Hello, I Dislike You Intensely. Have a Nice Day.
Entries #48-49.
He wasn’t here today. I didn’t text him because I didn’t want to know.
Things felt terrible with me by myself. I mean, to the outside observer, I guess it only looked slightly pathetic, but on the inside I felt like everything I was doing was agonizing and wrong. Chaque pas, un faux pas. I never knew how much I fucking depended on him just to breathe normally, just to let my lips separate a little like how they’re supposed to be, because I kept pressing them back together.
Isn’t that awful?
I have no friends. All fucking over again. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe myself.
It’s awful. It just
Fuck.
--
He was here today, catching me just as I got to my locker between Dance and Computers, something he’d never done before. I jumped when he appeared all suddenly, feeling self-conscious because I was sweaty and gross from conditioning. It suddenly dawned on me then that he had never seen me sweaty and gross before. When I was mentally and emotionally fucked up, when I was crying, yes, but not when I was sweaty and gross. And this just seemed really bizarre. I was so absorbed in the oddness of this that I almost missed what he said to me. “So, I spent the entire day at that park yesterday.”
“Really?”
He nodded, kind of eating his lips. “It was…it was almost too much. I could almost literally see us, when we were still leaving notes in trees. And there was this spot I came to, it was like a circle of trees on a hill, near the golf courses. I don’t know if you remember it.”
I definitely did, for more than one reason.
“Well, okay…so you never knew this, Dani, but. That was where I’d take Delia whenever we went to that park. It was like our special place. She…she loved it. Said it felt like a doorway to another world. She liked stuff like that.”
I got the feeling he wasn’t saying this to hurt me, but rather that he was caught helpless in the grip of the past, like a giant hand wringing him dry.
“I know,” I said.
“You do?”
“I mean, I saw you two together there one time.”
“Oh. I never knew that.”
“Yeah.”
“But yeah, Dani, I stayed there for a long time, and I just thought about things. And I tried to make sense of things. Like why I took you to that particular spot so soon after we started going out.”
“I was wondering that too…for a while…”
“And so I realized that it boiled down to two reasons. A, I was still hurt by her breaking up with me and I thought if I put you in the literal spot where she used to be, my heart would fill itself back up in the same way. And B, I wanted to spite her. I imagined she just knew when another girl was in her place, and so basically I wanted to rub it in her face. So I – I used you. And I’m sorry. I’ll never do it to anyone again.”
I blinked rapidly, speechless. It did not stop there.
“Actually, that was a secret part of the reason I asked you out. To fill up that awful space. Not a big part, believe me. A really small, really covert part that I wasn’t even aware of. I swear. In hindsight, I guess I kind of suspected it, but then I tried to push the idea away. Make out like we were different…maybe it was true, maybe not. Maybe it doesn’t matter and I should stop worrying.”
All traces of my sweat had evaporated. The late bell rang. A few more tardies, and it’d be a parental conference for me.
“Dani, I’m sorry. If I could go back and do things different, I would – "
I tried tuning out his voice, tried to concentrate on whatever it was I’d wanted from my locker. But I couldn’t make sense of the little ring of numbers, much less remember my combination or what I was looking for. So I pretended to storm away indignantly, when I really ended up in the bathroom to cry.
After a while, I heard a pair of footsteps walking down the hall. I thought they’d turn and go in another direction, but they didn’t. They walked into the bathroom and stopped in front of the sinks. I nearly suffocated myself trying to hide the noises I’d been making into my sleeve. From the other side, there was no sound of running water or anything that would indicate that something normal was happening. It was probably an alien life-form planning to suck my brains out in the most horrible way.
“Is everything okay?” the alien asked. Its voice sounded like felt cloth. Warm, with a kind of fuzz to it, like it’d just woken up in a nice bed. I resented that.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
The alien made a sympathy noise. I wondered why it was attempting to console a complete stranger inside a bathroom stall instead of hurrying up and assimilating me already. If it’d been me, I would have strongly considered running from the bathroom and finding another one that didn’t have a crying person. Crying people make me intensely uncomfortable.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she pressed. “If you don’t, I understand.”
