All I Knew

This is the story of change - the way that I was sucked into judging a person simply by their looks and the instances they were in. I ended up finding a person I'll never forget.

      He would gaze across eternity to look into those pearlescent eyes.  He would hold her etched hand, warming it within his calmly grasp.  He would whisper with his last breaths how he felt.  He would kiss those vermilion lips with his final amount of strength.  And then that would be it.  The shade would take him into darkness -into the very mouth of hell if he deserved so.  And then whatever peril lay before him after that, God or Satan only knew, but he would brave both heaven or hell knowing that she knew.

      But in this was the problem.  She didn’t know.  She couldn’t know.  And I couldn’t tell her.

* * *

      Work was tedious as normal.  Serving the colligate public was never going to be easy. All the drunkards were out en force that night too, looking to pilfer the last remaining slices of mass-produced pizza.  The floor was a mess, as always, and as always, I had to slosh around with a mop.  Stacks of dishes engulfed the sink, taunting me as they did every night.  My back screamed at me, chortling at my pain between the spasms.  There was nothing to do but finish up work and leave, as always.  But there was something amiss about tonight.  I knew that I was going to feel so alone on this night.  The air was crisp as it tore at me.  There was no wind, but the smell of the night reminded me of long walks…with her.

      She left me.  She left me cold and hard, like a bad habit that needed to be broken.  I missed her so much that night.  The air made me reminisce about late nights and long walks to nowhere.  The town would’ve been alive with drunks and scantily-clad dorm daisies.  Pizza shops would be packed to the brim with the intoxicated hoping to soak up some of their night’s fun.  Cigar smoke would be twirled around as the cars and trucks whizzed up Main Street.  And I could’ve turned to her and smiled throughout the whole ordeal.  But most of all, I could go back to the room, get a shower, and rest in the arms of a person that claimed she’d always be there for me. 

      But she wasn’t anymore.  And I was alone, meandering up to a fateful encounter that would rip the heart out of me.  He warned me that she was over, as I warned him when I would be back, but apparently neither one of them were watching the clock, as I fell through the doorway. 

      Fumbling beneath the sheets, they jumped and contorted to my presence, like cockroaches to the light.  I didn’t see anything but shadows and the glimpse of a face, a porcelain figure in between the body of my roommate and his sheets.  Her eyes were wide and scared in the paleness of the hallway’s incandesce.  She was underneath him.  It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were doing.  So I apologized half-heartedly, and I closed the door and left. 

      How dare them.  I just wanted to go get undressed and sleep.  But now I was venturing down to the basement and to the laundry room’s couch.  The arms of the couch were not hers, not my Julie’s, but alas, I began to drift asleep in them -those cold, harsh arms.  My thoughts started reflecting my mood.  I was in pain, so my mind concentrated on the painful experiences I’ve had.  She left me.  She outright left me, leaving nothing but a note and a ring.  And he knew it.  My dear friend John knew this.  He knew that this was a rough time for me.  That I felt alone and unwanted.  And how dare he.  How dare he bring this girl up to our room.  How dare he do unspeakable acts to her, especially knowing that I would be back soon.  How dare he seemingly rub it in my face saying that he can have a girl when he wants.  But me?  I couldn’t even keep what I had.  So while I lay here in the arms of a couch, he lay up there in the arms of some dame that he only wants two things from:  the time and her body, and apparently he couldn’t ask her for the time.  He would’ve at least known that I was coming.  But I knew that I would more than likely get in trouble for sleeping down here, so after about an hour’s debate and rant with myself, I trudged back up the stairs and leaned toward the door.

      The door squealed open, as if trying to tell me what went on behind it.  They were awake still.  I could barely look at them.  So there was nothing for me but my bed, my menagerie of teddies, and a solid pillow.  There was some sort of small talk, I can’t remember it.  All I had was my pain.  I wanted to scream at them, at the world, but I couldn’t.  It was too much to even scream, so I laid there in the darkness, waiting for my body to give up and sleep.  But then I started to hear it.  That sound that resembles a fat kid eating cake too fast -chewing mouth open.  His bed squawked below them.  They were doing the whole rough-and-tumble thing again.  I wish I had a weapon.  Anything.  But not for them.  For me.  And with that thought, I sank into my well again, drowning off into slumber.

