It Could Be Worse

There’s another stranger in the kitchen tonight, but this time he isn’t here for me.

“His name is Clark, he’s a writer.” Monica says just to fill the silence as we sit on the small couch. Well, it’s only silent between us, I can hear Aeneas giggling and chattering away.

“Is he any good?” I ask, feeling a bit desperate to keep our silence filled - all I could hear was that laugh, always following the low sound of Clark’s voice, always following a joke I couldn’t quite hear.

Monica looked at me then, looked at me like she can see through my façade and knew how much I’d like to smash my face into a mirror right now, like she knows that if I don’t break something soon I'd be forced to break myself.

“No, he’s awful.”

I could only nod in response.

Maybe I should have expected this, maybe I should have prepared myself for when Aeneas decided to move onto his next victim. Oh I shouldn’t say it like that, that makes it sound like he was planning all this and I don’t think he was, I think I was just stupid enough to fall for someone who obviously wasn’t interested in anything other than a good fuck.
No, that makes him sound sleazy, which I suppose others with more conservative opinions could think, but I don’t think he’s sleazy... Or rather, I’m really just as sleazy for going along with it all, so it’d be hypocritical to consider our casual fucking a bad thing. Yet, in retrospect, our casual fucking has definitely backfired and has now managed to ruin my metal state of mind, driving me to this inconstant rambling thought process…

I swam with the shark, now I’m complaining about losing an arm- Fuck, that was an awful analogy. I don’t know where my head is right now, I think I’ve forced it to wander as far as possible; I don’t want to think of the situation at hand.

I don’t know where I’m going with this and I don’t know why I’m defending Aeneas: he doesn’t deserve to be fucking defended because I don’t fucking deserve to be heartbroken.

You know, one could almost argue that he didn’t know that he had me wrapped his pretty little fingers, but as he came waltzing back into the room, hand in hand with Clark, and his eyes first shot over to me, I knew that he was completely aware of the havoc he was wreaking on my heart and my already dwindling sanity.

“Hey guys, would you want to come to Clark’s reading tonight? It’s for his latest novel.”

“I’d rather throw myself off the roof, thanks.” In fact, that sounds like a wonderful idea right about now. Although, I’m sure punching Clark in his pretty little face would increase my mood as well, if only for a few seconds.

“You’re know, Aeneas, you’re a real fucking piece of work.” If I didn’t feel so shitty I might have hugged Monica, but instead I just walked out, not saying another word or letting my eyes take in their expressions. I just wanted to get out of there before I snapped because at this point I’m not sure if it would be out of anger or sadness or insanity or maybe all three.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” His voice keeps sounding through my head, scattering my thoughts like an airhorn and repeating like a broken record: all I want to do is smash that goddamn record into thousands of sharp little shards and throw them all back in his face. I’m angry, I’m jealous, I’m dazed and confused, I’m losing it. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, maybe my sanity or maybe my heart, but all I know is that it’s going, going, gone.

Nothing really makes sense anymore; I can’t focus at work, I can hardly lift my fingers to write anything for school, and all I want is to rewind to a month ago when I was curled up in bed with Aeneas for the first time and just let it all unfold differently.

I want to go to a month ago and instead of running away like a little coward, I’d sit and actually talk like a functional human being, or maybe I wouldn’t even talk – maybe I’d just hold him until we fell asleep and maybe in the morning I’d wake up and he’d still be there.

There are so many ‘maybes’ and never enough solutions, there’s never enough ways to actually fix things, just dozens of ways they could have been avoided. I don’t even know if going back and holding him would change things, maybe I’d still end up in this situation once again, but I think it would at least dull the heartache because at least then I’d have a reason to think I didn’t deserve this kind of heartache and betrayal. This time around though, I know I deserve all of it and more.

“We accept the love we think we deserve.”

- - -

I ended up coming home at three o’clock in the morning, clutching a half empty bottle of Jack.

I ended up being still drunk enough to believe that if I spilled my fucking heart out to Aeneas like they do in movies then things would work out and he’d come back to me.

I ended up finding him curled up on the couch with Clark, fast asleep with the television blaring.

I ended up pathetically stumbling down the hallway, desperate to get the image from my head.

I ended up contemplating suicide or destruction.

I ended up punching the bathroom mirror.

I ended up getting glass embedded into my knuckles.

I ended up in complete agony as my blood began to pour from the wounds.

