Life As I Blow It (11 page)

Shortly after moving into our new place, we decided to have a party. Nick had been acting strange, and I was pretty sure I needed to break up with him. He'd been blowing off school and was starting to seem really irresponsible. My mom has always scared me into believing that if I pay my gas bill one hour late I will never be able to get a home loan, so I can be a bit uptight. The things I had loved most about Nick were that he had similar interests as me, and had aspects of being responsible, but was still fun. I've found throughout my life that that is a hard combination to find: Guys tend to be one or the other, but rarely both. Now that the responsible side of him seemed to be fading, I was getting sick of his brooding. I got enough of that living with Heather. I just wanted a roommate who would twirl broomsticks again and a boyfriend who finished his classes. The night of the party, he couldn't keep it together. He was drunk and rambling, then he went outside, set a bush on fire, and brought it into the house. It was a direct slap in the face to my fire department roots.

I was pretty sure he was in a blackout at the party so I decided to wait until the morning to tell him that it was over between us. I explained that we were just going in “different directions,” which I'd heard someone use as an excuse to leave a woman with amnesia on
General Hospital
.

About three weeks later, Nick announced that he was
moving back to Virginia. He told me he didn't want to lose contact with me, and promised that he would write. I liked the idea of a guy writing me letters. It seemed really romantic. For a while I got a letter every week. He claimed to write them while he was on his porch drinking his whiskey and smoking cigarettes and he referred to himself as a poet. I don't know what the deal is with me and guys that I break up with deciding to write poems to me, but at least Nick's were legible and he didn't make up words like Bucky did. He also never called me his “ho” in any of them. My standards had risen.

I was still having fun living with Amanda. She was great at being a lesbian—she brought home lots of girls. But one night I pulled into the driveway and caught her making out with this guy Rob in his car, which was confusing for me. I didn't want her to fuck things up. Having a lesbian roommate made me feel really open-minded for a girl who grew up in a town with one thousand people. She apologized for making out with a guy and assured me that she was really a lesbian.

“I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing.”

“It's okay,” I comforted her. “Just don't let it happen again.”

Eventually Heather decided to move to another state. I would miss her but was excited to finally be able to keep a carton of milk in the house. Now we needed a replacement roommate. Amanda asked her friend Misty, who was also a lesbian, to move in. Now I was a straight girl living with two lesbians. I could see my sitcom developing and I hadn't even moved to California yet.

Unfortunately Misty was out of her mind. She used to
write mean things about Amanda and me on pieces of paper then leave them in odd places. I'd lift up a Q-tip box or a plant and read that I lived like a pig and had fat arms. I was very clean and prided myself on it, so the living like a pig part really pissed me off. Each time Amanda or I found a passive-aggressive note, Misty would act surprised and say that she didn't write it. It made no sense. If she didn't want us to find them, she'd have thrown them away. She was like a mean note hoarder. I do think if she would have lived there for much longer she would have killed me. Amanda and I had daily meetings, trying to figure out how to ask Misty to leave without incident. Luckily one day we came home and she was just gone. She'd taken all of her stuff. Angry notes were left uncovered everywhere. She really hated us. I guess she couldn't take me or my fat arms anymore. I was relieved that she had left without murdering me in my sleep, but now Amanda and I needed a third roommate yet again.

A week later, Nick wrote me one of his drunken letters and told me he was coming back to finish school. Amanda thought this was the perfect situation—he could just move in with us. I was hesitant. I was over him at that point, but I hated his mood swings. Those are only fun when you really like someone. I wasn't quite comfortable with the idea of him being our roommate. So he moved in.

He and Amanda had sex a few times, which was pretty confusing. I didn't even really care that she and I had had sex with the same guy who was now living with us; I just cared that she was a lesbian. I was sure we had talked about this behavior when she made out with Rob. I asked her to stop having sex with Nick, which surprised her because she didn't think I knew about it.

“You guys are my roommates. Of course I know.”

“I'm sorry. Are you upset? I thought you didn't have feelings for him anymore.”

“I don't. I don't think I do anyway. It's just weird, mostly because you're a lesbian. It feels like you're losing focus. You're in COLLEGE! This is the time of your life to be a lesbian.”

“I know. You're right. I don't even like guys. Sometimes I just slip up,” she explained.

“Okay. Just don't let it happen again. I can't lose another friend.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are
you
talking about?” I asked back. I knew I was talking about Andy, but I didn't know if
she
knew I was talking about Andy. I also didn't feel like crying.

“No, I mean when you said you can't lose another friend. Who are you talking about?”

“What?”

“This game sucks,” Amanda conceded.

“Who do you think, Amanda?” Tears started to stream down my face, but they weren't the kind I mustered up on cue. “Andy. I lost Andy. And now we barely hang out and when we do we both act like fucking morons. It's so dumb.”

Amanda hugged me. I wept like a baby. If I'm even kind of upset and then someone hugs me, I lose my shit.

Fuck. It was my senior year and my heart still belonged to Andy. I didn't understand what the problem was. I'd had a few boyfriends since, even ones that I really had feelings for, like Nick. But somehow, no matter what, my heart still skipped ten beats when I was around Andy, even though those times were few and far between.

A couple of weeks later Andy asked me to meet him for lunch. I was usually the one who instigated us getting together,
so I was particularly excited at his invitation. I put on my lucky toe ring and did the best I could with my hair.

Andy wasn't much for small talk, so he got to the point right after the chips and queso arrived.

“I'm moving to Little Rock.”

I stared at him. Little Rock was four hours away, probably fourteen hours in my Mustang.

“That's really exciting,” I lied. “What are you going to do there?” I felt the tears coming up and fought them with everything that I had.
Not here
, I thought.
Not at Chili's
.

