Kicked out of home and heart.
Because I was friends with Greg, an Ithaca College student I had met through Grace and Alison who booked DIY shows in the area, I was able to hook Heroes and Martyrs up with a show opening for a touring band I really love called Run, Forever. That was how I spent my last day in Ithaca. The twenty-four hours before it happened, a few things happened that lead me to believe it would be a failure. As an aspiring "manager" to Heroes and Martyrs, I didn't want to let them down on the first and only time I was actually able to get them a gig outside of the 518. As it turned out, no local bands were playing the show and a show comprised of only local bands was booked last minute to happen at the same time at a more popular venue that night. I called Carl and Phil and told them I'd order them an entire vegan pizza from Pizza Aroma, convincing myself that it would soften the blow of the show potentially being a disaster. I spent the day with Grace and Carl and Phil met up with us at the pizza place around 5 that afternoon. It seemed like, no matter what happened, they'd be satisfied. The place it was happening at was a giant warehouse space owned by the co-op, Green Star. a tiny pocket was separated from the rest of it with thin walls with Christmas lights strung along them. Greg only had one PA speaker and a tiny mixer to accommodate the bands, but it surprisingly didn't sound that bad. It took a while, but a few people did show up and once the lights were turned off, it began to seem like a legitimate show that they wouldn't regret. A soft acoustic band with a female lead singer started the show and practically put everyone to sleep, but Heroes and Martyrs woke them all up. I did sound for them and by the time they had started playing a decent crowd of twenty or so people appeared, all of whom were already moderately inebriated and ready to dance no matter what was going on. That was nice and it was cool to be responsible for a good night for them. They are by far the best local band in my area and some of the greatest people I've ever met.
Two other touring bands played that night that weren't that bad, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was too hung up on how bad I knew I smelled and how I was going to decide to spend my final night in Ithaca with Grace. In the mean time, I got typically male inquiries from Carl: "Did you fuck her?!" I felt lame only having kisses, held hands, and lengthy cuddle sessions to vouch for, but they were enough to me. While a band called Typewriter played, Grace came up to me and asked me in my ear, "Do you wanna go make out in the bathroom?" I was really taken aback by it and asked her, "Are you drunk?" Of course, I eventually said yes, even though I was nervous like a school boy about it for some reason. The bathroom in the place was the opposite corner of where music was happening and for some reason contained a ridiculously fancy stand-up shower, along with a corner bathtub filled with colorful, plastic ball-pit balls. We tried to unsuspiciously make our way into it, but Lauren was in there when we went for the door. We ran in after she left and I hoped no one had seen us. All the lights were off and we made out fiercely against the wall while my hands wandered. I almost felt like an attractive teenage version of myself again for a moment. The loud music blared in the distance, muffled by the walls separating us, and I wasn't really sure what to say, what to ask, or if it'd be appropriate to do either of those things. When we left the bathroom, we saw that someone had politely placed two stools right in front of the door. It was pretty funny. I got to talk to the people from Run, Forever that night; they were really friendly and seemed interested in possibly playing my city and letting me book them sometime in October. I bought a riot grrl zine from their bassist. Unfortunately for them, the bulk of the crowd had dissipated or become too exhausted to give them the energy they deserved. I sang along excitedly while they went through a half-hour set with little enthusiasm. Appropriately enough, he went on a little speech about how he can't believe people still use certain words, alluding to terms like "faggot", and said, "And if you can't respect that, I can't respect you." It was cool.
I stayed over with Grace that night and nothing more than casual making out and whispering happened. I had to get up early the next day and take a bus downtown. It was sad to say goodbye. Not exactly sure of what the week meant to either of us, I decided in my head that I'd return to my life as a lonely, single guy who no one wanted to be with once I got back home. Luke and his temporary fake girlfriend Alexi picked me up a little later. I caught a ride back to Schenectady with them. Alexi didn't have much of substance to say, but it was really cool hanging out with Luke again. He says a lot of funny and insightful things and showed me a lot of cool music during the ride. An hour or so from home, his tire blew out. Thankfully, he had a spare rubber doughnut to hold us over.
