You're All Two Sides, and Struggling

My phone was ringing off the hook. The past few days I’d been ignoring any and all contact from John, ready to just be done with it all. I chucked it across the room, and the screen lit up again, showing another voicemail, before I could hear it playing “Pour Some Sugar on me” quietly, muffled by the carpet.

“You’re going to have to pick up eventually, toots.” My grams sat on the couch next to me, giving my knee a light squeeze.

I shook my head, wrapping the throw I was snuggling with tighter around me, even though it was a good seventy or so degrees out. “No I don’t.”

“There’s no way to make phone calls from the afterlife, I don’t know how he keeps making your phone go off.” Sarah smirked. We’d been joking around that she’d gotten to John about what happened the other night and that he was already “taken care of” mafia style.

I laughed weakly. “Bitches need to stay where they’re put, six feet under.” I glanced up at the television, growing tired of the Young and the Restless. “I need to get out of here today.” I sighed. I’d been hiding out, ridiculous enough as it was, I just wasn’t in the mood to even get off the couch anymore.

“Go hang out with that girl again today?” Sarah suggested. “The prissy one.”

“Alyssa.” I answered, hitting my head back against the couch. “Do you want to come with?”

“Yes!”

“Alright, I’ll call her.” I pushed back my hair, stumbling across the floor and grabbing my phone up off of it, tugging my pants up when I stood back up.

Alyssa took her good time getting to the condo, and when she did the look on her face immediately dropped at the sight of Sarah. I hooked an arm around her shoulders as we walked to the car, opening the back seat for her and closing the door before getting in myself, anxiously toying with my phone. I halfway wanted to listen to the voicemails, but I knew it was wrong to do it, so I just sat there and internally fought with myself over it.

“So this is Sarah?” Alyssa snapped me out of my thoughts, forcing an ugly-pretty smile at me, showing just how displeased she was.

“Yes, this is her.” Sarah announced for herself, a wide smile on her face. My phone went off again, cutting out any and all small talk that was going on.

“Just ignore it.”

“Who is it?” Lyss pressed, and before I had the chance to hide it away, she grabbed for it. “Hello? Oh! John! Well hello! It’s been so long.” I shook my head, leaning it against the window. “He’s fine, he’s right here, now more about you, what’re you up to?” She squealed. “Really? Just chilling? I saw that picture of you and that girl online; someone knows how to have fun, and I’d call that more than just chilling.” She winked at me, and I gave her a thumbs up, shaking my head again. I looked back to Sarah helplessly, and she stretched her arm out, sliding the phone away from Alyssa.

“Eyes on the road and not thinking about John getting inside of you, I don’t want to die today.” She handed me back the phone, the call already ended and I bit my lip, rolling down the window for much needed air.

“Why did he want to talk to you so bad?” Alyssa pressed after a few moments of silence.

“He just fucked up.” I turned the radio on.

“You guys are the closest guys I know…I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.” I just shrugged, letting whatever song was playing fill the silence in the conversation.

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Being home alone sucked when you were trying to stay mad at someone that you never could stay mad at. My phone buzzed next to me, marking a new voicemail, when I hadn’t even realized he’d called again. I chewed my lip, trying to focus on the movie I was watching, but my eyes kept shifting to the phone buried in my blanket.

I was stupid for doing it, but I finally dialed for voicemail, and held up the phone to my ear, chewing on my thumb nail nervously. The messages were all repetitive, John pleading for me to call him back, John saying it wasn’t anything, that he didn’t even know her, that he loved me, and I needed to believe in that. Each one was harder than the first to listen to, and I wasn’t sure how I made it through listening to them all, but I did.

I paced the living room, my stomach wouldn’t stop aching, and I was pretty sure I knew the reason why. I could hardly believe myself when my fingers involuntarily fell over the keys, calling John.

“Hey.” He answered slowly, drawing it out. I couldn’t bring myself to answer him, and I collapsed back on the couch, curling up in my previous spot. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and my ring kept hitting against the phone. He knew I was on the other line, and I just stared at the wall across from me. The silence started to get awkward and muffling noises came from the other end before John spoke again. “Listen…I can explain, Alex.” He spoke too calmly. I shook my head, and pressure built up behind my eyes that I couldn’t finally fight anymore as the tears spilled over. I sniffled, not realizing how loud it was, and quickly hung up, chucking the phone and practically smothering myself in my blanket as I finally poured it all out.

