Prologue
Let’s try this again. Hi, I’m Molly. It’s really nice to meet you.
Even though we’d already been seeing each other for a few months I feel like we haven’t really gotten to know each other. It’s striking me just now, while we’re out for coffee and I told you a moment ago that I used to work on a farm, which surprised you. It was three full, fairly recent years of my life; I can’t believe you didn’t know. I guess you and I have never talked about our past that much, which is a fact that spontaneously reared its ugly head a couple weeks ago. You called me while you were on a trip home to tell me that not only had you, out of the blue, decided to drop everything and move back, but it was for some woman you had loved and wronged in your past. And here we are, meeting in real life for the first time after that conversation, and all I can think about is how badly I had hoped that seeing my face would remind you that I am a real person you spent the majority of the past few months with, not just some forgettable Canadian exploit or a nagging little memory that you had to gloss over when you told your “one that got away” about me.
I know that our relationship didn’t have the most conventional “page one”. Over the past few months, I learned all about how your body works, and then I was fortunate enough to stumble upon your quietly benevolent nuances, and then uncover your wit and intellect. I was enjoying everything about your nature and our facetious, fascinatingly effortless connection, unaware that I was having the privilege of intimately knowing a beautiful protagonist with a tragic flaw; but we never did the introduction bit. The realization that we condemningly skipped such a crucial step strikes often at moments when I’m least prepared to manage it. I’ll be making a cup of tea, or brushing my teeth when I absentmindedly trace my fingers over this new, roughened scar on my heart, and the pain abruptly sears to the same point of seething agony as the moment I hung up the phone that day a few weeks ago. You’re a man who believes in the sacredness of origin stories and appreciates the beauty of “fairytale” romance, and we started our story by throwing the book at the wall and reading whatever page it landed on.
God, we were sad. We were so, quietly sad. I knew it for myself long before I walked into your life and I could sense it on you a minute or two after we bared each others skin for the first time. We had yet to completely grasp the likeness of our consciousnesses before we hastily decided the physical curiosity was too much to bear. Your touch, your kiss opened the door to another place, another dimension; lightyears from the all-consuming frustration hidden in busy days at my unfulfilling job and eons from the nights I spent at home wrapped up in a blanket, paralyzed by a seeping apathy. Yeah, in context, a tumble in the hay does a pessimistic body good. Your soft, careful touch could leave the surface of my skin and the invisible impression that remained still had the capacity to pierce the vein and send a pure, dizzying rush of endorphins coursing through my body. That was an occurrence that would persist throughout our entire intimacy; I could never get so high in my life. On those nights, I would forget that I was sad, and I know you would too.
But because of that, our sweet, sad plight, you got the wrong impression of me. I’m not an addict satisfied by breathing in quick-fix, situational highs instead of taking on the arduous task of finding enduring fulfillment. I didn’t enjoy wasting so many nights on the couch watching stupid cartoons and drinking with you, but they were straight shots of unfiltered happiness to the veins. There was so much more I wanted to do with you; so much I wanted to explore and play with and discover. Over cheesy pizzas and nights cruising the city, you and I quickly learned that we connected on a far deeper level than laughing at the same jokes or being friends with the same people; we shared perspectives and decency and an appetite for adventure. We shared ideologies and parlance and skateboards. We shared senses of humour and outgoingness and an ability to connect with strangers. We shared a running banter, the depth and breadth of which is exclusive to the world of idiot musicians. We shared a love of spontaneity and of the outdoors. We shared an easygoingness and a love of music and of shithead little dogs. You complemented and completed me in ways that I didn’t know were possible by another person; I began to question the significance of every relationship I’ve ever been in. I have never felt so deeply about anyone before. I remember a moment when we were sharing a quiet night and a sweet embrace. You stopped me, mid-kiss, to say, “I feel like I’ve known you for such a long time.” God, I felt it too. I wanted to share everything with you. But I was sad, and you were sad, and lazy nights together were the quick and easy, microwaved-dinner fix to a quiet, all-consuming hunger for more out of us.
That being said, not knowing where I stood lost me a substantial amount of footing in that endeavour. If I’m not truly yours, would a push in a more constructive direction be overstepping my boundaries? Assumptions made by strangers and friends alike landed me with the un-corrected title of your “girlfriend”. Direct questioning of me by an entertainer on stage, confirmed with a head nod and a glance at me told me the same. I perfectly remember a lust-filled night where we gave away to our vices as per routine, and you abruptly stopped us to stare at me adoringly, wordlessly for a full minute. I cut it short by tossing you off and telling you to go for your smoke, as if I was impatient to start a movie with you. Once you closed the door behind you I had a second to collect myself and attempt to talk myself out of thinking about what I believed you were going to say out loud.