“Not really,” I said.
“‘Kay,” she said.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“I guess.”
After she left, I didn’t know what to do anymore. My thoughts felt like Silly String and drunk things and gnat clouds. I ended up wandering around the school pretending to be a gypsy or a hobo, but only in my head and not outwardly, which would have been sort of hard anyway. Like when I was little I would pretend I had just survived an apocalypse, and I was trapped under rubble in the freezing cold. It was really just an excuse to put my pants on my head. And no, I don’t care to elaborate on the connection there, or anywhere. You are on your own, Diary. I have thrown you out into the metaphorical cold.
Anyway. I kept thinking about what Alex said and what it could possibly mean underneath everything. Like why did he tell me at this particular time, so close after the fight, and what does he feel about me now, and have things changed with us and if so how, and then there’s always the future, there will always be the future until you die, and then there’s still future to spare after that. I thought about all those things until they got old and then I still couldn’t stop thinking.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of the day. It was unbearable. I kept seeing the word ‘unbearable’ inside my head and agreeing with it, over and over. Yep, unbearable. Yep. Unbearable. And then suddenly, I found myself letting me into the house with barely any recollection of how I got there.
This house is too quiet. Too, too quiet and too house-like, yet depressingly and unsettlingly un-house-like. I’m scared of being alone now. I used to like it. But now I’m scared I won’t be able to control(?) myself. Or I can’t trust myself with myself, if it’s even myself. The “right answer” is almost certainly no, but on the contrary, if I didn’t have that part I just know I’d feel incomplete.
I did promise him I’d get some form of help by Sunday, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe things are different now, and promises customarily dissipate into options.
I feel lousy for saying that, but that’s what happens.
I’ve thought around and around all day only to discover that there exists no direction I want my thoughts to go in. So I’ll stop writing. I’ll stop thinking. I’ll stop doing everything but the one thing that’s always left, whether I want it or not – breathing.
Things felt terrible with me by myself. I mean, to the outside observer, I guess it only looked slightly pathetic, but on the inside I felt like everything I was doing was agonizing and wrong. Chaque pas, un faux pas. I never knew how much I fucking depended on him just to breathe normally, just to let my lips separate a little like how they’re supposed to be, because I kept pressing them back together.
Isn’t that awful?
I have no friends. All fucking over again. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe myself.
It’s awful. It just
Fuck.
--
He was here today, catching me just as I got to my locker between Dance and Computers, something he’d never done before. I jumped when he appeared all suddenly, feeling self-conscious because I was sweaty and gross from conditioning. It suddenly dawned on me then that he had never seen me sweaty and gross before. When I was mentally and emotionally fucked up, when I was crying, yes, but not when I was sweaty and gross. And this just seemed really bizarre. I was so absorbed in the oddness of this that I almost missed what he said to me. “So, I spent the entire day at that park yesterday.”
“Really?”
He nodded, kind of eating his lips. “It was…it was almost too much. I could almost literally see us, when we were still leaving notes in trees. And there was this spot I came to, it was like a circle of trees on a hill, near the golf courses. I don’t know if you remember it.”
I definitely did, for more than one reason.
“Well, okay…so you never knew this, Dani, but. That was where I’d take Delia whenever we went to that park. It was like our special place. She…she loved it. Said it felt like a doorway to another world. She liked stuff like that.”
I got the feeling he wasn’t saying this to hurt me, but rather that he was caught helpless in the grip of the past, like a giant hand wringing him dry.
“I know,” I said.
“You do?”
“I mean, I saw you two together there one time.”
“Oh. I never knew that.”
“Yeah.”
“But yeah, Dani, I stayed there for a long time, and I just thought about things. And I tried to make sense of things. Like why I took you to that particular spot so soon after we started going out.”
