Without You, I'm Just Me

I only fell in love once.

It was real and it hit me like a train; fast, hard and completely off guard. I wasn't expecting to fall in love, I always expected to just be a dumb guy, meet a girl, have some kids and then die. Contribute nothing but trouble to the world before I left it, but it never turned out that way.

The moment I laid my sleepy eyes on Naomi Valentino, I knew I was in trouble. I always like girls that were younger than me, just to break them in. I reserved older girls for pleasure and that was it; nothing more and nothing less.

But, let me tell you about the first time I thought I was in love. There was this girl, she was a cheerleader and somehow, someway, she found me and my dreadlocks attractive. She thought my braces were cute, she thought I was a teenage God -or so I thought. This girl used and abused me like I was nothing more than some gum beneath her shoe. She talked a lot of shit about me just because she knew I wouldn't say or do anything; I had fallen for this girl, and I didn't care what she did to me as long as she reciprocated my love and returned some affection.

She took my virginity, she got me drunk for the first time, she was the one who instigated me into my first fist fight. I fought this guy on my soccer team who had flirted with her. She egged me on and I went crazy; I was immediately suspended from school and the soccer team.

I really thought I was in love with her until I found her sucking some guy off in her car. I immediately went and found a naive girl, who had been like myself, fucked her and treated her like dirt. It felt good, only then when I was hurt, so I decided to do it to any girl that was dumb enough to trust me. It worked for just awhile before I found another girl I had become very attracted to, became serious with her, only to have history repeat itself. I was brokenhearted and cheated on, so I abstained from girls, until I found another attractive girl, and used her.

When I met Naomi, I was seeing that girl, who was more than jealous if my eyes wondered. I was only with her to bide my time, to do something since I was home. My time away from Chicago was me being locked down, and that girl was just someone I let my sexual frustration out on. When I saw Naomi, I kinda saw my future in her. She was the kind of girl I could become putty for, but I absolutely wouldn't because I was afraid.

Yes, Naomi scared me. She was beautiful and smart and she was naive, but wise. She was weak for me, just like I had been with my first girlfriend, and I had wished that I could've been the same way to Naomi, but I was really, really afraid and I was tainted. I had been down the road of being crazy for a girl, just to have it blow up in my face. I wouldn't allow it, that's the reason I never let it show that she had pulled me under.


"Holy shit," Patrick sputtered, "Is that Naomi?"

I looked at my friend's finger point upwards at a building. My eyes scanned upward, following his index finger; there, on a building was an add for H&M clothing, jeans specifically, with women in just denim. No bra, no shirt, just long flowing hair and tight jeans. I looked at each model, squinting behind my sunglasses and saw her face. Naomi was on a large billboard on top of a building in LA; her back showing, her head tilted back, you could see her smiling, her infamous mole gave it away.

"Oh, shit, wow," Andy chuckled, "I knew she was famous, but man!"

Naomi had become an overnight sensation to the modeling world after I got married. My mom told me she focused all her time and energy on our kids and modeling as a way to busy herself. It was a long, long way from teaching, and I never expected it.

It was a big dose of karma. I saw Naomi every single day, even if I didn't want to. She was in magazines, on billboards, ads, commercials; her picture popped up whenever I would surf the net. She was all anyone ever seemed to talk about. It's definitely karma.

She looked pretty happy doing what she was doing. Whenever I would see her smile in pictures, it looked genuine. Even when I heard her laugh, it was like a punch in the gut.

How did I hear her laugh? I saw/heard an interview with her on some fashion site. Andy was watching it on his computer, telling everyone about it, because it was such a big deal, especially coming from her.

"Naomi Valentino hails from Chicago," the male interviewer had said, "And she's the semi-new face for Victoria's Secret new diamond bra. How are you Naomi?"

Naomi took a pause, I hadn't seen, "Uh, sorry, my little dude is calling me."

The interviewer laughed; "Is that Lewy?" Patrick asked.

"I think so," Joe answered.

"Hey bub," you could hear Naomi say faintly, "I'm right inside, have Papa bring you up...the door will say 214, got it?...Okay, love you, see you in a sec."

The interviewer laughed again, "And who was that?"

"My kid, Lewis," she said happily, "My dad is bringing up my boys in a second."

"You have how many kids?" He exclaimed.

"Just 2," she laughed, "Benji and Lewy, my little dudes. They just got outta school."

"How old are they?"

Lew is 4 and Benji is 2, they're in preschool."

There was some music and then it was another segment with her.

"We're with Naomi, again, watching her get ready for her debut runway walk...she has her wings on and she looks fabulous in her new underwear."

"I need coffee," she said tiredly; the guys laughed while I just listened.

Next there was, what I expected to be shots of her getting ready while some pop song played. Andy wolf-whistled, "She looks so good."

I pretended not to be interested or acknowledge what they were doing. The guys talked about her as if the subject of her and I wasn't taboo. Since I had gotten married, things between me and the guys had been rocky. Andy took to ignoring me and calling Naomi whenever they had free time. Patrick was quiet about it; he was dealing with his own problems, as was Joe; he was dealing with his obsessive compulsive disorder that was getting more and more out of control.

As for me, I was dealing with the dumb choices I made. I was trying to sear off the regret. But, I can't say I didn't deserve it, because I did.

Every single bit of hell, I deserved.