      My dreams chased any happiness I had away.  I dreamt a lifetime.  I dreamt my soul rotting alone in a shallow grave -my body buried face down so she could park her bike in my a*s.  That’s what it was wasn’t it?  I was just a nice thing to own to her.  One year, one ring, one heart, all thrown back in my face.  Was that all I ever was to her?  She claimed love.  She praised love.  She held it on high just to shatter whatever hope I had of ever finding love.  I was a hopeful romantic.  Not no more.  Now, as so many others, I became hopeless.  Hopeless in a world without any glimpse of hope left in it.  So there I laid, tossing in the night, whispering to myself, damning the happiness that lay less than six feet aside me.  For I was bitter.  I hated.  For the first time in my life, I hated.  I hated life for giving me nothing but despair after despair.  I hated my passions for they gave me no comfort.  I even hated my best friend and his new-found toy that lay with her loose arms around him.  And then, I hated the sun that peered through the shade.

      Barely capable of moving, I jostled awake at the sound of her voice.  There she was, sitting upon his computer chair, curled up in a fetal position.  Her eyes peered over at me.  Those cat eyes peered into my soul, toying with it like it was a mouse.  Her burnt hair flowed in the gust from the window, dancing like a tussle of serpents.  Her mouth opened to reveal the voice that could deafen me.  I hated her and I knew why.  She was just like all of them, just another night, another toy.  Another pretty face that was seduced by John’s so-called mystery.  I’ve seen this all before.  Too many times before in fact.  But this time, I was alone, with no one to wake next to.  She spoke, but I did not hear.  He spoke, but I refused to hear.  So I clamored out of bed, got my shower, and left for work with a spiteful “See you later” thrown their way.

      Work again.  The day seemed to fly with nothing but a thought of burning pizza.  There was nothing.  No thoughts of her, not thoughts of him, and no thoughts of Julie.  My mind was devoid of all thought but work, and I can’t say that I was happy about it, for my mind didn’t know what happiness was that day, nor did it know pain, nor regret.  I was a soul-less shell, incapable of doing anything but work.  I became a drone, living life only to serve pizza.  And when I punched out at the end of the day, I just wanted to punch back in.  I knew she was still there, and I had no one to go to.

      Heels upon his chair, she was there, scouring the internet for some semblance of entertainment.  Her hair hissed at me, as I tilted my hat down further to avoid her eyes’ piercing me again.  I got my things, and nearly without a word, I left to drown myself in the shower. I left to wash away all the tears that I knew would surface.  I left to take back my life as the lead water drenched me.  And I felt pain again.  I was happy to feel something, but it was kind of the wry, half-happy that people get when knowing the hurtful truth.  I felt the lukewarm drizzle rain down upon my head, tapping into my skull.  I felt the stale air choke and seize up my lungs.  I felt the tears intermix with the cascades on my cheeks.  Then a simple twist, and it was all over.

      I regained awareness that she was in the room, so I had to play nice.  I had to put up my front and play nice.  I had to interact, I had to react, I had to be the normal me:  bright, bubbly, sarcastic, laughable, entertaining me.  I had to suck it up and be the me everyone knew.  So I dripped off towards my room’s door, hesitating for only an instant.

      Gazing over toward my dripping body, she smiled a wry smile, like she knew the truth before I did.  I calmly laid down upon my bed, almost tentatively turned toward my computer screen, and went on about my day as if nothing happened.  I felt like I was being infected by this womanly thing that just sleeps around, sitting there, knees bent, hiding her face behind them.  That’s right honey, you should be ashamed.  Hide.  Go ahead and hide.  You are just like every other girl that he’s had.  Just a meat bag.  Just another ship with a hole that needs plugging. 

      But then she spoke.  And I heard.