“I'm not sure. I just need a change … are you okay?”

“I'm great! This queso is just so spicy.” My face does sweat when I eat spicy food, so it wasn't a total lie.

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, shit. I forgot I have a test in an hour!”

“But it's Saturday.”

“I know! Rude, right? I'll see you later.”

I bolted home, into my room, and cried into my pillow, hoping not to stir the neighbors. Any hope that I had in the back of my mind that we would end up together had just fizzled. I knew that I was planning on moving away, but I wanted to leave first. I didn't want him to leave me. Suddenly it didn't feel easier to have someone make the final decision for me. That previous theory was so stupid. This was so much worse. I wondered if this was how my mom felt when my dad made the decision for them.

I guess I cried myself to sleep because the next thing I knew, Nick was sitting on the side of my bed rubbing my back.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I rolled over and looked at him. “I'm fine. Why?”

“Well, I got home a little while ago and it sounded like
you were playing one of those whale sounds CDs in your room, but I know your CD player is broken. What's up?”

I was taken aback by his concern. Even though we were roommates I hadn't felt the friendship that we had once shared. I had really distanced myself from him. I'd let him move in after a long discussion about how I didn't want it to be weird between us and I assumed he understood part of it “not being weird” was not fucking our lesbian roommate.

The Nick I used to love was back, if only for that afternoon. He comforted me. He spoke about Andy and me in ways that confused me, because they hadn't spent much time together.

“How do you know so much about this?”

“You love him,” he said to me.

“Why do you think that? Why do you know that? I'm supposed to be over him, and you're all supposed to think that. Oh God, do you think that he knows …?”

“I just know what you look like when you're in love.”

I released a sound so horrible I'm not even sure it classifies as a cry. It shocked me to the point that I began to laugh. Nick started to laugh, too. It was just like old times—so we had sex.

That afternoon's festivities were like the breakup sex that we never had; neither of us took it seriously. The only thing that really stuck with me was that he encouraged me to tell Andy how I felt before it was too late.

I didn't listen to Nick. I figured since he was someone who should probably be on medication he wasn't necessarily the best person to take advice from. But as I was approaching my senior year, I decided I wanted to check out a theater company in Little Rock. At least that's why I told Andy I was going to be in his neighborhood.

Andy offered to let me stay on his couch. My plan was to stay on his face. I didn't want to leave Arkansas without getting this sex thing right with him.

When I got to his apartment, everything felt weird. There was more distance between us than before. I didn't take this as a hint; in fact I took it the opposite. Here's the psychotherapy rundown of it all: If you grow up fighting for a man's attention, specifically your father, you will probably find yourself attracted to men whose attention you have to fight for. I also realize this is not exactly groundbreaking information.

That night in Little Rock, Andy and I had sex on a pullout couch in his apartment. It was even more awkward than the first time we did it. We just went through the motions and neither of us seemed to be getting any real enjoyment from it. It was blatantly clear that we would never have sexual chemistry. With him I really wanted to let it slide. I guess I thought there was something more, but thank God we never worked out because I really do like sex and that kind of relationship would have been a huge bummer. When we were finished, Andy didn't stay on the bed with me nor did he invite me to his room. He just went to his bedroom and left me on the couch with my own thoughts, which were mainly focused on not crying so hard that the police would show up.

The next morning I woke up before him, so I left. I drove home and decided to put him out of my mind and focus on enjoying my last few months in not only college, but in Arkansas. I was involved in something called the “Mount Sequoyah New Play Retreat” and it was about to start. Mount Sequoyah is a beautiful place on the top of a mountain, with
tons of cabins and a beautiful view. It seemed like a good way to go out.

The retreat was for playwrights to come and workshop their new shows. The actors would work with them, then at the end we'd put the shows up for an audience. A few of my friends from theater, including Michele, were also doing it. There were some others whom I hadn't met who used to go to the University of Arkansas and were coming back to participate. One of those guys, John, was really cute. Michele laid dibs on him pretty quickly and followed through. They were making out within about two hours of meeting, and it was the middle of the day.

It was my last few weeks in Fayetteville. Since Michele had taken up with John, there weren't a ton of options for distracting myself from thoughts of Andy. I tried not to care, but at night after rehearsals it became kind of a bummer that I didn't have a make-out partner. We'd all go out for drinks, but I just didn't find any of the new guys interesting, although there
was
one who thought he was really suave. His name was Colin. He had gone to school at the U of A and was now living in California. From what I heard, when he was at the U of A he fucked everybody. He was kind of cute, but his sleazy attitude that he could get any woman he wanted was really annoying. He constantly tried to flirt with me, but I laughed him off.

The thing about guys who act like that is that eventually I wind up attracted to them. At first I find them ridiculous, then I feel sorry for them, then I develop a crush. The final night of the retreat, I put my favorite long, wavy crinkle skirt over my black bodysuit, added my favorite choker for good luck, and headed out to party.

The more I drank that night, the more Colin's behavior became irresistible to me. I walked over to Michele and told her that I was going to hook up with him that night. I wanted her permission.

“Really? I knew it! I say go for it. He's totally cute,” she encouraged.

“He is, right? Did you know that he was in
Biloxi Blues
?”

“Really? That Matthew Broderick movie?”

“Yep. They filmed some of it here or something. Whatever—Andy's never been in a movie.” With that I sauntered off toward Colin to laugh at his dumb jokes all night long. He was eating it up.

I can't tell you the specifics of the rest of that night because I don't remember them. All I know is that I woke up in my bed and my clothes were not on. My head was pounding. I stood up to go get some water and aspirin, then caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I was still wearing one part of my outfit. Naked with a choker: not a good look. I then saw a note on my dresser.