down her face, and sat there so still for so long that Gabe noticed and asked what was wrong, a gesture so small but so needed and important to her that she, without saying a word, walked to the couch and lied down with him, her arms wrapped around his chest and her tears fading into his neck, but still not telling Gabe what the matter really was, and through his ignorance, all he could do to help was just, as she would later put it, be there for her and he put down Lolita, kissed her on the forehead, and rubbed his hand and up and down her arm and just let her cry as both of them lied in on the couch. Her saying, every now and then, just be here for me, please, just be here for me I need someone here right now. She could always count on Gabe, she thought in his arms and giving him a kiss on the cheek for every few tears that fell down her own, to make her feel better. His friendship meant the world to her, and she was extremely lucky to have met such a wonderful, devout friend that she could count on.

The rest of that finals week went by so smoothly and so wonderfully, so stress-free and just so easy, as she spent every day with Gabe, at his place, re-reading the sloppy underlined portions of her several several printed-out pdfs of esoteric rhetorical analyses and every now and then, whenever she needed a break, sitting next to Gabe on his couch, resting her head on his shoulder, which she noticed was really tight because he would have rather it stay in some uncomfortable position than readjust himself and disturb her, holding his hand with her left, and stroking softly his arm with her fingertips of the other, frequently looking up at him (a gaze he seemed to be struggling to return; he seemed unsure, but content), and smiling and saying hello all the while reveling in how much longer it took him to finish reading a simple page of his own assigned reading while she did this.

Her happiness continued through finals and into the winter break, for she would spend 32 days and 31 nights with her lover in Texas, and spend it during one of the more romantic times of the year, the desire for snow in the area sometimes being so strong that it would manifest itself into wildly romantic gestures and rituals she couldn’t help but notice all around her. Phone bills rising due to increased calls consisting only of sweet nothings and several several I love yous and red cheeks, more and more requested love songs on the radio, people engaging in small talk with strangers and absolutely enjoying the whole process, however mundane it could be, always ending with an exchange of numbers and glances that always tried, but failed, to hide the excitement they felt at meeting someone new, and always always concluding with a do you think it’ll snow this year and an I hope so before a delayed parting of ways.

She and her boyfriend spent most of days leading to Christmas day staying in his house, him working upstairs and her passing the time coloring in one of her several coloring books, her favorite contributions she would write a short quip to accompany it (like “I love you beary much” for picture of an enraged black bear clawing the page (that she colored pink, of course) or “How I picture our wedding” for a picture from an Everybody Poops coloring book), rip it out of the book, walk upstairs, and tape it to his desk, which, by the end of the Christmas Break, was covered so densely with colorful pictures (he couldn’t work without getting the bottoms of his forearms waxy from the crayons) that he threw them all away, an action that deeply upset her, but it was okay because she shouldn’t have been so annoying and it was probably really clingy anyway.

Gabe would call every now and then, maybe twice a week or so, but she never answered the phone, especially in front of her boyfriend (but he never was interested in who was calling her, even though she felt like he should have been), instead letting it go to voicemail, and most of the messages he left weren’t all that eventful, usually consisting of “Just calling to checkup”s or “Wondering how your break is going”s or “You must be really busy”s, and the most interesting message he left was only to describe this book he had read that she would most definitely definitely love, but even that wasn’t that interesting. He was getting a little needy, she thought, and luckily he stopped calling her after three weeks or so, which was okay because she would get back to him after the break for sure.

She couldn’t wait for Christmas Day because it was then that she knew that her boyfriend wouldn’t be working and would be with her the entire day, her excitement grew so much that even though she wasn’t really that big on decorating, she covered his house with pseudo-Christmas potpourri, getting a small potted plant that kind of looked like a Christmas tree and covering it with silver tinsel and candy canes (most of which would fall under the weak branches and crack on the floor), writing in permanent ink her and her boyfriend’s name on separate red toe socks and pinning them on the wall below his poster of the  DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium (home of his favorite college football team), drawing purposefully bad portraits of Jesus (sometimes with beard, sometimes without) and taping them throughout the entire house because she thought it was funny, sometimes playing Christmas music so loud that he yelled at her to turn it off because it was distracting him, and, because she was so bored sometimes, wrapping left-over empty cardboard boxes that he used when he moved in Happy Birthday wrapping paper because it was the only kind he had, but it still fit with the Jesus theme and that was okay.

When Christmas day arrived and she woke up in his bed without him in it, she was excited, because she knew that he had something planned for her, something to really show her that he loved her like a cooked breakfast (she didn’t smell anything though) or a lovely lovely itinerary filled with romantic outings like a walk in the park (it would be empty for sure, and they would have it all to themselves) and a stray orange cat with a slight limp would find them, never leaving them alone and becoming attached to him even though they had nothing for it, it would seem to only want his company and he would pick it up and carry it in his arms and it would purr and purr when she scratched the side of its face and they would call it Mary even if it was a boy cat because he had always liked that name he would tell her and it would quickly become her favorite name too and when they brought the cat home  and it wouldn’t even try to scratch them as they cleaned it. Mary would tour the house and fall in love with the small potted plant and they would laugh as it rolled on its back and clawed the drooping leaves and he would wrap his arms around her on the couch and watch Mary play and he would kiss her on the cheek and she would kiss him on the mouth and everything would be so good and she would be so happy and loved and that’s all she would need, but instead she found him on the computer waiting for her to wake up, which was okay even though he didn’t say Merry Christmas or called her beautiful or anything.

