“It’s just not fair to you,” he said, holding my face in his hands.  It was easy for me to forget that Seth was substantially uninformed of most of the goings-on in my life.

“Fairness,” I muttered, holding back the urge to laugh, “isn’t something that’s factored into most scenarios for me lately. It’s nothing I’m not used to.”  He kissed me softly, before jumping up nervously to leave.

I followed him reluctantly into the kitchen as he slid his shoes on, slowly.  He always removed his shoes when he stopped by, in instinctual consideration of my off-white carpeting.  It was one of the tiny little details that made him stand out to me.

“What do you expect of me?” he asked, looking up at me with a slight look of desperation in his eyes.

“I don’t,” I stated, without hesitation.  “I don’t think it’s really my place to have any expectations of you.”

I wasn’t putting on a façade, or trying to tell him something he wanted (or needed) to hear.  It was simply the truth – this unexpected emotional rumble inside me had caught me off-guard as well, and my instinct told me to simply sit on it.  By making no demands of him, a part of me felt more assured that the situation was still within my control.  There was still an innocence to it, and, for the most part, a tremendous amount of self-control on both our parts.  It was still relatively safe.

I never thought of where he went after he left me.  There was no point in it – it would surely drive me to an uncontrollably frustrating state that would leave me jealous and hopelessly wanting.  I was happy to exist in a sort-of fantasy state, where the thought of being with him was still a dream and not a reality.  It was…enough.

He turned for the door, and paused for a moment before turning back to me for one last embrace.  I stood, on my toes, with my face buried in his chest, already desperately wanting the next time, before letting him kiss me goodbye.

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Mark asked if I was involved with someone, given that the last time we had spoken to each other, the circumstances had seemed much more…mutual. Although I wasn’t quite sure how to respond, I did so with surprising honesty.

“Sort of,” I admitted. “I’m not really sure what’s going on.  It’s confusing.”

I didn’t know how to explain to him that, from the outside perspective, I couldn’t actually claim to be seeing anyone.  The weeks leading up to the confrontation were unsettling ones – at least, emotionally – and even I wasn’t sure where I stood in my own romantic front.  I had been treading carefully, afraid to do or say the slightest wrong thing that might make waves or upset the status quo, but I couldn’t tell if that was aiding or exacerbating the situation.

I tried to go about my daily living, keeping to myself the tiny flutters in my stomach that would instantly follow a random hello or other tidbit of communication from him.  Don’t let it get to you, I told myself.

Mark didn’t quite understand, and I really hadn’t expected him to.  I couldn’t give him a distinct reason for reneging on my initial interest in catching up with him, and while part of me struggled with the slightly bruised look in his eye and the pain in his voice, I found myself overwhelmed with relief.

This is what we had needed, for each of us.  To let go.

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“It was a funny sort of weekend, wasn’t it?” Derek said, generously spreading out the fresh bagels he’d brought with him.  “Weird vibes all around.”

“You’re telling me,” I muttered, diving into the bagels as if I’d not eaten since the last time Derek brought food.  “I’m still not quite sure I was the person who experienced my weekend.  A little too dramatic for my normal liking.”

The days leading up to Tuesday breakfast with Derek had been wrought with unsettling, vulnerable emotions which plagued me, continually, throughout most of my weekend.  The situation with Jon had come to a head (much as I had anticipated it might, though the emotional bee-sting was deeper than expected), leaving my seemingly-strong ego slightly tattered and very bruised.

“What was so dramatic about it?” Derek inquired innocently.  I had, up until that point, almost forgotten that he didn’t know about my strange little non-fling with the man who was never meant to be mine.  Then again, no one did, save for Soundman Sam (due largely in part to his geographical displacement and utter lack of knowledge base regarding that facet of my life).  Removing Jon’s involvement in my weekend drastically cut down on the level of expected drama, and I was left fumbling for my next words.

“I saw the Coworker,” I muttered, hoping this would be enough of a shock to fill in the dramatic gaps.  Derek chuckled a bit – not out of surprise, per se, but more with an air of expectancy…a hint of, ‘I told you so’.

