The Death of Romantic Greg - Part 2
We loved and hugged and tumbled down grassy hills together, and then we got to know each other, and then we got to know ourselves, and then things started to crumble, brick by brick, heart by heart.
At a mall, we had our first fight, which consisted of her being angry and me trying to figure out why. On the silent car ride home--the most silent we'd ever had--the notion that love might not last forever struck me, mockingly, like the first raindrop in what would soon be a very black storm. Meanwhile, Justin Currie sang on the car stereo, "Love disappears like spit in the rain." I wondered if he might be onto something as she gazed out the passenger window and some rain formed in my eyes.
Months passed and the magic word, love, changed meanings at least once. For her, it became an impromisable promise. For me, a way of testing the waters, my mental dipstick to match the increasingly neglected one in my pants. She'd be distant. I'd say "I love you", hoping to coax a reciprocation. She wouldn't say it back. I'd ask her if she still loved me, hoping to coax a nod. She'd nod. I'd ask her why, then, couldn't she say it. She'd start crying and I'd back off, more confused than ever.
If this was still "Ignorant Heaven", I hated to imagine Ignorant Hell. So instead, I swept these glaring signals of doom under the proverbial Persian rug, which was the largest, most distracting type of rug I knew of at the time.
After roughly one year of repeating this cycle, I had grown to feel thoroughly castrated. I knew I was being good. I was so attentive. Well, to her, anyway. Not so much to the husky, Scottish voice in my ear saying:
"Don't tell her that you need her. Don't tell her that you care. Don't ask her to hold you, or she might see the 'fool behind the frown', and then the heart behind the fool."
By the time I realized that fool was me, it was too late. "Let's take a break," she said one day. "But we can still be friends."
The next day, like magic, we were friends. It rained heavily in the evening, and she frolicked around in puddles like it was the first time she'd done something fun in about two years. "Ow," I thought as I realized her joy made me bitter. "Oh," I then thought as I realized that if this was love, then love was a joke and egotism the punchline.
At a mall, we had our first fight, which consisted of her being angry and me trying to figure out why. On the silent car ride home--the most silent we'd ever had--the notion that love might not last forever struck me, mockingly, like the first raindrop in what would soon be a very black storm. Meanwhile, Justin Currie sang on the car stereo, "Love disappears like spit in the rain." I wondered if he might be onto something as she gazed out the passenger window and some rain formed in my eyes.
Months passed and the magic word, love, changed meanings at least once. For her, it became an impromisable promise. For me, a way of testing the waters, my mental dipstick to match the increasingly neglected one in my pants. She'd be distant. I'd say "I love you", hoping to coax a reciprocation. She wouldn't say it back. I'd ask her if she still loved me, hoping to coax a nod. She'd nod. I'd ask her why, then, couldn't she say it. She'd start crying and I'd back off, more confused than ever.
If this was still "Ignorant Heaven", I hated to imagine Ignorant Hell. So instead, I swept these glaring signals of doom under the proverbial Persian rug, which was the largest, most distracting type of rug I knew of at the time.
After roughly one year of repeating this cycle, I had grown to feel thoroughly castrated. I knew I was being good. I was so attentive. Well, to her, anyway. Not so much to the husky, Scottish voice in my ear saying:
"Don't tell her that you need her. Don't tell her that you care. Don't ask her to hold you, or she might see the 'fool behind the frown', and then the heart behind the fool."
By the time I realized that fool was me, it was too late. "Let's take a break," she said one day. "But we can still be friends."
The next day, like magic, we were friends. It rained heavily in the evening, and she frolicked around in puddles like it was the first time she'd done something fun in about two years. "Ow," I thought as I realized her joy made me bitter. "Oh," I then thought as I realized that if this was love, then love was a joke and egotism the punchline.