      Her words were strangely different from her apparent character:  this young thing with alabaster skin and more metal on her pants than a hardware store.  She was goth.  The long hair, the pale skin, the metal-ridden pants, the rivets in her ears, even the scars on her arms.  She was another one of those reckless youths that think their body is a carcass already.  But her words.  Her words were that of a young girl, not innocent, not even pure, but of a young girl, acting in the only ways she knew.  So I listened. She spoke of life.  She spoke of dreams.  She spoke of beliefs and morals.  The more she spoke, the more I listened.  Then, we actually talked.  We talked about so much.  We talked about likes and dislikes, hobbies and pastimes, past experiences and relationships, and fears.  We talked till blue in the face.  We talked till smiles burst forth from our faces, and laughter blurted out as well. 

      Her hair tamed itself -no longer was it snakes.  Her eyes did not peer into me any longer, but rather, they warmed me with their touch.  On the outside, we were polar opposites:, with nothing apparently in common.  But inside, our likes and dislikes, hobbies and pastimes, past experiences and relationships, and fears were so similar, hell, even the same in most cases.  I was wrong about her.  I was too quick to judge.  I should’ve known better than that.  And just like that, I lost an enemy I never really had, for a friend that I thought I never could have. 

      I realized that I was actually excited to interact with Amanda.  I wanted to get to know her more, so as I wouldn’t pass judgment so quickly.  I wanted to know her like I didn’t know anyone:  completely.  I didn’t even know John that well, but I wanted to know her that well.  There was something about her.  It wasn’t that she was so mysterious, hell it wasn’t even the beauty that became apparent to me that day.  It was the fact that someone that puts on this visage of being dark and gothic, really isn’t that far off from who I am, despite our apparent external differences.  I wanted to know the person underneath all of the black.  It was almost if she was hiding who she really was, personifying what she wasn’t just to throw people off from knowing the true her.  John knew the visage.  He knew the person she looked like.  But he never took the time to look deeper.

      John came back from play practice, looking as fit and prim as when he left.  Her eyes stopped delving into mine, and they leapt into the arms of his.  She was his property now, to do with as he pleased.  So I kept to myself as to not intrude on their foreplay-ish antics. The night was here, and she was his again.  The covers rustled.  The fat kid eating cake returned.  And I found a friend that I knew was better than all this.  I found a friend that was far beyond rustling the covers.  So I fell asleep knowing something that John didn’t:  her.

      The morning came, and she left, as an enigma of the weekend.  I could barely say goodbye when John rushed out the door with her in tow.  She seemed attached at his hip, like a fawn to the mother.  Interesting enough, she glanced back my way as the door stay gaping.  Then the stairwell door closed her to me.  She had become my friend, and so suddenly.  It was as if God himself came down upon me and touched my heart, allowing such friendship into me.  It was amazing that she mattered to me this much in such a swift manner.  I cared for her as I cared for John: my good friend that I grew with for the past year.  The sight of her eyes looking back at me when she left was ingrained in my skull.  But I dismissed these thoughts of her.  I got up, I got my things and I headed off to the shower, to wash away all of the surprises. 

      It was Sunday: my day off, my day to myself, and my day for chores, homework, and leisure.  Today, I would brave the streets of Kutztown to get out and walk, peruse the shops, and give me something to do other than sit in that stifling, cooped-up room.  So there I was, in the shower, just like the day before, and the day before that.  This time, I felt no pain, no remorse, no hatred.  I felt concerned in a sense.  Happy in another.  There was a new girl in my life, and I was concerned for her, for what she was getting into, and for what I might end up feeling for her.  I was happy to have a damsel in distress. I was happy to have a new friend, but I stopped the incessant internal monologue to myself, and finished up my shower.