You thought I was so tough. You said it yourself, that’s one of the reasons why I was attractive to you. After getting laid off from my job, I learned that my employer screwed me out of thousands of dollars; this information came to me the day you left to visit home, and the very same day my grandmother died. My world fell the fuck apart. When the sky was crashing down the only stupid idea that was of solace was the notion that I would look strong if I tried to be tough about it. I was gathering the pieces of my sanity from the rubble over the next couple weeks when you called me to tell me you were moving to the other side of the world because you were in love with someone else. Christ, if I had to lose everything else in my life, at least I could be a “tough girl”. And I know that the night of your final going away party, I destroyed that image. I felt the second it happened, everything that had built up over the past few weeks snapped with the toothpick in my pocket that I fumbled with as I asked you why she was better than me. We were walking, and I was in the middle of a pathetic, sob-soaked explanation that if we had done this “for real” we would have been unstoppable. I was somewhere between the words to explain how unique and powerful our connection is and another sharp intake of breath when I felt your impatience strike me abruptly. It wasn’t anything you said or did, on the contrary, it was the blankness of your face and the regularity of your stride that struck me so deeply and suddenly. In that moment, I was not tough to you anymore. Which wasn’t fair, I had so few days to leave that impression with you before you left me forever to be with a woman who emerged quite suddenly from your past like something out of a nightmare- that’s the impression she’s left on me anyway. But after months of knowing the most subdued, sad version of myself, you finally saw me at my worst. And, in context of that, I could never blame you for walking away. Much less being able to walk away so easily.
I’m left with a gnawing emptiness. There’s a vacancy in my chest that manifested itself after reading the text I received to my apology to you for being drunk that night. You were still in town, but by the bluntness of your words you were already long gone. I had braced myself for that weeks ago, but it still ripped the support from the bottom of my lungs as viciously and as violently as if it were by surprise. And, in aftershock, it surprised every friend we shared; each one of them has told me at one point or another that they never saw it coming, that we seemed so good together.
I blame myself for you leaving. I blame myself for my part in our weird beginning and how we started in such a way that you, for some reason, felt compelled to keep the state of your heart a secret from me. I wish we were both open about our demons from the start. I will never stop kicking myself for being in such a pitiful state when I met you. I pick at every moment I can remember: every stupid thing I’d said, each day I didn’t get us to do something fulfilling, all the time we never spent with our friends, every stress-riddled dialogue (always because of my sad state of mind, it was never because of you). It’s not that I was the only thing that could make you stay, but I wasn’t myself enough over the past few months to make a more positive impression on you, and to help you enjoy being here more, which is what you deserved more than anything for the secret guilt and pain that had plagued you so fiercely over the past year.
So now I’m following through and never allowing who I am to be dampened again. My world went upside-down the day you left to visit home, and I was putting the tetris pieces back together in better spots over the next few weeks, when poof, the whole column of your affections suddenly disappeared. I can’t fix the gaping void that took your place in my and our friends’ lives when you left, but I can fix myself, and that’s exactly what I’ve done since you’ve been gone. I got a job I love, I’ve reconnected with my friends permanently, I’m writing again, I’ve immersed myself in Toronto’s music scene and I finally taught my dog how to fetch. I’m a vegetarian now, for shit’s sake. I’ve been re-discovering the best parts of myself, and I’ve been re-introduced to that tough chick who initially caught your interest. It’s taking time, but I will remember how to walk these streets with long, powerful strides and that quietly assertive posture. I will be living in my ripped denim jacket and leaning on a brick wall, just a little bit intimidating before I open my mouth. I will be tough and bad and even loathsome. If that fairytale romance story is what you are looking for, then I will be your villain, complete with black lipstick and hands stacked with tarnished rings. I believe that is the very least that a classic, captivating protagonist like yourself deserves, with your quiet sadness, your tragic flaw. So please, in return, don’t remember me as that sobbing mess that showed too much in a moment of weakness not too long ago, but as a conflicted soul who was tortured by uninvitedly falling in love with you, and then returned abruptly to the darkness. Think of that as my origin story, my new introduction.
It was nice meeting you.
