back from evening w/scb and nobody to talk to. alone, as usual.
i dont know what to even say about tonight. dont know whether to laugh or cry or stare at the wall. feel like its one of those nights when youre watching an episode of three’s company–one that youve seen like 8 times–where you laugh only b/c the canned laughter elicits an automatic response. and so you stare at the tv, not really watching, but laughing all the same b/c thats what you know how to do.
thats how i feel right now.
i picked him up at his friends place. he was a little dressy. i was just whatever. i thought of wearing this gauzy skirt. and then later–black skirt, black shirt, red heels, and finally said fuck it and went to the old standby: white shirt, jeans, my cool red shoes.
after driving around russian hill, we went to a restaurant in the mission called Little Baobab, as suggested by R. cute place, ambient. Food was very interesting (in a good way.) We gorged. We talked about stuff other than work. Strangest thing: he was listening to me…
it was just strange, as if time had been erased. as if we knew each other, yet didnt. as if we were travellers from parallel universes, meeting for the first time, but unsure of why things felt so familiar. It felt like that. Familiar, yet foreign.
For one, he was a complete 180 from ny scb. He seemed calm, content, the way I remembered him. The person I knew before all this craziness. And while I have more memories of him as sf scb over nyscb, it still seemed so shocking. I must have asked him at least 20 times what was his deal–b/c it was so unlike the strange Mr. Hyde scb i met over a month ago. He laughed, and not that dry, sarcastic, life is shit so kill me laugh, but a playful, joyful, im happy to be here laugh. It seemed strange that this was happening in real time–a page cut from a life so long ago.
As for me and him, well…he wore cologne. He smelled the way he did the first month we were going out, and then never after that. He stared at me from the moment he got in the car to the moment he left. A hard stare. An iquisitie taking it all in stare. The type of stare that is backed by a million thoughts. I pretended to ignore it.
The other test came at dinner. I wondered if, when he sat next to me, he would press his leg against mine. He did. Towards the end of dinner, he had moved closer to me, leaning towards me.
We were somewhat playful and giggly in the streets. sometimes our hands or arms would brush against the other, or sometimes we’d accidently bump into each other.
After dinner, we thought of seeing a movie, but ended up grabbing coffee, then going to a bookstore. and then i drove him home, all of it over so quickly. 5 hours dissolving as if it were 5 minutes. we sat in the darkness, in my car, staring and for some reason, I felt like I wanted to cry. It was like a cruel joke to have scb here–the old scb–and to know that it was all happening too late.
we were reliving a memory, I suppose, and it felt hazy and surreal. It felt so natural, so easy, and yet strange and confusing. I kept thinking, this is not him, this is not us, this will never be us again. Its strange to have known someone so well, loved someone so deeply, and then remove them from that time and place, and its as if we were meeting for the first time. I wish I could explain it better–this disorientation I felt. I wish I could explain what it was that made him different. The only thing I can think to say is that he was very soft with me, as if maybe he was finally tapping into his feelings for the first time.
I know it all sounds ridiculous, and I cant even describe what i mean. except that he looked at me the way he used to. the way he looked at me in the very beginning when things were still very sweet and innocent.
reminds me of the movie sommersby (god it took me a long time to think of the name of that movie). the short of it is richard gere character goes off to war. he’s married to jodie foster and is a real ass. 6 yrs later, he comes back. its him, yet its not. and she doesnt know which person she believes, or which person she trusts: old sommersby or the one right in front of her face.
he leaves tomorrow, not sure when. we said goodbye and he lingered still, as if waiting for some conclusion. I tried to push him out of the car as if I could care less. He looked at me with those unfamiliar yet familiar eyes. I stared straight ahead.
and then, almost abrubtly, he left, the way you jolt yourself out of bed when youre not quite awake but know you have to be somewhere. i honked the horn. he turned and smiled. looked down at the ground. picked up a piece of paper. walked towards my car. i unrolled the window. he stuck his head inside, “is this yours?” I shrugged and rolled the window up until his head/neck/arm was nearly snapped off. we laughed, or maybe it was just me laughing. i drove home. the end.
doubt ill see him tomorrow, before he leaves. i guess its just as well. its just too strange.
but I will say this, and I will say it with about 99.9% certainty: I know he still has feelings for me. Not like “oh youll always be in my heart” type feelings. But the kind that are present still. the kind the swirl around your heart and makes you smile for no reason. despite all the things he said and all that has happened, I felt it–as clear and as real as the sky is blue.
and how fucked up is it that my certainty comes now, at a time when it no longer matters. our entire relationship, I questioned his feelings. but not tonight.
but hell, maybe this was the way it was meant to be. Maybe the end of the road is the moment when everthing comes full circle–when all arrows point back to the beginning. I was right all along. He loved me. He still does.
call me crazy, but I just know
