Chapter Text
It wasn’t our first date. It wasn’t nearly our first time going out to grab dinner together either. Actually, we might have gotten to a point above what I would care for. At least once every weekend, and sometimes, at random intervals, on weeknights as well. But it made you happy, and it mostly made me happy too.
You’d received a stellar grade on a report you hadn’t been so sure of earlier this week, and you’d made me promise to go out and celebrate with you come Friday night. Friday night had come just a few hours ago and you had, of course, chosen one of your upscale restaurants. My own culinary picks seemed to be limited to the places that weren’t too classy to forgo the bold printing of the kilojoule intake directly next to the items on the menu.
It was your first time ordering drinks though. Maybe that was the celebration portion of things. At best, on our usual dates, you would order a glass of the recommended wine, and reminisce lengthily about your father’s connoisseur status of wineries and the art of wine. I’d crack a joke about him having the perfect nose for wine sniffing, lovingly of course, and you’d laugh loud enough to actually forget about the glass next to your plate. Just as well because you, unlike your father, do not like wine and know just about as much as I do about it.
But you’d picked up the cocktail menu tonight and had decided we needed fancy drinks. You’d gotten a Bloody Mary, but I suspected you liked the name more than you did the flavours. That said, it had been gone and emptied by the time you’d ordered your meal. And then, my Appletini, which you’d appropriately picked for me, had wound up on your side of the table, also drained, by the time the plates were put down.
It was better that way. I wouldn’t have ordered it for myself, despite the temptation of the apple component. The biggest problem wasn’t even the alcohol. It was still that girl at a sixth grade birthday party which I had attended, who had turned down a juice container with the phrase; ‘I’d rather use up my calories on food, not liquids.’
It hadn’t made sense back then, and it hadn’t for a while, but I had been a lot less excited about my own serving of juice at that party. And as a non experienced drinker, the mystery of the cocktail glass was just as bad as the absence of numeral intake in the menu.
So I’d tried to turn it down when you’d ordered me a second drink in apology of stealing mine.
It proved to be in vain because as it was now, you were finishing that very same newly ordered Appletini, instead of concentrating on your plate. The question as to why we hadn’t gone for a bar or something of the sort passed through my mind more than once. But the answer never changed. Because a restaurant was already a setting I did not like as much as our home, and a bar was a step even farther away from that.
Still, I had been thinking you were holding your liquor exceptionally well. Not that I was particularly familiar with the subject, but I still found myself wondering and worrying about just who you usually drank with, or if you did alone, and of just how much it had taken to build up that resistance. Probably pointless speculation.
And as you set the glass down onto the table, and resolutely keep ignoring your food in favour of staring me down, I have to slowly come to terms with the idea that you might just be a little more affected than I was giving you credit for.
“You’re not a bad person.”
Your voice was just loud enough to let me know you’d had too much already. Your words were just enough for me to know you weren’t the sort of drunk who would avoid meaningful discussions.
“Thanks.”
My words, in contrast, were supposed to come off with the appropriate tone to let you know just how inappropriate you were being. The translation was never made.
“But we’re in disagreement.” Not a question. And I wasn’t so sure your current mood was one that left place for questions.
It wasn’t exactly easy to be the only one eating, so I’d been busying myself with pushing my food around my plate. I tried to focus on that, until I peeked at you and found your stare unwavering. Waiting for an answer. Waiting for an answer to your non-question.
“Sure, yeah. Sort of.”
That’s all there was to say on the matter, but here too we were at a disagreement.
“But you’re such a good person, Dave.” A long sigh. “A really, really, really good person.”
Maybe I shouldn’t be taking to heart words spoken after a Bloody Mary and two Appletinis. Words spoken loud enough still that looks of concern were being thrown towards our table. It must have been the broken hearted quality to your voice and my refusal in participating more than necessary. An air of gravity had befallen our table.
Just the same. Your choice of words, so simple and easy, had a way of overwhelming me.
“I think. I think you’re the least hurtful person I’ve met.”
And I wish your words could have been a little more slurred. I wish you could have been a person who would down alcohol and then grumble out completely irrelevant things, just like in the movies. The only difference was the look in your eyes, the slight colour in your face, and your increasing loudness.
“Trust me, I’m not.”
Not a beat of silence for you to answer back, as if simply overstepping my own claim.
“The only person you ever hurt is yourself.”
“Look, please eat. You’ll feel better.”
At least you seemed to accept as much, as if your hunger was a satisfactory answer to what was written all over your face as unease and as troubled thoughts. Your motor skills had suffered more than I had realized though and you struggled to cut up pieces of your duck.
The silence was welcomed though. And I matched every bite of yours to one of mine. Obviously, it wasn’t all that easy to ignore the words you’d used. Especially seeing how conscious I was of your eyes on me, always returning, and with a distress I could feel you would speak of.
