You're The Lowest

I’ve spent the majority of my life not being good enough for anyone that I’ve been with romatically.
That’s not pessimism, though I wish so badly that it was. It’s an honest fact. I either don’t know how to pick ‘em, or they all just fucking suck and I am blind to everything in my life.

They want to change my hair, my style, how I act and talk. They want to change everything about me, because I’m definitely good enough aside from all of the shit that they wish was different.

Which is apparently everything.

I met a girl when I was 17 years old, and she meant the absolute world to me. I would have given anything and everything for her. We were inseparable and never did anything without the other. My friends hated her but I honestly thought it was because she had more of my attention then they did.

I wouldn’t realize until later it was because they saw what I was blind to.

She didn’t like the bands that I listened to and didn’t understand my long hair and nose piercing. She didn’t see the point in wearing skinny jeans and converse shoes because “they just made you look flat footed.”

She didn’t like me per se. She liked my image, she liked my mother’s money, and she liked the fact that I was easy to push around, easy to persuade, and easy to change.

I willingly cut my hair for her because I thought when you were in love, you compromised and you did what made the other happy. I willingly started wearing Levi’s that were bootcut and not shaving my face. I stopped listening to The Foo Fighters and started listening to the new pop songs on the radio…

She was happy with me until she found something else she hated.

And then like the idiot that I am, I kept changing, and changing.

One day I didn’t even realize who I was. I didn’t even realize what I had become. I looked around myself and saw no one that I used to know… I didn’t see friends, barely any family.. Except her, the tyrant, sneering and smiling at the monster she had specially made for herself.

Slowly, I started transforming back into who I had been. I let my hair grow out and I started shaving my face again. I put my Levi’s aside and brought the skinny jeans out from the dust.

I started blaring the Foo Fighters in my car like I would before her and I was so happy… So comfortable, I realized what had actually happened.

Still blinded by love, and insecurities, I stayed with her, though not the same rag doll she controlled before. Eventually things between she and I became harder. I tried to give her my love, and give her everything she could want, and she just kept finding reasons to not be around me.

Sooner or later, as I’m sure was guessed early on, I found out that she had been cheating on me the majority of our 2 year relationship.

My heart broke when I saw the text messages… When I read the letters and saw the pictures… Nothing could describe the feeling in my heart when I walked in on them… In my bed no less…

Even though I was dying inside, I lifted my head high and carried on, pursuing my dream career, even having success doing it. I tried to stay firm in myself, to never let anyone do to me what she had done.

It worked for a few years…

I met a girl at 23, and even though I still had the emotional scars from my last relationship, I felt like I’d learned enough about myself to never let things like that happen again…

She seemed perfect to me, so beautiful, sweet, and accepting of my career. She chose to stay home while I travelled, which was hard, but I trusted her more than almost anyone, which is rare for me to even do.

On the months that I would be home, she would be close but distant. Almost always there, but never fully there. I couldn’t explain it even to myself so I chalked it up to her personality.

She was who she was, and I was who I was. She wasn’t bothered by who I was so I decided to in turn give her the favor of not being bothered by who she was.

To me, she was perfect.

Then one day, she called me. I answered the phone, giddy and nervous, because I was in a jewelry store, looking for an engagement ring.

She started the conversation off so easily.. So smoothly and seamlessly put together…

“Kell,” she said slowly, “I really want to tell you something. It’s something huge. And.. And it changes things. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. That I didn’t intend for this to happen…”

Slowly sinking to my knees in the middle of the jewelry store, Jesse by my side watching me with a stricken look, I knew. I knew even before she said anything.

I could hear it; feel it. I knew when I heard her voice it was something bad.

“Kellin… I slept with someone. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happe-“ she said, cut off by my sudden intake of breath.

“You just.. you need to listen to me. P-Please, please understand…” she begged me, and I could hear it, but I wasn’t registering it. My lip trembled, my vision blurred, and the 14,000$ ring that I had just purchased tumbled from my fingertips onto the woven carpet.

“I… I have to go.” I whispered, pulling the phone away to hit “End.”

“NO. NO, Kellin please, please come home to me. We can work this out.” She sobbed, and I knew it was fake. I knew that she was putting on one of the best shows of her life right now. It was probably a shame to her that I wasn’t there to get the full effect.

Standing, I took a deep breath, then continued.

“Look, I’ll catch the next flight to Michigan. Just stop fucking crying.”

Hanging up, I looked at Jesse, and a single tear rolled down my cheek.

He could see the pain in my eyes, feel it as I could feel it.

“Kell, it’s okay. We’ll get you through this.”

- - - - -

Taking a deep breath, I put my foot on the first step of my home, closing my eyes against the tears that I was furiously trying to blink away. I couldn’t show weakness. I couldn’t be vulnerable.

Opening the front door, I could hear music floating from our my bedroom, and followed the noise, walking in on her painting her toe nails, singing quietly.

Normal Saturday afternoon, you’d guess. Normal activity.

But the tension in the room was electric. It was horrible.
It was disgusting.

Clearing my throat, I got her attention, and saw her eyes flicker with many different emotions; sadness, happiness, remorse, determination, sadness again…

I couldn’t really tell which was how she truly felt because she was a con artist of the heart.

“I’m here, but I’m not promising you anything, Maria.”

It took everything in me to not collapse on my rug and sob into the rough fabric.

“Kellin, you… I’m sorry. You’re just gone all the time, You’re always on the road with your band and that’s so cool but I get so lonely in this big house by myself…

Maybe this wouldn’t have… Maybe I wouldn’t have.. Maybe things would be different if you were here all the time instead of going around the country playing music in shitty venues.”

Recoiling, I felt like I’d been slapped.

“Go ahead, Maria. Say it. Fucking say it. Maybe you wouldn’t have what if I were here to babysit you? Maybe you would have kept your fucking legs closed and not cheated on me? Maybe you wouldn’t have been a whore and slept around behind my back? Go ahead and tell me everything is my fault. Blame it on me, try to make me feel like even though you were the unfaithful one, I was the one who brought it upon myself.

You KNEW when you got with me the kind of life that I lead. I offered for you to come with me, to work with me on the road but you refused. You fucking refused. So how is that my fault? How should I feel bad about that at all?”

Sniffling, she looks down, playing with her phone, texting someone.

“I can’t… I can’t deal with you being gone. You’re always gone, always going somewhere. I can’t do it. You need to quit your job and come find one here, find something to be with me. Am I not more important that your music? Am I not more important than playing those shows with your friends? Am I not?”

“Maria, when you agreed to be my girlfriend you also agreed that you understood what my life entailed. I can’t feel bad for you for agreeing to something that you obviously can’t fucking handle like an adult.”

Wiping her eyes, she looks down, and then speaks in vapid, bitchy determination.

“If you don’t choose me, over the road and your band, I’m gone.”

Smiling, I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling something inside of me collapse.

“If you can’t hang, there’s the fucking door.”