      The streets called me.  I took up my key, my wallet, and the deadliest weapon I own:   my phone, and I whisked off to my Sunday.  Spring had arrived, finally.  The sweatshirt that was all but plastered to my flesh was ripped away.  I didn’t need it anymore, just like I didn’t need the drama in my life anymore.  “A Squared” was right.  That young sex pot was absolutely right.  Why do I need this drama?  I didn’t.  My thoughts turned to her all over again.  She said we were just friends, and yet she showed me my animalistic, sex-driven side.  She unleashed the animal within me, and I have to admit, I liked it.  I liked the raw, unadulterated sex.  Her dainty body felt so good ravaged up against mine.  I felt my pants get a little tighter at the thought of this sexual escapade, but then I remembered.  I remembered that “A Squared” didn’t want anything from me but friendship.  She just wanted to try me as I wanted her.  Peruse the merchandise.  I’m not going to complain about the sex.  But I wanted more, and she didn’t.  I suppose there’s a first time for everything, but for me?  I’m always found wanting more. 

      Strolling down Main Street, I stopped in shop after shop, gleaning what social life I could.  I was walking alone, but on Sunday, I didn’t care.  This was my day.  I could swagger down Main all by my lonesome, and still feel like nothing was wrong.  Even when I thought about “A Squared“, John’s toy, or Julie, I smiled, flipped their memory the bird, and walked on.  Nothing would stop my walk today.  Except me.  I stopped my walk.  Even I needed rest, no matter how inhuman I appear to some.  There was an unnatural calm in the room that day, as any other day that John’s not there.  It was quiet.  No blaring music, no rapping at the door, no tapping on the keyboard.  None of it was there.  I felt calm, even at peace.  Then my weapon when off. 

      The vibrating black hunk of plastic annoyed me, but I looked at it anyway.  It read Private Caller.  Questioningly, I picked up the phone, and answered it.  It was Julie.  So much for Sunday.  She wanted food, and she wanted it now, and she wanted me to come join her.  Don’t ask me how, but I still was friends with Julie.  In fact, I forgave her of all her misdoings to me as we went our separate ways.  There was some godly act upon me to forgive this woman.  I still don’t know how I did it.  But she wanted to go and eat.  So I put my stank-soaked shoes back on, and I clamored out of the room, out and down Main Street yet again.  Into the pizza shop we both loved. 

      It was there that I realized what I knew all along.  Julie was never the girl for me, she was just a girl, there for me one year, gone the next.  My thoughts turned to my new-found friend.  She would understand how I was feeling right now.  I felt like Julie was sticking a hot blade into my gut as she sat there droning on and on about how it was between us, and about her new toy: a teacher at some high school, in his mid thirties no less.  The thought of her started to turn my stomach sour.  The delightful chicken tenders with the sweet honey mustard sauce boiled within me.  She would know how I felt right now without me saying a single word.  I could sit there beside her, with tears in my eyes, and she would give comfort, perhaps even a hand or a hug.  But I couldn’t even expect Julie to pay her share of the bill.  So out came Tony’s wallet all over again.  Julie took so much from me, and now, she was taking more.

      The walk back was an interesting one.  Quiet.  The cars whizzed by, twirling the cigar smoke into my face like always.  I coughed harshly at the first waft of it.  She breathed deeply and freely while taking a pack of cigarettes out of her bag.  I didn’t even recognize this woman, this thing standing beside me, walking along this path with me.  The puffs from her mouth engulfed my face.  I wanted to hold my breath, hold it the whole way back to my room.  But my body could only take so much strain.  The Julie I knew was gone.  And in her stead was this cancerous thing of a woman, trotting along, destroying whatever future she once had.

* * *

      I didn’t expect this.  Doing my normal internet junkie routine, I checked my e-mail, just as I do daily, religiously.  Who in the blue hell is Cocco Puff?  I had to look.  It was her, John’s lady.  She wanted to be my friend.  How quaint.  We already were friends in my mind.  It just wasn’t translated online I suppose.  So I agreed.  Hell, I could’ve used a friend like her at that time, even any time.  We had so much in common, so I figured that great minds think alike and better minds stick together.  But she left a message.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that one message would change my life, and make the next three weekends hell for all of us. 