That Sunday was Easter and I had another show booked for Heroes and Martyrs. Carl joked that he was going to pretend he was, "on tour." I had them opening up for Mixtapes with some other local bands. A lot of people told me that it being Easter would severely effect the turnout, but I couldn't imagine that many people actually being into such a stupid child's holiday. There was some trouble getting the PA at first, causing the show to start an hour later, but it did start right at 8pm and everything remained smooth the rest of the night. By the time Public Noise Concern had started their set, the place was packed, probably beyond capacity. It was by far the most heavily attended show of my "career", something like fifty people coming out. Heroes and Martyrs were happy, so I was happy. It was also nice to know I could maybe take some money for a change. Mixtapes are all really nice people and I was actually really amazed that they even inquired about a show in Albany after the last time they played. They were in the middle of a really huge tour with The Wonder Years, Cartel, and Fireworks, playing mostly big venues that were selling out. It was a relief to see that they were still interested in playing small, DIY shows on their days off. I Was A Hero played a good set and spent the entire time before and after following Mixtapes around like fanboys, which I can only imagine is probably pretty annoying. Their set was long, hard, and sweaty and they did mostly requests. I fucking love them. I was able to pay all the bands and even donate $60 to the Social Justice Center. It was a great night and I was really pleased with how everything went. Jess Ampersand and her not-boyfriend Jeremy were nice enough to give us all rides home.
A moniker I've been seeing scrawled around the 518.
Kara stayed over that night. She was dressed up really cute and, as always, she stole my heart the moment I saw her again. It's never an "out of sight, out of mind" sort of situation; more like an "out of sight, out of love" thing, I guess. I can convince myself that she doesn't have my heart while I'm out and about, but once I see her in person again, she owns every part of me and has my full attention. We were laying in bed and I went in for a kiss, which she moved her head away from. I could tell something was wrong. In retrospect, I have no idea how the conversation started. My memory of who said what and when is completely erased and all I can really remember is what the long, sad, angry, confusing conversation came down to: Kara did not love me anymore. "Sometimes, I do, and sometimes I don't; that has to say something," she said. She said she no longer wanted a physical relationship with me and didn't care anymore if we'd ever date. When I asked her what triggered all of these revelations, she said, "I don't know." We argued that entire night and she said a lot of unintentionally mean things to me. I cried for the first time in over a year. She cried, too. We were up all night, arguing, hashing out the past, me interrogating her and getting almost no clear answers in response, and crying on each other. She was acting like she was kicking a bad habit and I felt like my entire world was crumbling around me. Kara had been my best friend, my only family, and more or less the best and most important thing in my life since the summer of 2008. At a time in my life when so many things were going wrong, this was the last thing I would have expected... and it was happening. I always used to tell her that the only thing I saw when I thought about my future was her. With her feelings for me changing, the dynamic of our relationship would change; without those special feelings and the intense closeness and care that came with them, we would likely lose the rare chemistry that we shared together. I could not for even a second begin to imagine what it would be like to not be more than friends. I wasn't even sure if we knew how to do that. I felt betrayed and stupid for thinking I could depend on anyone.
She left the next morning and nothing had been resolved. I couldn't help but wonder how long she had been feeling that way and how much longer she would have kept it from me had she not stayed over that night. She told me she no longer got butterflies when we were together. That maybe hurt the most because I still did. Other than that, she was so vague, so I was just there, hanging from her fingertip from a noose, confused and scared while the rug gets pulled out from underneath me by the only person I've ever felt like I could truly rely on. The night before, she told me about all of these instances that had made her feel bad about herself. Of course, she was trying to explain to me how her feelings were all my fault. Just a few days before that, I was telling Grace that Kara and I worked so well because we communicate everything. Like an idiot, I had to find out that I was actually totally wrong. It seemed as though Kara had been allowing feelings to fester within her and stopped opening up to me about a lot of things. That night was apparently the floodgates opening, most of which could have been avoided had she just spoke to me the way I thought we always did. Now, I know I had just spent a week with another girl, but other girls had never really had an effect on what Kara meant to me. For the most part, I just wanted to be liked and to not feel like an ugly monster anymore. Kara loving me the way she did had become commonplace, like all love does to little boys in men's bodies such as myself. There was also the unnerving fear of commitment that Kara symbolized. Faced with how real what we had was, the best I could do was keep it at arm's length and hope for little flings here and there; safe experiences with other girls who I would never want to commit to. Unfortunately, that plan obviously never worked out, and because I am generally unappealing to the opposite sex, Kara wound up being the only real person in my love life. From there, over the last three years, it had only gotten more and more serious. I asked her to date me once over the phone a year ago, but she stuttered nervously and made me lose my nerves, so I quickly changed the subject and never asked again. We always talked about "us"; what we were and what we'd be. It always came down to being afraid of what could potentially happen to us if we were to ever officially cross that line. Label or not, we still were, and we naively told ourselves that the label would change everything when it was really our bodies the entire time. Plus, we could simply not deny the magnetic surge between us. We were closer than anyone else either of us knew, even other couples, and we had seen for ourselves that we could be together every second of every day for months at a time and not get sick of each other. It didn't occur to me until that night, but we had become some unspoken open relationship, something that, as it turned out, had been killing Kara for a while, although we both acted supportive of romantic endeavors either of us had, masking our jealousy by pretending we were just being good friends to each other. We, and especially I, had fucked everything up. I couldn't help but feel like Chris had something to do with this.
