The Many Faces of L*ve

“I can’t do this anymore, Lou!” She shouted, wiping tears off her cheeks.

“Do what?” I shot back, growing impatient.

“You know exactly WHAT! This half in—half out bullshit. How can you treat someone you ‘love’ this way?”

“Heather… Give me a break.”

“No Lou! Fuck you! How about you give me a break?”

“I told you it was going to be this way… I told you I wasn’t ready for this world. The mere thought of a Neighborhood Association makes my manhood ache.”

“This isn’t about a neighborhood association and you know it!”

Heather got up in a huff and stormed towards the door.

“Heather… I am not going to chase you.”

“Why the fuck not? Do you care about me at all?”

“Yes.”

She turned and fired a half-drank beer can at me. It caught me the upper cheek and the rim around the top carved a narrow slice just below my eye socket. Blood started to drip out.

“THEN FUCKING ACT LIKE IT!” She shouted.

I took a napkin off the table and pressed it firmly against the wound. Looked through the crest of the napkin at what I had made of Heather and felt a sinking sorrow rattle down my spine. It had not always been this way.

“I don’t ask a thing from you, Heather. And you ask everything of me. You don’t want me… You don’t want this—and you know it. You want me to be—someone else. You’ve just caught the sickness is all.”

“Oh my god. You are exhausting.” She exclaimed, standing in the open doorway.

“You are right. I don’t know how I do it. Sure is hard being me.”

I didn’t mean for it, but that sent her. She charged out the front door. I scanned the empty room, empty beer cans staring back at me, and exhaled. It had not always been this way.

The minutes dripped by. Every bone wanted to go after her. Tell her it was all going to be alright. Scream to the heavens that it would be different. That her dream would come true. But I knew better. That talk would be nothing but a load of cannon fodder. Blowing smoke into the heavens. Insulting the Gods with my lackadaisical approach to love.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to give her the world she wanted. When she lit up, the world balanced on one foot, waiting anxiously for her next move. It was a sight to see. She brought me so much joy. She did. But there is a hollow reality to being 25-years-old and knowing the white picket finish line was meant to be oh-so-far down the road.

And at that point… Once you know that about yourself—it becomes mighty challenging to see the value in a commitment. It was neither of our fault we met in college with a lot of life left to live. But it was our problem.

So, I told her that. Seven months ago. And we spent seven long months—at each others’ necks because she was too stubborn (or loving) to give up on me—and I was too cowardly to cut ties.

My stomach was in knots. She could be anywhere at this point. I took a deep hit of my beer, finished it off, and set off towards the streets. Breaking another promise.

Too drunk to drive, I stumbled out the doorway. Looked to the left. Looked to the right. And started onward. I hadn’t made it two steps down the walkway when I heard squealing and footsteps charging. Heather blindsided me at full-speed and sent us both tumbling down to the ground.

“You ASSHOLE! I was out here for like 10 minutes!”

“Who says I wasn’t just going out for cigarettes? I snickered, “I told you… I can’t keep running after you when you get this way.”

“Louis.” She said, getting almost stoic in her frenzied state. “Can you just answer one thing for me…? Honestly.”

“Of course.”

“What is so wrong with me?”

Pain. Agony. Sadness.

“Heather… Nothing. You are perfect. I… I am just fucked up is all. That future you want… It is not for me. I’ve seen too much. Besides, we are young. It is no time to get caught up in all that.”

“I have done everything for you.”

“I asked you to do nothing.”

Heather started wailing uncontrollably, swinging wildly. She connected with the same part of my cheek—and the cut opened up again. Blood came pouring down. The world felt milky. Fake.

I woke up in a hospital bed with an intricate system monitoring my vitals. There was a blinking green light.

A cop had driven by and found Heather crying over me unconscious.

Sitting up, everything hurt. Not from the cut or the punch. Or the week-long bender. It was the words… “What is so wrong with me?” Fuck. All I wanted was her to be happy. Just not at the expense of the life I needed for myself.

It had not always been this way.