      She wanted my help.  She wanted to actually know John as she knew me.  Right there I thought, fat chance.  John’s too much of an apparent man-w***e.  He doesn’t like it when people know him too well.  He doesn’t like to show weakness.  He barely tells me stuff and I’m his best friend, his roommate, his partner in crime.  She wanted me to tell her about John.  Amanda.  That was her name.  Damn, I forgot this whole time.  Amanda.  I recalled all of this while still debating on giving in to her questions about John.  Now I was stuck.  I was at a point in which I knew that if I told the truth, I’d hurt someone’s feelings.  But if I lied, it would hurt them both later on.  So I manned up, and told her how John is in my eyes.  Looking back on it, I can see how everything I said may have been misconstrued as me making him look bad so I could move in for the kill, but allow me to dissolve any thought of that.  I told her the truth as I saw it.  That’s all I could do.  So I did.  She wanted to know more about him, so I told her.

      Than she told me what she wanted.  Amanda, why did you have to come into my life now?  I kept asking myself that question as every message we sent back and forth just solidified the fact that we both wanted the same things.  She wanted to know someone like she knew me, in spite of how quickly we knew each other.  She wanted to be held, not played with.  She wanted so much.  So many different things.  So many things that I knew John wasn’t going to give to her.  But I kept my mouth shut on that for the time being.  I simply told her to talk to him.  To try to get to know him.  And so I put my soul into helping them, helping her be happy.  And there is where this all started to turn for the worse.

* * *

      The weekend was here.  And like all Friday nights, I was at work, moping, doing dishes, serving the intoxicated.  But that night, my body broke.  A couple of weeks earlier, I sustained a nice injury to my ribcage, bruising and twisting it.  The work made it worse this night.  I wasn’t going to make it.  My mind wasn’t going to make it.  Slipping into the manager’s office, I explained my ailments to her.  She told me the words I wanted to hear.  Work was over for that weekend, and my body sighed in relief, but only to seize up again in pain.  And the night air was still so crisp.  Tomorrow, I would be bed-ridden, and she would be coming up again.  I was excited in a sense.  I would be able to sit around all day talking to a young lady that I was beginning to find quite interesting.  But the work I endured, and the pain, both took their toll on me, and I slipped into slumber.

      Daybreak shattered through the window.  I laid there, pondering my existence and what to do with it.  There was nothing to do but get up and get my shower.  I swear that shower is my confessional, where I tell myself all the things I hide throughout my day.  In that little cubicle of a shower, I reveal my inner-most thoughts even to myself.  Today, I just wanted to have some fun and get to know this lady, this girl, this person that was coming up to see another man, but revealed that she was excited to see me too.  I laid around, waiting for her to call the room saying she was there.  Hours passed and I bided my time on the internet.  Finally, the call came that she was there.  My heart skipped a beat.  I rushed downstairs to meet her, but once I was on the first floor, I slowed, adjusting my presence so I would appear less enthused.  And there she was, entering the door.  Fighting the urge to smile eagerly, I coyly said hi.  She returned with exact coyness.  And up to the messy, darken room we went. 

      It still amazes me to this day how long two people can talk.  It amazes me further that two people can talk about such a variety of subjects for hours upon hours and never get bored and never once stop for air.  Amanda and I spent the day talking.  Talking about ourselves, each other, the world and it’s misdoings, and most of all, we spoke of love and happiness.  We spoke of our pasts, conjuring up old memories that we both tried to forget.  Then Moulin Rouge happened.  I put the movie in and we watched, with me singing along.  I love that movie.  It caters to the hopeless romantic that I am.  Despite the ending, that movie made me pine for that love that is rare in this day and age.  That true, earth-shattering love.  That passionate, defining love that is all but extinct.  That love that comes from nowhere, and stays for good. 

      The Chinese food dripped from both of our mouths brought me back to reality that day.  The time flew by laying around.  Separated by only four feet and thin sheets, we talked as we laid in our respective beds, gazing intently across the darkened room.  Our eyes were heavy, but we fought back the urge to close them, just to look across at each other.  She was talking, and I was listening with my ears and my eyes.  Every time she spoke, I watched her tongue caress her lips, forming those sweet sounds I wanted to hear.  The room grew darker as the day wound down.  I still looked over.  And then I spoke.

