When the Lights Go Down in Brooklyn
1/1
On the table in front of us sat two cups, one filled with coffee, three creamers and two sugars, closer to him, the other only half filled with green tea, three sugars, closer to me. Besides the drinks, a heavy weight and years of memories sat between Alex and I, I’m amazed the table hadn’t caved under the pressure yet. The expectations and reactions, wants and needs, past relationships, arguments, screaming matches, whispers, and thoughts, they all built a tension between us.
We met at nineteen and rushed into things like people always do at that age, maybe we were okay together, but some days were the worse kind of hell. Some days, I wondered why I still woke up in the morning. We would have months of everything being just fine, and then out of nowhere, a huge fight would come between us, everything was tense.
The afternoon of tea, well that was the first time we saw each other after a huge fight, ending with a screaming match and me leaving to head to my best friend’s house for a few days. Every day, Alex called, crying into the phone, saying he didn’t know what to do without me, and that he needed me to come back, even if we just met for coffee or something, we needed to talk. If we did, we could find a way through this.
So I met him for coffee, or in my case tea, but neither of us could find the courage or the words. Two years of this, and we realized what this meant, the final climax of our tensions, what happened here, that was it. Either we were going to work through the worst problem of our relationship and get better from it, or we were going to leave this bitter and angry.
My finger runs around the edges of the cheap plastic lid. “Did I ever tell you? When I was seven, my mother had me tested for insanity…all kinds of things depression, bipolar, borderline, schizophrenia…anything you can name. She said that when she had me, something just didn’t feel right, that something was off with me from the start. Afterwards, when she had my little brother, she realized even the pregnancy was a bit off…I don’t even know. I’ve just…I’ve never reacted the way people expect me to when things happen, I can be the most calm person over the biggest things, but when the small details aren’t in the right order, I flip a gasket.”
Finally, he looks at me, and his eyes are more bloodshot then mine are. I imagine he’s still seeing this in terms of the way it was rather than the way it is. At one point we were just nineteen, there wasn’t a care in the world we had to know, but now we were twenty one and those years meant a lot…we were supposed to be figuring things out now, better yet, we should’ve figured them out already. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just sick of the constant screaming. There’s a point where it become too much for anyone to handle.
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even feel whole anymore, I just feel hollow. When he kisses me…I don’t get the butterflies I once did, I don’t even feel anything emotionally, I just feel the physical touch of his skin on mine, that’s all everything has become. It’s not fair to either of us. I know an end is coming, I’m just not sure it’s breed.
Maybe it’s the end of this relationship, maybe it’s the end of this phase in my life, or maybe it’s just the end of everything. Maybe the darkness will come and swallow me up, and maybe, in a way, I’m kind of hoping for it. Like I’m bracing myself for the fall before my feet have fallen beneath me, or at least before I’ve recognized the fact that they are no longer underneath me.
“What was the result?” Really, to be honest, I was confused how we had been in a relationship for so long without him knowing about all of the things that happened in my head when I wasn’t preoccupied. Had he not seen the changes that even I saw happening to myself? If I saw the changes and wasn’t bothered enough to hide them, something was wrong.
“I was too young for them to really get any conclusive result, but everyone could see something was wrong, so I put on a mask, and I hid everything for so long that I had forgotten how to feel anything other than empty because that was safe. That was something that kept me from being tested, from being different. Then you came along, and I thought I could finally feel again, and it was nice…but it wore off. Alex, it’s worse than it’s ever been, and I don’t know what to do anymore, but I sure as hell know I can’t keep up these fights…they are not helping in any way.”
“We can fix that…Adelaide, I love you.” He used my full name, something meaning he was serious, but really it was just serious fear of anything different than the habit we’ve fallen into from two years of nothing else. I could feel the darkness coming into the corners of my vision. His heart would bet broken, be it now or whenever the darkness took over my sight completely.
“Yeah, well one way or another, this is going to break both our hearts.” Little did he know that I was serious, he took my words as figurative, rather than the literal means. “Right now, it’s your say which way you want then end to go down.”
