Smoke Without Fire

We were both outsiders. When things got too loud or too fake, we reached out to each other momentarily to grab onto that reality we both so wonderfully kept intact. He was more real than I was, of course. And I always reached out to him more openly than he ever reached out to me.

He showed me less and less of his real side, though, as the months and years wore on. And as soon as I began to feel comfortable talking about worldly things and inner thought, he closed his doors more tightly and left me out in the cold. I stopped believing in a God, and he didn't care to talk about it. I stopped believing in myself, and he turned the other way. I stopped believing in anything, and he was gone.

That's when the rebellion started, the rebellion against reality and religion and the world altogether. My world became one of nothing, no responsibilities or commitments or rules. I did what I wanted because what else was there to do? I'd been following this dear boy for so long and as soon as he betrayed me, I lost faith in everything and everyone. I couldn't follow anyone, especially teachers and adults. Art became my world, and I used it as an excuse for everything. I was an artist, so I could read T.S. Eliot instead of doing homework, I could paint portraits of Bob Dylan instead of writing essays, and I could do theatre instead of, well, going to class. Because I thought no one could understand my tortured mind. And I still thought that as I was sitting on those hot cement bleachers in the middle of June, watching all my friends receive their diplomas and smiling emphatically. They'd done it. They'd made it. But I, the artist, sat there screaming on the inside knowing this wasn't right.

The work was still bullshit, mind you. The work I refused to do was still bullshit, I will never change my opinion of that. And I still feel that the public school system failed me tremendously, but I know of course it was mostly and namely my fault. I could've just done it. It wasn't like I wasn't smart enough or anything, I just didn't have the motivation or the focus. Reality was too much for me back then. I couldn't deal with it, so I ignored it, made up excuses, I did whatever I could to make it seem like I was in the right, that I was the victim, and that everyone around me was just out to get me. I was very paranoid.

He didn't help. I don't think he intentionally tried to drown me, but he did. I was far too caught up in him to look back or even ahead, so I stayed another year. I stayed to try and salvage whatever was left between us. I skipped out on a whole future just so I could have one more moment with him, one more measly moment, that I never got, mind you, and ended up pushing him further and further and further away, as I drowned and drowned and drowned. I watched as he went through relationship after relationship, love interest after love interest, and every time I would lay awake at night for weeks just wondering what it was that they had that I didn't. Why I was so boring compared to them. Why I wasn't worth it.

I ignored myself for three years, only paying attention to what he was looking for, what he wanted, and paid no attention to myself. I'd never fallen so hard, so fast, and so low. That's when the manipulation started. I would pick fights just so I could reassure myself that he actually cared about me. I started to stage phone calls and get-togethers. I ALWAYS needed to talk to him about SOMETHING. I always had some crisis that he needed to tend to. Needless to say, it wore him out very quick, and though he still might've really cared about me, he couldn't handle it and started to detach himself.

Our reality pact finally broke one night when I rebelled against him and got as drunk as I could get for the first time in my entire life. His birthday was the next weekend, and he'd decided that for his birthday, he would drink for the first time. I was invited, but didn't go. I don't know if it was the booze talking or what, but from what I hear he was pretty bummed I didn't show. He called me that night, wasted out of his mind, rambling about loneliness and how I'm the record that Holden breaks in Catcher in the Rye. He ended up dropping his phone behind his bed and falling asleep minutes afterward. I laughed for a little bit after this conversation, and then cried knowing this was the end of an era. We were no longer outsiders together. We'd crossed the line and already lost each other.

My faith still rested in that boy. My opinion of myself was still taken from what HE thought of me. It was disgusting. He didn't even have to say anything, he could just give me a look and that would be what my day would revolve around. I would analyze it, try to figure out if it was a good look, a bad look, a nice look, a mean look, whatever. If he was unhappy with me, then I was unhappy with me, it didn't matter what else had happened that day. Lots of paintings came out of this. Paintings trying to convey my biggest loss: my first love and half of myself. And for a while I thought I had found my calling, but when the inspiration finally ran dry, I was back to square one. Once there was nothing left to fight about and no reason to contact him, the paintings stopped and everything seemed empty.

We tried being friends and it kind of worked for a little while, but I always ended up caring a lot more about him than he cared about me, or at least that was how I felt. So I pushed him away again. Then a week or so later, I went running back to him, pleading for help and support and advice, trying to get him to turn around, and after hours upon hours of tears and yelling and saying things we both didn't mean, I got him to turn around and help. I got him to talk. And I felt so guilty afterwards, I couldn't even focus on his advice. All I could focus on was how reluctant he was to even be a part of my life. I still did the same thing a week later, though, but this time he didn't budge. He would not turn around and help. So I told him I wished I'd never met him. I didn't mean it of course, but I said it and all he said was ok. We haven't spoken since.

I still think about him all the time. I can't get him out of my head. I don't dare contact him, though, cuz I know that is over, there is no coming back from that, but he is still always in my head, in my dreams, in my nightmares, in my thoughts, in every song I listen to, or every book I read, his voice or his face or his eyes, his goddam eyes that could always see directly into my soul, they're always there. The memory of him will not fade. And I am so scared of seeing him because I'm afraid he'll become a part of my life again, and then there will be a whole new memory to haunt me.

But I know that if I go this whole summer without seeing him, I'm going to be just as disappointed.