“I was wondering that too…for a while…”
“And so I realized that it boiled down to two reasons. A, I was still hurt by her breaking up with me and I thought if I put you in the literal spot where she used to be, my heart would fill itself back up in the same way. And B, I wanted to spite her. I imagined she just knew when another girl was in her place, and so basically I wanted to rub it in her face. So I – I used you. And I’m sorry. I’ll never do it to anyone again.”
I blinked rapidly, speechless. It did not stop there.
“Actually, that was a secret part of the reason I asked you out. To fill up that awful space. Not a big part, believe me. A really small, really covert part that I wasn’t even aware of. I swear. In hindsight, I guess I kind of suspected it, but then I tried to push the idea away. Make out like we were different…maybe it was true, maybe not. Maybe it doesn’t matter and I should stop worrying.”
All traces of my sweat had evaporated. The late bell rang. A few more tardies, and it’d be a parental conference for me.
“Dani, I’m sorry. If I could go back and do things different, I would – "
I tried tuning out his voice, tried to concentrate on whatever it was I’d wanted from my locker. But I couldn’t make sense of the little ring of numbers, much less remember my combination or what I was looking for. So I pretended to storm away indignantly, when I really ended up in the bathroom to cry.
After a while, I heard a pair of footsteps walking down the hall. I thought they’d turn and go in another direction, but they didn’t. They walked into the bathroom and stopped in front of the sinks. I nearly suffocated myself trying to hide the noises I’d been making into my sleeve. From the other side, there was no sound of running water or anything that would indicate that something normal was happening. It was probably an alien life-form planning to suck my brains out in the most horrible way.
“Is everything okay?” the alien asked. Its voice sounded like felt cloth. Warm, with a kind of fuzz to it, like it’d just woken up in a nice bed. I resented that.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
The alien made a sympathy noise. I wondered why it was attempting to console a complete stranger inside a bathroom stall instead of hurrying up and assimilating me already. If it’d been me, I would have strongly considered running from the bathroom and finding another one that didn’t have a crying person. Crying people make me intensely uncomfortable.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” she pressed. “If you don’t, I understand.”
“Not really,” I said.
“‘Kay,” she said.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“I guess.”
After she left, I didn’t know what to do anymore. My thoughts felt like Silly String and drunk things and gnat clouds. I ended up wandering around the school pretending to be a gypsy or a hobo, but only in my head and not outwardly, which would have been sort of hard anyway. Like when I was little I would pretend I had just survived an apocalypse, and I was trapped under rubble in the freezing cold. It was really just an excuse to put my pants on my head. And no, I don’t care to elaborate on the connection there, or anywhere. You are on your own, Diary. I have thrown you out into the metaphorical cold.
Anyway. I kept thinking about what Alex said and what it could possibly mean underneath everything. Like why did he tell me at this particular time, so close after the fight, and what does he feel about me now, and have things changed with us and if so how, and then there’s always the future, there will always be the future until you die, and then there’s still future to spare after that. I thought about all those things until they got old and then I still couldn’t stop thinking.
I don’t know how I got through the rest of the day. It was unbearable. I kept seeing the word ‘unbearable’ inside my head and agreeing with it, over and over. Yep, unbearable. Yep. Unbearable. And then suddenly, I found myself letting me into the house with barely any recollection of how I got there.
This house is too quiet. Too, too quiet and too house-like, yet depressingly and unsettlingly un-house-like. I’m scared of being alone now. I used to like it. But now I’m scared I won’t be able to control(?) myself. Or I can’t trust myself with myself, if it’s even myself. The “right answer” is almost certainly no, but on the contrary, if I didn’t have that part I just know I’d feel incomplete.
I did promise him I’d get some form of help by Sunday, but now I’m not so sure. Maybe things are different now, and promises customarily dissipate into options.
I feel lousy for saying that, but that’s what happens.
I’ve thought around and around all day only to discover that there exists no direction I want my thoughts to go in. So I’ll stop writing. I’ll stop thinking. I’ll stop doing everything but the one thing that’s always left, whether I want it or not – breathing.