His eyes glowed as he grabbed my hand with his, knocking over the now cold coffee, he didn’t even flinch. “I love you Addy, I’ll prove it.”
Good luck with that, hope you do it before it’s too late, Alex Marshall.
We met at nineteen and rushed into things like people always do at that age, maybe we were okay together, but some days were the worse kind of hell. Some days, I wondered why I still woke up in the morning. We would have months of everything being just fine, and then out of nowhere, a huge fight would come between us, everything was tense.
The afternoon of tea, well that was the first time we saw each other after a huge fight, ending with a screaming match and me leaving to head to my best friend’s house for a few days. Every day, Alex called, crying into the phone, saying he didn’t know what to do without me, and that he needed me to come back, even if we just met for coffee or something, we needed to talk. If we did, we could find a way through this.
So I met him for coffee, or in my case tea, but neither of us could find the courage or the words. Two years of this, and we realized what this meant, the final climax of our tensions, what happened here, that was it. Either we were going to work through the worst problem of our relationship and get better from it, or we were going to leave this bitter and angry.
My finger runs around the edges of the cheap plastic lid. “Did I ever tell you? When I was seven, my mother had me tested for insanity…all kinds of things depression, bipolar, borderline, schizophrenia…anything you can name. She said that when she had me, something just didn’t feel right, that something was off with me from the start. Afterwards, when she had my little brother, she realized even the pregnancy was a bit off…I don’t even know. I’ve just…I’ve never reacted the way people expect me to when things happen, I can be the most calm person over the biggest things, but when the small details aren’t in the right order, I flip a gasket.”
Finally, he looks at me, and his eyes are more bloodshot then mine are. I imagine he’s still seeing this in terms of the way it was rather than the way it is. At one point we were just nineteen, there wasn’t a care in the world we had to know, but now we were twenty one and those years meant a lot…we were supposed to be figuring things out now, better yet, we should’ve figured them out already. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m just sick of the constant screaming. There’s a point where it become too much for anyone to handle.
It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even feel whole anymore, I just feel hollow. When he kisses me…I don’t get the butterflies I once did, I don’t even feel anything emotionally, I just feel the physical touch of his skin on mine, that’s all everything has become. It’s not fair to either of us. I know an end is coming, I’m just not sure it’s breed.
Maybe it’s the end of this relationship, maybe it’s the end of this phase in my life, or maybe it’s just the end of everything. Maybe the darkness will come and swallow me up, and maybe, in a way, I’m kind of hoping for it. Like I’m bracing myself for the fall before my feet have fallen beneath me, or at least before I’ve recognized the fact that they are no longer underneath me.
“What was the result?” Really, to be honest, I was confused how we had been in a relationship for so long without him knowing about all of the things that happened in my head when I wasn’t preoccupied. Had he not seen the changes that even I saw happening to myself? If I saw the changes and wasn’t bothered enough to hide them, something was wrong.
“I was too young for them to really get any conclusive result, but everyone could see something was wrong, so I put on a mask, and I hid everything for so long that I had forgotten how to feel anything other than empty because that was safe. That was something that kept me from being tested, from being different. Then you came along, and I thought I could finally feel again, and it was nice…but it wore off. Alex, it’s worse than it’s ever been, and I don’t know what to do anymore, but I sure as hell know I can’t keep up these fights…they are not helping in any way.”
“We can fix that…Adelaide, I love you.” He used my full name, something meaning he was serious, but really it was just serious fear of anything different than the habit we’ve fallen into from two years of nothing else. I could feel the darkness coming into the corners of my vision. His heart would bet broken, be it now or whenever the darkness took over my sight completely.
“Yeah, well one way or another, this is going to break both our hearts.” Little did he know that I was serious, he took my words as figurative, rather than the literal means. “Right now, it’s your say which way you want then end to go down.”
His eyes glowed as he grabbed my hand with his, knocking over the now cold coffee, he didn’t even flinch. “I love you Addy, I’ll prove it.”
Good luck with that, hope you do it before it’s too late, Alex Marshall.