I was pouring out years of frustration, of pain, of everything that came with this relationship since it started in the very beginning. I felt the same pain from all those years back, when John was never around anymore, and it seemed like it was all forced affection, all trust was gone, and we just endlessly fought. We fought and shoved at each other and it got to the point where it hurt so much I couldn’t even bring myself to speak anymore, and it was like a bad dream, one where you wanted to scream and rip at everything and start over, but yet you can’t do anything but stand there, stand there and watch it all just fall to pieces.

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John was grabbing things from all around my room, and I couldn’t do anything but stand and watch. I kept reminding myself it was the end, and getting more and more upset that I couldn’t do anything to fix it, or stop it from happening. He wouldn’t even look at me, eyes glued everywhere but the small boy in front of him, and he just continued to go through my drawers and find all the things that had collected in my room over the past few years. I wanted to scream, I wanted to pour it all out, burn it all, feel something, anything, but I just kept standing there, watching him get out of my grasp more and more with every second.

A piece of hair fell out of place, and I tucked it back behind my ear absentmindedly, as if nothing was happening, as if John wasn’t leaving and nights weren’t getting harder and harder and as if it didn’t hurt just as much to be with him as I knew it would without him. I felt numb, everything hurt so bad. I felt so weak, and my stomach was churning and my head was screaming and heavy. But most of all my heart ached continuously, it hadn’t stopped for days now, as if it knew before I did that this was it. My throat was dry, too dry to form words, signals weren’t even sending right to clear my throat. John was leaving, I kept reminding myself, but yet I still couldn’t form any kind of reaction to make him stay.

I looked up at him again, trying hard to swallow, trying hard to say something, anything, and that’s when his eyes finally met mine. They were bloodshot and swollen, and John looked so broken down, but determined at the same time. It wasn’t enough for just words, this couldn’t be fixed, we were both falling apart, and it hurt more and more the longer and harder we tried to stay together. The only way to sum it all up was in the pain in his eyes, before they tore away from mine, tears covering the green eyes that used to be so bright, so alive, and I fought to grasp what it felt to be alive right now, but I couldn’t. He wiped his eyes on his jacket sleeve, and I almost jumped at the way the noise filled and echoed through the room when he inhaled shakily and sniffled. I wanted to step forward, to move, to comfort him. John was crying and it was my fault and I couldn’t even find it in me to make him stop, and I just stood there and watched him try to blindly pack his bag against the tears running down his face, and he shamefully continued to wipe them away, not wanting me to see how much of a wreck I’d made him.

My insides ached, I wanted to pour it all out, but I couldn’t. I felt nothing, and John continued on, letting out small sniffles every now and then, as I just stood still in my spot, watching it all happen as if I was on the outside. He zipped his bag, and avoided my gaze, taking one last look around my room before he opened the door. I was starting to feel, the familiar pins and needles in my feet from them being asleep this whole time, and I took a step forward to reach for him, but my fingers just slammed against the cold wood of the door as he slammed it shut behind him.

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I pulled myself into a tighter ball, shaking and sobbing terribly, regardless of how ashamed I felt for it on the inside, I needed this. It felt like the end all over again, and the only sounds I could force myself into emitting came out as whimpers, nothing near comprehensible. Just like John came back into my life, the very same way he’d blatantly told me he wanted me all those years ago; we were hurting each other all over again. I guess the teachers weren’t lying in school, history always had a way of repeating itself, and I knew it’d only get worse from here on out unless some sort of miracle happened.

John was John, he always had been, he could change the way he looked a million times over, become outrageously famous and have every teenage girl want to be with him, but in the end he was still the same boy who’d broken down and finally left, and I had no doubt in me he could just as easily do it all over again.

Our relationship was always poisonous; one of us was always hurting, if not both. And I was always alone, always alone like I was on the couch right now, always alone like I was years ago, when John would stop showing up, and when he would we’d just fight and end up alone all over again. I couldn’t even find reason in myself why I took him back in the first place, I was just so weak because of him, and it was just a never ending of cycle of hurt and trying to trust and it made me so sick every time that I’d put myself through it.

Someone ran up the steps, and I vaguely noticed, burying my head in my blanket and trying to wipe my face before the blanket got ripped off of me.

“Wake up!” Sarah yelled, before stopping and staring at me. I wiped my face on my hands, sniffling and avoided eye contact. “What happened?” I still couldn’t form any words. I just shook my head, feeling my eyes fill up with new tears all over again as Sarah fell onto the couch next to me, pulling me into her.