I guess everyone has their own “one that got away.” He was mine and he always would be. Stupid trivial high school flames, with their stupid attractions and attachments and ruses. It’s like a game, in the simplest sense. Well, he sunk my battleship, if we’re going to use that analogy.
He didn’t really seem like much. He was an average guy with deep, piercing green eyes. I could get lost in those eyes. But when he’d look at you he never really looked straight at you. He looked sort of past you. It was almost something you couldn’t see unless you were looking in his eyes, waiting for the contact that would never come.
He’d constantly do that; keep you waiting. He was never on time for anything. And before you could open your mouth to get mad at him, he’d point his eyes in your direction and “Sorry, traffic,” or “My mom took forever getting out of the house,” you to death and all would be forgotten. That’s the way it always was.
I guess I didn’t really mean anything to him. I like to say that to myself sometimes, maybe it keeps me grounded saying things like that. Somewhere, someway, he loved me. I was good to him. So, so disgustingly good that it made me sick to think about how bad he was to me. He wasn’t ever really there.
Sure, he’d say he was there, and look past you with those painful eyes. Looking somewhere he couldn’t quite reach. Like he was yearning for something but you had him tied to the spot with invisible ropes he could break but wouldn’t dare try to. He’d be looking at a car in the distance. Driving for miles on winding, unpaved roads that led to California.
He wanted to be a rock star. He acted like one. He wore the clothes and grew his hair long and learned guitar till his fingers bled and the strings turned a rusted, brown color in places. He’d curse over it, stick a finger in his mouth and go back to an A chord and start over again.
This one time he asked me what I thought of a song he’d written. He’d call me up every night and play his guitar for me. For hours all I heard was a sharp D-chord as his thumb hit the wrong note or his fingers tugged the wrong fret. For hours all I wanted to hear was the sound of his voice.
He called the song Midnight With You. He said it was for me. It was moments like that that made me fall in love with him. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t. At first it was as though he obsessed over me and I didn’t care. Then the shoe was on the other foot; I didn’t seem to fit his Vans sneakers.
Maybe he needed a skater-girl. Or a groupie. I think I wanted too much from him. I think I wanted more than his attention or his body. I think I wanted his heart and he wouldn’t give me that. He’d been hurt before; there wasn’t really any way to deny it. But it didn’t mean that he had to lie and tell me he loved me and then go on and not mean it.
He didn’t have to say it back to me every night we talked. He didn’t have to kiss me back. He didn’t have to do anything but pretend and look at me and pretend to care. Even the littlest bit.
But he didn’t. And after a while, of course, as with all good things, it came to an end. I knew his band and his music would always be first. Then his family, then his friends, then me. Or maybe I came after his religion or something. I wasn’t where I deserved to be. Not after what I’d given up to be with him.
I guess he never saw. Yeah, that was it. He never saw what he meant to me. And he stayed bitter for ages. Months. He wouldn’t talk to me at first, even though we both agreed it was time to move on. And those first two weeks I wanted him back. Oh, did I ever.
It was as though every pore in my body was screaming his name. I hinted, told him how I missed him. I asked him a zillion times if he still loved me. He’d say yes; then he’d go play his guitar.
))
hehe
