Russian Hill
As we wait for the next course, I look around the crowded restaurant, avoiding eye contact with the person sitting across from me. My contacts are too dry and I keep rubbing my eyes, accidentally smearing my mascara, in futile effort to see clearly. But my vision gets blurrier and nothing is making sense anymore. It’s all exacerbated by the fourth glass of Pinot I’ve drinking. I can barely hear him talking. It’s getting late now and we still haven’t touched the subject of us. I have started the sentence a few times but quickly go back to safe, neutral topics. I can feel his frustration rising. I can always tell when he’s upset. He’s not touching the food at all and he starts frowning more the longer the pauses in the conversations get. When the waitress finally brings the last plate, I crack.
“What are we doing right now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Us. What are we trying to be?”
“Oh. Why don’t you tell me?”
More silence. Why can’t I be more eloquent? I practiced this over and over again out loud until 3 am last night. How do I bring up all the emotions I’ve felt for him for two years? What are the words to explain that I can’t do this in-between state anymore? How do I end something that never truly began? I’m too drunk to create complete or complex thoughts before they come rushing out. I tell him I don’t trust him. That I know he tells me things he thinks I want to hear but I don’t think he means. It’s the wrong approach. He’s starting to be on the defensive, attacking everything I’m saying with a question.
“Why is this only coming out now?”
“I don’t know. We never really talk about things.”
“Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?”
“I already said I don’t know.”
My head is starting to hurt from the squinting and arguing. I can’t fully see him now. We’re just grasping into the air, hoping to find something to keep us together. Or at least I am. I’m looking for some common ground we can cling to. My heart is telling me it’s too late for that. The real root of our situation is the fact that we have zero sexual chemistry. Not even our mouths can match up when we kiss. There was no spark the first time or any of the subsequent drunken messes that we tried to play off as love. He admits it too. We don’t actually fit together in the way we thought we would. Maybe it’s because we can’t do anything sober. Maybe it would have been better if we communicated what we like. He’s still creating a list of potential solutions, even when it’s clear that we have reached logical conclusion of the conversation.
“Maybe we can try again. Start over.”
“I think we’ve passed that.”
“You’re probably right.”
Now I have to protect myself. Build back the walls that I let him take down over time. Put them back brick by brick. I’ve already started to erase him from my life. No more lunchtime walks or secretive messages over work chat. I’ll start deleting the pictures I have saved on my phone that no one ever saw. I’ll have to unfollow him on social media, remove myself from our shared playlists. Keep any mention of him out of my life, except for the fact that I see him everyday. He thinks we can still see each other in groups, but I know I’ll just run away. He’ll fade to an outline of what used to be there before the lines completely disappear. And it will just be empty space.
“I’ll miss this.”
“We’ll still be in each other’s lives.”
Perhaps.