When she pulled him away from the computer and told him that it was time to exchange gifts, she felt better, because he got a smile on his face that she hadn’t seen in a long long time and that made her feel good and she thought of how much she loved him as she gave him a web camera that supposedly recorded a better image and was able to pick up more sound so when they talked to each other when they were separated it would be like he was almost right there next to her instead of in some cave far away, and she almost cried when he brought out a fish in a bowl from the storage closet and set it down in front of her. He said it was a calico telescope goldfish, which made sense because its eyes were so big that they made the fish look worried and surprised at the same time, and that it was for her to bring to Mississippi so whenever she felt lonely she could look at it and it would always look back and be there for her and she felt such a rush at such a romantic thing for him to do that when she leaped toward him to hug him she almost toppled over the five-gallon bowl it was in.

And she named it Gabe and he said he had always liked that name.

In January, she was so scared to go back to Mississippi and be by herself again, so she spent all of her time in his office as he worked, not saying a word so she wouldn’t be a distraction, sometimes reading, sometimes just watching him work, and they would share a mutual smile whenever he turned around and looked at her and said chin up cheer up you’ll be okay and she would say okay. It was only one more semester and she would graduate and everything would be okay and she would never feel alone anymore. But the promises of the future didn’t help her feel any better as she returned to her dorm room and placed her new, always observant, Gabe on her desk, which watched her cry and cry through the bowl and it acted as if there was nothing else in the world except her crying as her phone rang and she picked it up and after a few deep breaths, started talking to Gabe and invited him over to come see her Christmas present. When he got there though, it was like he had forgotten what good friends they were and acted as if they had just met, afraid to get past small talk and just standing in the middle of the room like he was waiting for permission to sit down anywhere (which of course he had) and this behavior scared her a little bit, but she felt better when after she told him that the fish was named after him he smiled and looked at the fish for a very long time and started to feel comfortable enough to lay next to her on the futon and hold each other, him smelling her hair and her nuzzling her face into his chest saying that she had missed him.

And everything was fine in Mississippi again for she had her best friend again with her, but it was only fine for a very short time, and she became increasingly upset when, during one of her daily talks with her boyfriend, she had asked him again if he really loved her and he yelled at her saying yes why don’t you ever believe me you’re like a broken record I’ve told you several times haven’t I? and that caused her to pull back a bit with the relationship only speaking to him every other day, worried that if she tried to contact him anymore, he would get tired of her and go away for good and leave her terribly terribly alone and unwanted, but the time away made her feel even worse because the less time she saw him the more he was growing away from her, she was absolutely without a doubt sure of it and it was true. And she became more upset when, because of this new obstacle in her relationship, she would spend even more time with Gabe, but he was unreliable, too, sometimes saying he was in the middle of a small anxiety attack (which was happening more frequently) and saying he needed to be with somebody when she called, and so because she didn’t want to make things worse for him and see him during his hard times (she wouldn’t be able to help, she didn’t know the first thing about attacks like those), was sometimes left with absolutely no one to be there for her, not even Fish Gabe, who was growing bigger and bigger in the bowl by the week, who had eventually stopped looking at her and being there for her and wouldn’t even move, some days just staring at the wall or a piece of paper on her desk for what seemed like hours.

And it all seemed to get worse and worse as the days went on, sometimes not seeing her boyfriend or Gabe for three entire days in which she had no clue what do with herself, read a book? go on a hike? how long could she watch television before it got sad? how long could the tears go on? she had been crying for what seemed like hours at this point and Fish Gabe wasn’t even there for her with those big eyes anymore, as it seemed to get more and more distant itself and it grew bigger in the bowl and didn’t move around as much, but the worst of it (she would think at the time) would come when, in an act of desperation, she would call Gabe and ask whether he was up for some of her company and he would completely dismiss her. Her best friend Gabe didn’t want her anymore, her most devout friend saying that she didn’t really care about him, that she hadn’t even noticed that his father had died in the last month as his fishing boat was caught in a storm and he had drowned, that he had been going through a rough time, seeing a university therapist that he felt like wasn’t working all that well, the therapist blaming blaming his father’s death for his frequent, more intense anxiety attacks, requiring him to “get over” his father’s death quickly if the attacks were to subside any time soon, that she wouldn’t even know about any of this, how she was purposefully confusing him, her most best friend in Mississippi, with her behavior towards him, always cuddling up and kissing him on the cheek with affection and genuine care he was just sure was there because he may have anxiety issues, but he wasn’t that crazy, and how he, the person she thought (but must’ve been wrong) was her best friend, couldn’t deal with the confusion anymore, always being hurt by the unreturned phone calls and the indifference she seemed to show for his own issues, never being there for him when he had always been there for her, wondering always wondering what he really was to her, if they were on the same page of their relationship, wondering if he hadn’t just been used, you know? and whether he had actually truly meant anything to her. Even so, as he said these things, with tears running down her face, but taking control of herself so he couldn’t notice her state over the phone, nothing quite hurt her or took her by surprise as when he said that he just didn’t think he could see her anymore.

