Do I really need to tell you to go read parts 1-4 before you read part 5?
I hope not.
So, here we are in Part Five, and Bill and I are broken up again.
I know what you must be thinking: "These two are so fucked up, why the fuck do they keep getting back together?"
Let me tell you why-at least why I stuck around for so long.
Despite all the drama over trying to figure out what roles we would/should/could play in each other's lives, when we were together, we were the whole world. I don't mean just each other's whole world, I mean we were the whole world. We laughed at the shit we wanted to laugh at, we did what sounded good to us, we made terrible jokes, we made fun of each other, made fun of strangers {quietly}
We saw the world in our own way, and we made up our own rules for whatever we wanted. I remember walking through the grocery store with him one night, totally sober, looking for tea, laughing hysterically. I mean, we were walking around holding hands with the biggest, stupidest smiles on our faces. We made each other truly happy. We cared about each other. We made sense to each other.
Bill was the calm, quiet center of my crazy world.
And he meant everything to me.
It was a million little tiny things that made me love him. The fact that he bought the tea I liked to drink in the morning, and kept it in the fridge on Saturday night. The fact that he designated one of his t-shirts as my night shirt when I stayed over there. The way that before we got out of the car to go into a restaurant he leaned across the center console, looked at me with his serious face, and motioned for me to come closer, then he'd kiss me. The way he didn't care that I went crazy at concerts, or that I was really loud when I drank, or that my hair looked like two raccoons mated in it when I woke up in the morning. It was the way he looked at me, the way he kissed me, the way he smelled, the way he tasted and the way being with him made me feel sane.
I loved him for a million reasons.
But we didn't have an easy path.
After we broke up again on July 25th, I was devastated, but I was determined to move on. I was not going to wait around, I was not going to keep sleeping with him, I was not going to mourn our relationship forever.
I was going to move on.
And boy did I try.
Randomly, I reconnected with a guy that I had gone to high school with on Facebook. Neil Klemetsrud. If you've ever read my blog before, you know who Neil is.
We started talking on Facebook and at first it was totally innocent.
Hey, what's up, how you been, long time no see, blah blah blah, catching up shit.
But we got along well. Really well. We started talking all the time. I thought we were forming a fast friendship. We weren't.
The day that Bill and I broke up, Neil told me he liked me. He had started developing strong feelings for me, and as crazy as it was he wanted to be with me. He wanted me to choose him.
I could feel my heart disintegrating inside my chest. I had no words.
But Neil was nice. He was warm, he was affectionate, he was expressive and flattering and he spent a lot of time being quite charming.
He texted me all day long, he called me every single night. He told me I was beautiful so many times it embarrassed me.
It was like getting water for the first time after two weeks in a desert.
I fell for him. Quickly. Irrationally. Without warning, without thinking, and without knowing enough about him to say that what I was feeling was sincere.
It was wrong, but I was hurt and bleeding, and he bandaged me up and carried me home. I was in love with the idea of him.
But I wanted him to be somebody else.
I wanted him to be Bill.
While all of this was going on, Bill and I really weren't speaking much, if at all. I know we texted once or twice here and there, but we didn't have one single real conversation that I can remember. I missed him. I missed him like I would miss my right hand if you cut it off. I kept reaching for him, turning to smile at him, opening my mouth to say something to him, then remembering he was gone. And the phantom pains wouldn't go away.
When my birthday rolled around, I texted Bill to say I missed him. My birthday was coming up and I wanted him to come out for drinks with me and Dave, Meghan and Samus, like he did every year. I should've seen it coming, but when he said no it was like he had broken up with me all over again. He never missed my birthday. It was really over. I knew it.
Why did I still miss him?! Everyone said it would go away. I kept waiting for them to be right.
My birthday celebration arrived. He didn't come. I didn't want anyone to know I was sad, so I drank until I couldn't feel my face and I could hear my pulse beating in my ears, then made Dave get me nachos and take me home, where I cried myself to sleep with cheese on my face.
God.
On Monday, the actual day of my birthday, Bill said he would meet me for a birthday drink, and I am embarrassed to admit to how excited I was.
I met him at Garcia's, and I was running late, of course. I walked in, and felt awkward looking around for him, but when I turned and saw him sitting at a little table by the bar, I remembered our first date so clearly it almost brought me to my knees.
He was wearing blue. He looked so handsome. He was smiling at me. God I missed him.
We hugged quickly, and I sat down.
After a beer and a shot of Tequila, we started talking about us. I skirted the issue on telling him about Neil, because even though I didn't think it would hurt him to know I'd moved on, I knew it would hurt me to tell him I'd moved on, because in that moment I wished I hadn't.
Well, I wished I didn't have to.
We talked for a while, and we laughed and I drank and tried to stop looking at his mouth. If I had any more Tequila I was going to kiss him.
Before we left, he told me "I just want to always matter to you, because you will always matter to me." I tried not to show it on my face, but those words lit me up inside. It was the closest he'd ever come to saying he loved me.
And then, he gave me the first birthday cake I had gotten in 10 years.
If that's not love, I just don't know what is.
Yep. This is a doozy. Stay tuned for Part Six!
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