Sometimes I desperately wish I were someone else, as I even read the back of a cereal box at breakfast over all the very loud chatter of countless siblings. It’s a very rough feeling to explain, but it just falls under I wish I hadn’t grown up the way I had, that there was something else to look to rather than just relying on grades which led into nowhere and having the application be in front of me and deciding to work instead after college. I felt excluded on the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life and strumming a guitar would go nowhere unless you’d get the proper ballads which actually required no guitar.
Then it’s as if being someone else would make sense and I would have the girl I want. I try not to think too much of Alex at this point even if I know exactly what the babyface’s intentions are. Last night we barely did anything besides listen to a few records and I could see him staring at me and I didn’t know exactly what was going through his head and I could only guess. To my religious parents he was just another bloke who was a friend of mine, Alison would only come when everyone else was out of the house and she had visited every room, to make sure that she had lived as everyone for one sole second.
I couldn’t cry to him about Alison, I couldn’t bring myself to speak to him as the same records played and I knew that I wouldn’t feel the same love to the same man, maybe something different would eventually blossom out of frustration, but I wondered if I had been a metaphor for Alison not loving me now.
Life was a big disorder where I had no idea and I kind of wanted to love someone and that someone would fall on the cards under Alison. It seemed to be falling away from my fingers like the tree leaves.
I was getting bored of the city, wandering around the dull Sunday around the same streets which I couldn’t even look at anymore, wondering how colourful would they look with ice and teeny patches of snow soon. I kept getting more and more anxious wondering how long would take me to collapse and I knew that on the receiving end of the phone Alex was surely waiting. I felt in an odd, dazed situation which I would never imagine as I was growing up that somehow feelings wouldn’t be mutual at all. I had my interest and I enjoyed his company and I knew that my interest was dipping into the sphere Alex had wished of, but that was still something I wasn’t sure when would happen as I would look at the reflection of myself in the windows of the shops.
It surely wasn’t a question of his gender even if it has never crossed my mind before, I just knew that I was attracted to women, but being with Alex wasn’t much different, it was just being with him and his clingy puppy attraction as I would see how his big brown eyes would just stare at me. If I had been sure in my sexuality what did it mean now, then? And did that even change anything?
I had surely no answer in my reflection.
Because I had no idea if I even had that in me.
I’d go to sleep thinking of Alison and making my way to her door was much more than obvious, after the months we’d spend together and she was surprisingly alone, her hair up in a ponytail and she just looked around, to make sure, as if it were the first sin, for me to head in.
Neither of us wanted to talk about getting back together.
We both shared the nearly finished pack of cigarettes among us, taking a cigarette each. I wondered how evident was the drift between two lovers and I knew that the only person now whose love I could see behind their eyes was now Alex, as Alison returned to a former lover. I wondered where he was, as the dog went into Alison’s lap and she kept scratching the dog behind his ear. I didn’t even know how to bring out anything to her, all I wanted as to somehow scratch a lottery card and win the jackpot which was once her love. And I could really see nothing behind her dark eyes, as she smoked. We locked eyes and she kept her silence, making it fairly awkward, making me wonder why do we even talk to people at all if they don’t care by the end of the day.
How do you even approach this? There is someone who is in love with me -
“There’s this... they’re attracted to me and I don’t know where to go with it.” I say all of a sudden, making Alison jerk first at the noise, look at me with cold eyes again which remind me of looking at a corpse, never believing it was alive, but recalling how it had once moved. Then it’s as if a stone fell off her shoulders, easing herself and her wings, making her able to relax and lean back against the sofa, closing her eyes, smirking lightly at her fear of me asking to take her back.
Maybe Mr. Hince always was the person she wanted back. Maybe no matter who she’d meet she’d always leave them for him.
“You can always try and see where it goes.” She pauses. “Be honest. Life is short, what do you have to lose from trying a new relationship? Sometimes love grows in very odd ways.”
Alison holds her pause even longer, looking at her feet without blinking.
“So you’re telling me to snog someone even if I don’t feel like it?” I say, looking at her, instead she looks ahead but all I see is that she’s blank and I wonder if this would’ve been just as weird if I had asked Meg, but I push the thought away. I think there’s plenty of people which want to get into my pants now. I push Meg away, since I’d been avoiding her by spending time with Alex who seemed to be calmly waiting.
“Yeah.” She inhales. “Why the fuck not?”
Then she pushes my shoulder jokingly.
“Go snog ‘er, what are you waiting for?” And she tries to scan my face, but I don’t tell her anything, as if I’m ashamed of my newly pondering attraction to a friend who wants much more. I just shake my head and she keeps smoking. “Suit yourself, you can’t be sulking forever, Jack.”
She says the last bit harsh and I just feel like throwing daggers at her, but instead I put my head between my legs. It’s been weeks and drifting to months. I’d never get over her. I just try not to look at her and once I raise my head I know what the kind of woman I’m deeply in love with. All I can wish is for her to come running to me when Mr. Hince dumps her again. My chest feels heavy, but I still feel myself desperately wishing as it mixes with the first thought of kissing Alex which feels oddly foreign, but feels like a taste of an adventure which I would try and explore, simply because I enjoy his company and how he trails behind me, how he calmly listens to everything we exchange and how he manages to listen, curiously trying to understand if Alison is actually my ex.
And then I desperately wish for all of this to end with Alison’s head between her legs, telling me how Jamie desperately loved her and where does all the love go?
Where does it go indeed?
Her dark eyes would not reply to me, just be vacant like the pit of a wishing well.
-
Please write a comment below if you liked it:)
I can't really say that this was as hard as usual, because thankfully it was easier, I really wanted to write it and I kept pondering on one-sided love specifically when you're not the one in love. Or attracted. I've been in those situations and I kind of wanted to expand on that and also bring in discovering your sexuality. I was attracted to a girl back when I didn't know that I was trans and that created a whirlwind of am I gay and everything and I've used that plenty as the inspiration. So I wanted to use it again and how it's like to dip yourself slowly and understand that maybe that person is the odd one in the bunch and somehow you are attracted to them.
I'm sorry if I use the experiences all over again, because well, I write more than I experience for sure.
What inspired me a lot to write this chapter was actually listening to The White Stripes which I miss heavily.
I've been kind of in and out of depression, so went for my daily key this day of writing what I know which is being highly depressed and that is how the first paragraph was born. And I kind of went on the spin of Jack not knowing what to do which is something a lot of people share, but I don't to be honest, I just happen to get kicked out of my dreams usually.
Thank you!
<3
Jamie
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