I ended up on the bathroom floor clutching desperate onto my hand as it bled out all over the white tile, watching the crimson begin to spread and stain the delicate porcelain.

I ended up pulling myself from the floor and stumbling towards Monica's bedroom, dripping and smearing blood down the hallway.

I ended up in the Emergency Room with fifteen stitches in my hand.

- - -

In retrospect, it was really fucking stupid and not nearly as satisfying as punching Clark’s face would have been. But in retrospect, it was still pretty fucking nice to watch the glass shatter into a perfect spider-web beneath my fist.

I always used to think that self-harm was fucking pathetic, especially the ‘I cut because the pain reminds me that I’m still alive’ shit, but you know what, I guess punching a mirror when you feel the throwing yourself off a building is kind of similar.

Okay, not similar at all, but getting fifteen stitches in my hand woke me up a bit - it kind of reminded me that the rest of my body was functioning fine even if my head wasn’t. I don’t know, I really don’t even know, I’m rambling again.

Monica was seated in the waiting room when I walked out, her expression standing out in comparison to everyone seated around her: The little boy on her right looked as if he was going to puke in the near future – his mother seemed to have the same idea and was pretending as if she weren’t leaning as far away from his face as possible. The woman on her right looked as if she were on the verge of tears, clutching her purse in white knuckled grip.
Monica just looked like she wanted to smash everything in sight.

She glanced up as I walked over, the look on her face escalating a few notches as she looked over the stitches and gauze covering my right hand.

“You’re a fucking idiot.”
Both women beside her gave equal looks of horror and distaste, I just laughed.

“Nice to see you too, Monica.”

“Fuck you,” Again, looks of horror. The kid’s face seemed to be turning a faint shade of green.

“No thanks.”

“If we weren’t in a hospital, I’d beat the shit out of you right now. I’d win too, seeing as you’ve gone and given yourself a bum hand by punching mirrors like a fucking idiot.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but could you please watch your language? There are children present, and quite frankly I don’t want to listen to you use such vulgar language either.”

Monica just scoffed and started pulling me toward the door.

“Someone needs to take the stick out of their ass.” She grumbled under her breath, I just shrugged. Her son finally burst just before we reached the doors, presumably on his mother’s shoes judging from the shriek she let out a second later.

“Don’t try and bullshit me, I know this was about Aeneas. I don’t really blame you, that was a pretty fucking low of him to bring Clark around like that…
Seriously though, that was my favorite mirror – couldn’t you have just punched Clark instead? I doubt he’d press charges; he’d probably ramble on about hating authority and the court system and some other hippie-dippy ideas if Aeneas even mentioned it.”

“I contemplated it, trust me. It was either punch something, mainly Clark, or throw myself off a building. I kind of wish I chose the latter, to be honest; that would mean minimal pain, whereas now I have to deal with fifteen stitches.”

“Shut the fuck up, that’s not even something to joke about - and don’t even say ‘it’s not a joke’ or some other angst shit like that, ‘cause then I really will beat your ass, I don’t care if we’re in a hospital or not.”

“Okay.”

We’d reached the closest subway station, Monica stopped just before the stairs, looking me over for a long moment before asking, “Do you want to go home?”

“No, but I will.”

“Aeneas will be there.”

“I know.”

“He’s still my best friend, and as much as I can’t stand him for doing this to you, I won’t just throw him out.”

“I know.”

She nodded and started down the steps, turning midway through to make sure I still faithfully following her. To be honest, I was so tempted to just start sprinting back up, back into the depths of the city and just lose myself forever.

You really could lose yourself in New York; I think that’s why I loved it so much when I first came to New York. I ran here for that exact reason, I never wanted my family to find me, and they never did, but I think I’ve managed to lose myself along the way now. If someone had told me five years ago, just a sixteen year old kid with dreams nearly a big as this goddamn city, that in five years I’d be punching mirrors, drinking myself into oblivion everynight, a complete joke of a writing, a soon to be college drop out, and contemplating suicide – I’d call them fucking crazy, I’d would have told them that in five years I’d be almost finished with my undergraduate degree, I’d be happy and healthy, and maybe even in a functional relationship.

It's not that bad, it could be worse.
It's not that bad, it could be worse.
It's not that bad, it could be worse.
It's not that bad, it could be worse.
It's not that bad, it could be worse.