“I hope to Christ you don’t refer to me to other people by some stupid nickname,” he laughed.  “If I find out you do, I’m gonna stinger splash your ass.  Now…do tell.”

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“It’s never going to work,” he said, sullenly, still staring at the floor.  “I really think you’re wasting your time.”

“You know what’s a waste of time?” I offered.  “That we’re still here even discussing this. Don’t you have work or something?” James glanced down at his watch and let out a soft sigh.

“I just don’t want to see you get -”

“Hurt, I know,” I stated, my hardened demeanor softening slightly at my friend’s concern for my emotional well-being. “But I’m probably going to, eventually. In fact, I definitely am.  I could get hit by a bus the next time I leave the building too…should I hide in here for safety’s sake too?”

“Might not be so bad.”

“You’d love that,” I chuckled, placing the last stack of warm, folded towels into the closet.  “Why are you so particularly concerned with this, anyway?”

James took my hand and swung me around playfully in mock-ballroom dance fashion, eventually twirling me into his arms.

“What would you like me to say, Harris?” he asked, his face close to mine.  I felt my face flush with color as I tried to anticipate his next move, but soon, we were but maybe an inch from each other’s lips.  He placed a soft hand on my chin, slowly turning my head to the side, before finally placing a very loud (and very wet) raspberry on my cheek.

“See? You’re too vulnerable,” he laughed, as I squirmed to break free of his puerile prank’s grasp.  “Dude’s gonna walk all over you!”

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From what I could gather, there was at least six days’ worth of dishes crowding both sinks and the surrounding surfaces, though I couldn’t recall actually utilizing all of them.  When the hell did I use a colander?

Sufficiently distracted after being well within the throws of a massive bout of pessimistic self-pity, my body seemed to switch into auto-drive as I diligently dove in to the stale, somewhat crusty (and definitely stinky) pile of surprises in the sink.  I had finally reached the point where my physical body was simply sick to death of having to listen to my wallowing mind.

I had been blown off, once again, by The Coworker, which had launched me into yet another self-deprecating pendulum – continuously moving between outward anger and resentment to inner disgust over the ease with which I was forever affording him the opportunity to undermine me in such grand fashion.

It could have been the sex.  It probably was.  It had to be, given that I could no longer deny how utterly boring it had become to be around him otherwise.  I was fully aware that he and I had absolutely nothing to say to each other which was not within the throws of physical passion.

I needed a distraction, something more than physical labor to keep me from developing that uneasy flutter in my stomach when he’d call.  The only way to counteract the bizarre little addiction I had formed to him was with replacement therapy.

But how?

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“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times, I DON’T EAT GRITS, BITCH!”

The rousing laughter from the table was broken almost instantly by the condescending bark of the heavily-made-up, aging and bitter waitress who was taking advantage of her one opportunity to pull rank on anyone.  She was not amused by Roger’s antics.

“One more outburst from you all and I’m gonna have to ask y’all to leave,” she growled, flipping her over-processed and bodiless ponytail as she stalked off angrily.

“Yeah, Roger,” I giggled.  “Now eat your damn grits and shut the fuck up!”

We had stopped just after midnight at the sixteenth Waffle House we encountered (Jim was counting) for much-needed caffeine and trans fats, and were somewhere in northern Arkansas, surrounded by just the type of people one would expect to run into at such an establishment.  Megan sat across from me, slouching in the tattered, faded red vinyl booth, incredibly happy that our little pit stop signaled the end of her driving contribution, poking around at a soggy stack of miserable little pancakes.

“There’s simply not enough money in the world to get me to consume this shit,” Roger moaned, half-drunk and probably still a little bit high.  He had driven us from Boston straight through West Virginia, and was now able to settle in for the remainder of the excursion.  “Whose idea was this place anyway?”

“Yours, princess,” Kevin quipped, throwing an overcooked bit of hash brown at Roger.

“Bullshit!” Roger yelled, jumping to his feet.  “Do I look like white trash to you? I would never do such a thing.”  Our waitress, Miss Congeniality, marched right over at the sound of Roger’s little outburst.