At those words she whispered into the phone okay I understand and hung up, devastated and hurt and unwanted, but that wasn’t entirely true, she still had her boyfriend who loved her but she couldn’t really talk to him about Gabe because he just wouldn’t understand. There was a silver lining to the day though, for as she walked to class she met a lovely gentleman named Henry, who seemed really interesting and funny and made plans with him to go see his puppy later that night that he assured her loved loved people and she felt a little better at the prospect of such unconditional love from it.

But that didn’t mean that she was still hurting and feeling lonely and unwanted, and that didn’t mean that things got better because they got even worse as the days went on and one of the days she particularly deemed unnecessary to contact her boyfriend (even though sometimes during these days she would stare at her blank monitor and pretend he was there on his computer to make herself feel better), he had actually contacted her which made her feel loved and wanted again until he said we need to talk, and at those words she stopped him from going further and closed the laptop and threw it at the other side of the futon and she sat there for maybe ten minutes just looking at it, unable to think and unable to act until her phone started to ring and, noticing it was him calling, placed it under her pillow to drown out the noise, and walking back from it, found a place in the middle of her room to just stand, her joints unable to make any movement, not quite sure what to do or who to go to anymore until she remembered Fish Gabe.

Fish Gabe, unmoving, almost stuck, eyes never darting here or there, staring at nothing, didn’t even try to avoid her hand as she reached into the bowl and picked him up with her hands, now cupping him with one hand on top and one on bottom, feeling it as it suddenly came back to life, hitting the curved palms of her hands violently as it tried to breathe, finally moving, finally showing signs of life, the long, thin fins feeling like wet leaves on her skin and the eyes moving finally finally as they scratched themselves in between the folds of her palms, and yet, slowly suffocating, eventually calming down and lying still, it’s breathing the only movement now, unable to find some solace in her wet, but salty tears that would fall in between the cracks of her fingers and on top of its face, all the while the muffled ring tone of her phone filled the room as much as it could, until finally finally the fish stopped moving entirely, lifeless once again and once again unable to be there for her, to look her in the eyes and remind her that everything would be all right, that she was loved and cherished and never alone.

She held the dead fish in her hands when she opened the laptop and the first thing she saw was him staring back at her asking what happened did the internet go out? why aren’t you answering your phone? and her crying and showing him the fish saying Gabe it’s Gabe he died and I have no one here anymore and let’s just get this over with. As he spoke she only heard a few phrases like “can’t provide what you need” and “last time you’ve been happy?” and “I hope you figure it out” but all of these things she didn’t really hear and mostly looked at the dead fish in her hands silently crying and waiting for him to finish, and say his final goodbyes so she could flush the fish down the toilet and continue one of the worst moments of her entire life.

But luckily everything after all that went so smoothly, so perfectly, so in place as she, subconsciously fixing her hair, called Gabe up only five minutes later and asked with a throbbing voice if she could come over, that she needed to be with someone, and with him, hearing the distress in her voice, saying yes, yes come over, please, and her saying she’d be there in about ten minutes and the bus only taking eight, and with her not even having to knock on the door because he saw her walk to it through the window, as if he had been standing there the full eight minutes just waiting for her, and with her, immediately as the door closed, telling him through sobs her need to just lie down and grabbing his hand, dragging him to his bedroom, pulling the covers down then over both of them, and with her crying, crying on his shirt collar, close enough for him to smell her hair, crying so much and so fast that the wet stain on his collar grew bigger and spread to parts that her face didn’t touch, crying so much that he didn’t even try and wipe them away with his hands, and instead, not knowing exactly what to do or what was so wrong that she would be crying in this way, him using them to pat, as best he could, her erratically jutting, sobbing body which eventually soothed her so much she started to caress his own back with her hands between gulps of air until eventually her breathing became as smooth and calm as his own, making the five minutes after she had calmed down fill with absolute utter wonderful meaningful silence and understanding between both of them, so perfect this moment, with her slowly bringing her hand up to his face and softly trailing her nails across his face as she became aware of her breathing on his neck, so near to her that she felt the warmth bouncing back at her, and with him simultaneously becoming aware of the same thing, but refusing to respond to it, a lack of action she responded to herself by pulling him even closer to her, finally creating the intimate, physical tete-a-tete that she had always wanted, but never really felt like she’d ever experienced—her hands moving up and down his back, his fingers moving about her neck, her moving her nose back and forth across his chin and lips, his expanding chest pressing up against hers, her legs intertwining with his own, his mouth moving ever closer down her face, ending with the final beautiful complete embrace as she leaned up and kissed him on the mouth for the first time, with her thinking as she pulled his shirt over his head how lucky, how incredibly lucky she was that she wasn’t alone and unwanted anymore.

©2012