You didn’t get through much of your plate before starting again and I had to slouch my shoulders somewhat, also conscious of other eyes on me.
“You know, I’m not angry that you’re sad.”
“I know that.” And I did. You didn’t see me as weak for it, and you were not appalled by it. That was what I wanted. That was already quite enough.
“I just want you to know you don’t have to punish yourself. ‘Cause you’re a good person. Really good.”
It was a nice restaurant. And you’d had a nice week. And all of this was totally ok. But this conversation wasn’t mandatory. This conversation was not for me. But no amounts of digging my nails into my knees or sinking my teeth into the insides of my cheeks were giving you the clear signal.
“Can we talk about this later tonight?”
And hopefully later tonight could equate to you passed out early from the drinking. That was something normal, right? To be expected? I just needed to hold on to that hope.
“I don’t know what went wrong.” Your voice was slowly descending into broken and hopeless and I absolutely felt as if I was dodging hateful glances now, as if everyone would automatically assume I was telling you off or breaking up with you, or anything else that could have destroyed your tone so utterly.
“Nothing went wrong.” I hurried to tack on an invitation to quickly get out of here. “If you aren’t hungry, we’ll go back home. I’ll just go pay at the counter and you can wait for me outside, ok?”
“You weren’t this sad before.”
There was a slight shake in your hand, the one resting over the table, and I tried to cover it with mine, squeezing with the sort of force I was hoping was just apt enough to get you to reel it back in a bit.
“John, it’s fine.”
Even your name didn’t seem to be an anchor to your straying thoughts. Your eyes weren’t leaving me, but you could not have felt farther away.
“When you’d come visit in Washington, you were always happy. Well, maybe not happy… But we could stay up all night and eat everything in the house. Now you only ever order the cheapest thing on the menu. Sometimes it’s not even a main, it’s a dumb entree.”
“Restaurant portions are big…”
“And when you’d come visit, you were always there. It never felt like you went away.”
You didn’t mean away at work either. I knew what you meant. It was the impossibility of anything over a two day streak. A two day streak of normal, positive feelings, always followed up by a wave of nauseating sensations and thoughts. I didn’t really go away. But I knew I wasn’t easy to talk to, and looked for isolated places, even if it meant holding up the bathroom for an entire hour.
It was hard to accept the idea that you still thought of me as someone good when your apparent misery only multiplied my guilt.
“But, it’s fine.”
“I don’t know. You were sad a lot in grade twelve. But you always said it was just because you missed me. It was great because I just needed to be with you after high school and you wouldn’t be sad. But it didn’t work. You get sad more now, even though we’ve been close for all these years.”
Your eyes finally left me. Your hand left mine as well and it was a small relief that I didn’t have to be comparing hands with you while my confidence was being beaten to the floor. Your hands were covering your face now. You were upset. Despite your words, pointing me out as the one dragging his sadness around, you were the one overcome with it now.
“Right, ok, I’m taking you home.” I tried to be as gentle as can be. No response came from you.
By the time I’d flagged the waiter down, you’d emerged from your hiding, eyes red from the pressure, and somewhat dazed looking. You tried to order another Bloody Mary, insisting that I’d had two drinks, and it was only fair for you to have equal treatment, but the waiter seemed more than willing to side with me and to get me the bill instead.
I’d asked to pack your plate in a doggy bag, but not mine. My meal hadn’t been all too exciting anyway. It was the sort of meal that fit well into that category you’d pinpointed earlier; cheapest item of the menu. I didn’t really like ordering salads in restaurants though, deadly aware of the judgements the waiter might pass. As if everyone would take a look at me, and then my plate, and decide that I was eating as if I were someone else, and not myself.
For how dextrously you’d swerved the conversation away from my nudges to wrap up whatever was on your mind and head out the door, you’d been surprisingly easy to drag out of the place, arms wrapped around the styrofoam container of food as if it were a pillow or a pet, and eyes almost vacant. The walk home was long, but also surprisingly easy for you. I’d assumed you might have staggered or walked in odd paces that would signal your lack of sobriety, but you seemed unaffected.
The bus home would have been a much shorter route, but I didn’t want to step into the bus with you in tow. It’s not that you did smell like alcohol, but I was afraid someone else might think differently. Think that, maybe it was I who had too much to drink instead of you. Senseless fears that honestly did not have enough to do with your wellbeing. But you didn’t complain on our way back, or even peep a word for that matter. You’d opened up the container and picked at the duck and coordinated eating and walking in a fashion that had me asking myself if all that alcohol was only a smidgen of courage to put me back into my place with the help of your words.
Honestly, you were the only person whose eating habits didn’t annoy or gross me out. The sounds of mastication, of cutlery against plates, the likes, always demotivated me from doing the same. But I didn’t mind the sounds you made. They were almost nice, really. I knew that I knew of people who had better table skills than you did, whole pushing their quinoa salad onto the back of their fork and the rest of that pretentious ordeal, but I didn’t care to sit at a table with them either. Only you.