“Alright, that’s it. Who’s payin’ this check?” she snarled.  We pointed to Scott, who had remained silent throughout Roger’s antics.  “Well pay up, and then get on outta here.  And I don’t wanna see y’all back here again, ya hear me?”

“Why yes ma’am!” Roger shouted in his best mock-southern accent, standing at attention and saluting the dragon waitress.  “And I do apologize for this unfortunate inconvenience.”

Scott shoved some cash into the waitress’s hand before grabbing Roger by the collar and almost dragging him out of the restaurant.  We shuffled outside, laughing, where Scott was eye-to-eye with Roger.

“Do you think it was the white-trash thing?” Roger asked, staring back at Scott.  Scott burst into laughter.

“That might have done it, yeah.”

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“Wat’s going on?”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the text message from the Young One – the one that came, as usual, at about 10:30 on a Saturday night after each of us had had our chances at a night out.

I had called him on it once, a few weeks back, and insisted to him that I was not, in any way, his little booty call.  Feigning offense, he did his best to argue that his intentions were purely the opposite.  And yet, still – he persists.

The weekend before I had the luxury of being predisposed – albeit, having a reasonably mediocre time downtown – and was able to quell his poorly-masked request instantly.  On this particular weekend, however, he had caught me in the middle of a tremendously exciting solo screening of Sleepaway Camp.

There came an unsettling moment of indecision which caused my skin to crawl, as I chastised myself for even entertaining the notion of accepting his offer of a healthy round of string-less physical activity.  I certainly could have done with the entertainment (musing to myself about the last time I was so engrossed), but the aftermath was not something I was in the mood to suffer through.

The issue with the little boys was that, even though they moonlighted as these wanna-be-big-time-players, they were still quite sophomoric when it came to their concepts’ of women’s expectations, post-romp.  The Young One would linger – at times well into my Sundays, putting me in a foul state of mind for the remainder of the day.  He’d want to monopolize the last, few precious moments of my weekend with superficial embraces and teenage makeout sessions, while I desperately wished for the power to will him away with my mind.

I no longer had the desire nor the patience to take the Young One under my wing and school him on the ways of the wiser world.  The necessary time spent in his company certainly did not warrant that kind of effort on my part.  If he hadn’t already learned the rules of the booty call (even in its simplest tenets – never, ever, ever spend the night) by now, I was under no obligation to waste my time attempting to educate the wayward little soul.

I ultimately left it alone, deciding that no comment would be the safest route to take.  I spent the remainder of the evening, instead, pondering Cute Neighbor Boy and his cryptic, ambiguous behaviors over the chilled bottle of pinot that he did not stop by to share.

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The silence was unexpected, and it changed everything.

There was no yelling, no protesting on her part – something I hadn’t been fully prepared for.  The image which had been played out over and over again in my mind since having made the decision to confront her had been one of utter chaos. I had imagined screaming, and tears, and even, perhaps, the errant thrown object. I imagined desperate attempts to keep me from leaving.

But instead she sat, silently, seemingly processing what had just been unloaded upon her with a deliberate, pensive look in her eye.  She didn’t seem shocked at all by my declaration of deeply-rooted ill-will, and I found this unsettling, having only armed myself to deal with an emotionally-charged outburst.

“You cheated me out of a childhood,” I had flatly stated to her, “and for that, this has to be the end of our relationship.” 

Close to thirty years of turbulence, manipulation and abuse had managed to finally culminate into this one, final scene of the mother/daughter relationship that could’ve been, with my mother and I gravely sitting across from each other in cheap, metal folding chairs on her back porch in the still-sweltering sun of late-September Houston.   

“I see,” she said coldly, her face starting to redden as she held back instinctive rage. “That’s a shame.”  I wondered if she fully understood the weight of accusation, or the severity of its consequences.   

Without another word, she stood up from her chair and marched up the back stairs to the house, turning towards for a moment as if to get one final word in.  As if sensing the futility of it all, she silently turned back towards the door and was gone. It was over.  I was finally free.

My arms and legs felt weak as the morning’s rush of tension instantly slipped from my body and a surge of overwhelming relief washed over me.  I took one last look back at my mother’s house, before turning my back on it once and for all, and walked to my car for the three-hour drive home.

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