      I told her about Julie, about “A Squared”, and about me.  I told her things that no one else knows but me, and even I want to forget.  I released so much frustration and anger and jealousy and sadness that night.  I told her everything I feared the most.  I revealed my true self to someone I had only met one week ago.  Confiding in her, I revealed some of my darkest memories and secrets.  Rolling in a stew of my own guilt and sadness, I spoke of my downfalls.  And she listened with her eyes, caressing me from a far with them.  I was me, finally.  There was no performance, no grand scheme to make myself look better than I truly am.  It was surprisingly easy to just allow myself to speak uninhibited about everything.  There were no boundaries of language, nothing that was deemed inappropriate, nothing that bothered the other.  We just talked on and on for hours, creating a trust in each other and a real understanding of each other that neither of us thought possible in one day.

      Then the door burst open, and John came in.  And my day was all but over.  She once again leaped into his arms, but this time, she glanced over my way as she did it.  I felt sorry for her in a sense.  She knew me better than she knew him.  It wasn’t fair at all.  Thoughts of sheer jealousy ravished my downtrodden skull.  I had spent all day lying around in the darkened room, talking for hours, just for my newfound friend to jump into the arms of another guy.  I had been here before.  But alas, I could not bring myself to be pissy all night, so I just let it all rush out of me.  I became my normal, crazy self.  We all joked around for a bit.  I was being my normal self, just trying to get a laugh out of everyone, showing off where I could, and making an a*s out of John and myself.  We carried on, John and I sang and pretended to rap.  Her laughter intoxicated me with such feelings of hope.  Hope.  God, I hadn’t felt this hope in a while.  I felt like there was something out there for me to hope for.  I felt that if this girl, this young thing, could be so precisely similar to me, and yet look so opposite, that there may be someone out there like that for me.  Someone I didn’t have to explain myself to, someone that understood me enough, someone that knew my weaknesses and my faults, and yet still could love me.  I warmed inside at this thought, and the more she laughed, the warmer I felt.  The night slipped through our laughs, and sleep deprivation took all of us, and we all just faded off into the night.

      The sun peered at me through the shade.  My eyes burned with it’s intensity.  John and Amanda were awake and off to eat some breakfast.  I let them go as I pretended to be asleep.  I heard her ask as they whisked out the door, “should we ask him if he wants to go?”  He didn’t ask, nor allow her to wake me.  I guess he wanted me to get my beauty sleep.  It never really helps.  So I laid there, keeping my smile from escaping, as they walked out, closing the solid door behind them.  It grew quiet once more after the stairwell door hissed closed.  There I was, laying in bed, wondering what I was going to do.  My body yelled at me.   So I stayed in bed.  There was nothing for me to do.  I was still sore.  So my day, Sunday, was nothing.  They came back enough to say goodbye and that was that.  Amanda and John left me in the darkened room to bathe in my lack of energy.  And there ended the second weekend.  And I still had a friend in need…actually, two of them.

* * *

      Even to this day, I am still amazed by how many people just need someone to talk to.  It’s like the whole world shuts it’s ears out to problems.  Most of the time people just want to get out their thoughts and their feelings and have someone actually listen, not even solve anything.  Some people just want to be heard.  And me, I’m always around to listen apparently.  Don’t get me wrong, I love helping people out in all walks of life, with all sorts of problems.  Hell, most of the time, I really don’t help them with their problems par-say.  I really only listen and give my own, rather unique insight.  Hmm.  And I’ve been ridiculed for worrying about everyone else’s problems.  Nah. I just listen a lot.  I give my time up to sit down and listen a lot.  So what of it?

      She was messaging me again, talking about all sorts of things that weren’t right with John and her.  So we talked online back and forth, while John said all of two words to her a night. Her and I just talked through everything, not even stuff about John and her.  We talked about life in general; our lives in specific. God, we talked a lot.  But the most surprising thing was we never got bored.  We never really said “okay, that’s enough.  I’m bored.”  Nothing was forbidden.  And I soon found myself wanting to hurry up back to the room after class to look for any random messages on my computer from the day.  For the first time in a long time, I started to use instant messaging again.  I was addicted to checking my email and my messages.  I ran, quite literally so many times to get back to the room to talk to her.  I really loved the fact hat I had someone that wanted to talk to me seemingly as much as I wanted to talk to her.  And there it was:  the one thing I didn’t expect.