I’d never told you that. Just as I couldn’t bring myself to comment on how much I liked the colour of your eyelids, or the veins I could trace on the back of your hands, or the way you tied the laces of your shoes. They were odd compliments, and even though you were probably the only person in my life who would receive them lovingly, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
The silence and your quickly vanishing meal of duck had me reconsidering my hunger, thinking of different treats I could sneak out of the pantry and stuff into my mouth before I had time to reconsider again. But of course, I only allowed these scenarios to play out in my head because I did know the walk held the time to allow my second reconsideration.
When we entered our apartment; I had to sling your arm over my shoulders on our way up the flight of stairs, and had pried the keys away from you when your motor skills proved to be on par with your lack of vocal control, you made a beeline for the couch, as if forgetting your environment, the time of the day, our exchange, everything. You’d picked up the remote control, on the armrest where I constantly insisted we needed to keep it, and turned on the television almost mechanically.
Infomercials, I realized hastily. You blinked at the image so absently, I doubted you’d realized as much. Your jacket was still zipped all the way up, your sneakers still on, the bows of the laces with those hoops goofily overlarge which I adored somehow. So I took care of the styrofoam container, washing it and leaving it on the counter when I remembered that I actually couldn’t remember what was and wasn’t recyclable. I’d ask you come tomorrow. And brought out the jug of water and a tall glass to the living room.
I was under the impression that water drinking was supposed to help with the alcohol, but here again my recollection was not so strong. I still poured you a glass of water, and then a second when you finished the first one with an empty gaze and empty movements.
I would have left you alone because it felt like the right thing to do. But you encircled me with your arms and pulled me down over you. It was odd because I’d never sat on anyone’s lap, I supposed. Not even as a grade schooler at the mall with my brother, passing by the lineup for Santa Claus. My brother had never wanted me to grow up delusional. That all felt so faraway now though.
It didn’t stay odd for long because it absolutely felt as if you wanted to smother yourself with me, tugging me closer to keep your arms around me and pushing your face down against my shoulder.
It probably wasn’t the right thing to ask, but I did; “D’you want me to move out?”
Somewhere in my brain, it was a reasonable idea. It was desolating for you to find time after time that your presence, which my entire being felt as if was wholly enough, just wasn’t enough to keep whatever was plaguing me at bay. I needed to stay away from you. Sort myself out. But experience foretold that it wasn’t quite so easily achievable.
“You know, I love you?”
“I do.”
There was a ‘but’ of course, but it didn’t come. Your voice was just as loud as it had been before, but here it felt safe, especially spoken against my being.
“I love you. Crying, yelling, smiling, love you always. And you know that.” I nodded hurriedly. “You know that. I know that. But you’re a part of me, you know?” I also knew. Your hand fumbled a bit, and I was sure you were trying to rest it over my heart, but it ended up simply covering most of the part of my chest directly under my collarbones, heart probably included. “You’re part of me. That’s why, when you’re hurt, I’m hurt.”
I rushed in then because still something inside of me claimed it to be reasonable. “And that’s why I’m offering to go. You said I wasn’t hurtful earlier, but you’re saying different now.”
You shook your head, nose brushing against my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what the movement meant, and for a second I listened to the voices coming from the television.
“A part of me, dumbhead. Listen. If my hand’s hurt. Well, it hurts. I don’t know, I mean, hand’s hurting more than I am, I’m sure.” You laughed, trying to be considerate, and I brought a hand up to pet your hair down. “But basically. I am not going to cut myself open and chop the hand off. That’s going to be a lot worse than the hurt hand.”
I sighed, readily playing along. “Look. You can go to physiotherapy, for the hand, I mean. If it’s broken beyond repair though… Like, doesn’t respond or whatever. You get it amputated, you replace it with a prosthetic.”
I licked my lips. That metaphor had gotten away from me pretty quickly. I didn’t actually like the sound of being replaced all that much.
“I don’t think you’re broken.”
The tone of your voice had changed immensely. There was no tacked on ‘you know’. You didn’t think that I knew that. But you had wanted to state it as if it were the outmost truth.
You spoke it as if, with that observation alone, all of my comparisons had been thwarted and cancelled.
“My hand isn’t broken. It just doesn’t really know that… I’m just. Waiting for it to remember that it isn’t.”
You emerged from the spot of my shoulder you’d occupied to tell me as much. And then, that was all for the night. You kissed me longly, longingly, lovingly, and all else that could fit into the alliteration. Your mouth tasted differently than it usually did, and your hands gripped the back of my neck firmer than it would usually. And I kissed you back, for hours it felt like, as if I accepted everything you had said.