      She had to work that weekend: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning.  I knew she wasn’t coming, and so did John.  John was working the whole weekend as well, so I was left alone again.  So I just worked my way through Friday, and slept, and ate, and talked to Amanda online for hours.  But this Friday night was different, as things tended to be at that time in my life.

      That night, I felt rambunctious, tired, and very lonely.  John was at work and it was getting later.  Talking to Amanda, like I always did, we were typing away to each other about all sorts of things, but more importantly, about relationships - a common theme between us.  So the topic was hot, and we kept typing away.  Pages upon pages of instant messages flowed from our hands as the night drew out.  Her passion in her words grew to a feverish pitch as we really delved into past relationships and what we both truly wanted.  There were no amount of words typed in a window that could say what we really both wanted to say.  So I had to ask.  And sooner than we knew it, we had graduated to talking on the phone.

      And, boy, did we talk.  Conversing for what seemed an eternity, our conversation spanned all of our favorite topics:  ourselves, our views, our jokes, and most of all, our similarities.  The more we talked, the more we found in common yet again.  I loved every second of it.  We just kept going on.  It never got boring.  It never got dull.  Hell, I never got tired.  Amazingly, before I knew it, the sun started to peer in at me through those god-awful shades.  In a night of verbal ecstasy, we had spoken on the phone for over six hours.  I just kept thanking God that a call to her was free on my phone. About an hour before she had to go to work at seven in the morning, she fiddled with the idea of coming up to Kutztown after work at noon.  I wanted to see her.  I loved being near her.  I loved talking to her.  So of course, I wanted her to come up.  So, she granted my wish.  She agreed to come up to Kutztown after work, after getting no sleep whatsoever.  I grew ecstatic in my dreary, half-asleep stupor.  She was coming up to see me and I knew it.  She made up a cover that it would be a surprise for John.

      So after we got off the phone at six in the morning, I smiled gleefully, and passed out cold.

      I awoke to the nagging sound of a cell phone.  She was here!  I quickly made like a tree and ran down to the lobby to meet her zipper-panted beauty.  And there she was, with raccoon eyes and all.  Her stance and her walk gave away her absolute lack of any energy, but she gathered what strength she had and smiled at me and clamored up the stairs.  And then to the door we came together, and I hesitated only for an instant, and the door swung open yet again.  And there it was: an empty room, messy as dorm rooms tend to be, but inviting nonetheless.  And we entered and closed the door behind us.

      Now normally, most people would think that I would be inferring that we quote, “got it on,” but in fact, none of the sort happened.  We came into the room, we both sat down, and we just talked as we had before.  We talked on and on yet again about everything.  But this time, she brought a nice little present: Monopoly.  She had brought the old game that I absolutely loved.  Believably so, I suck at the game, but I like it nonetheless.  So therein was our first game together.  IT all started off normal, wasting the time away.  I had forgotten how slow and long-winded that game was.  The game drew on for two hours.  The board filled up with little green houses and a few big, red hotels.  And once again, Tony found himself on the losing side.  But a few moves later, I was pulling out the victory with a few not-so-strategically placed houses.  The money was flowing in my hand and out of hers.  Her smile and gleeful bliss of victory was flipping into a resentful frown.  She had to win apparently.  She always has to win.  So in a fit of laughable semi-rage, she cast my houses off.  And in a playful fit of rage I flipped the board like a coin.  And the coin landed on the good side. 

      I felt a boil within my gut.  I felt the heat around my head.  I felt the smile graze across my face.  I felt her eyes peering over at me.  I felt my heart beat faster and faster.  I saw her lips quiver as mine began to tremble.  And in one swiftness unlike anything I had ever done, I leaned forward, crawling over the dismantled game, piercing my flesh with little houses, laying her back on the floor…

 

…and I kissed her softly and passionately.