I was crippled with depression and a debilitating shock for days and then weeks after that. I didn't do a lot and mostly stayed in bed. Everything was hitting me all at once: being technically homeless, staying at my grandmother's where I was being shit on daily, having had to give up my dog friend, and now Kara basically breaking up with me. Every now and then, I'd try to hang out with Tia. She's come over and we'd try to squeeze on my tiny bed to watch a movie. I tried hanging out with Kara once or twice and both times it wound up slowly creeping up on me how different and fake things felt between us, usually leading to me bringing it all up, dropping the act, and getting too upset to process or speak coherently about my own feelings. I always wound up getting mad and saying bitter things. I went days at a time avoiding speaking to her. I had this scheme in my head where I was going to stop talking to her and make her realize what she missed. She slowly revealed more and more things to me, eventually cornering me and making me feel like everything was my fault, bringing up things from years ago like the time I stopped talking to her and hooked up with Tara for a few months. It reminded me of Burgundy and how she left me after suddenly deciding to bring up the past and act like it happened the other day or something. I battled with beating myself up over pushing her away and getting angry with her for giving up on us. I stayed at her house one night because she was having a family crisis. I was able to put my shit aside and be there for her until later that night when we were both in bed and she suddenly told me, "I'm thinking about moving to Bloomington." The air got knocked out of me. Not only was she no longer in love with me, but she was now willing and considering leaving me altogether to move hundreds of miles away where we'd never see each other. And I refused to believe it was a coincidence that it was where Chris lived. I didn't make her talk about it too much and instead cried into her shirt between her shoulder blades. She just kept surprising me. I felt like I was being punished. Whenever I'd bring up us kissing or going out on a date or something, she'd say the same thing as though it were rehearsed and she had a rehabilitation sponsor helping her through twelve steps: "I don't want that with you anymore." Each and every time, it hit me like a kick to the diaphragm.
Our conversations went in circles every time until I began to feel like I was trapped inside of a burning building with her. One of the things that hurt the most was the nonchalance she went about everything with. Aside from the few times she cried about me crying, she mostly seemed indifferent to what was going on. When she'd bring up something like us being "just friends", she acted like it was something so easy for her. The ease and calm with which she read her demands made me feel so meaningless. When people asked what was going on, I had to tell them, "I don't think Kara and I are friends anymore." It all felt so surreal because I honestly wouldn't have expected it coming in a thousand years. Tia was supportive and it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one totally blown out of the water by her decisions and seemingly spontaneous change of feelings. I decided to try to cut ties with her. She would tell me over and over again that she missed me, but it got to a point where I had no idea what that could even mean. So I ignored most of her texts and tried to distract myself with whatever was going on between me and Grace, who I was talking to a lot on the phone. She said a lot of sappy, romantic things to me and I said a lot of them back. It was, at times, a decent break from the whole Kara thing. So I started trying to put my all towards it like it were something that I had to do in order to survive. I also started scheming escape plans to other cities and states by myself, all of which I backed out on because I didn't want to do them alone. Everything I could think of doing to save myself seemed impossible without Kara; it was so weird trying to escape her rather than escape with her for a change.
We had plans to table zines at the Brooklyn Zine Fest not too long after the broke my heart that one night. I tried to force myself into sticking with the plans since I knew it was a great opportunity for me. The night before we were supposed to leave, Tia and her came over. What wound up happening was a long, restless, awkward night of me losing my mind, spewing venom towards Kara, and making Tia feel uncomfortable as she sat front row for our dysfunctional relationship's demise. Eventually, I decided I wasn't going to go. I had no energy in me to get up and smile at strangers all day. Tabling zines with Kara would have felt different, anyway. Everything did, like she had suddenly become a stranger. I felt like I'd lost a limb that I required to do the things I loved doing most. After Tia left, I cried a lot and so did Kara. I told her I didn't think we could be friends anymore. It was awful. We wound up kissing, but I don't know why. I said something about wanting one last kiss and she obliged. It sucks to think that even if it had actually been our last kiss, it probably didn't mean anything to her. We skipped the zine fest. I regret doing that. The next day, Tia and I wound up going to New York City. She was looking forward to the zine fest so bad, I wanted to make it up to her. So we took the $15 Chinatown bus there and spent the entire day walking around. We met up with a cool mutual friend from Tumblr named Alyssa, who skipped school to hang out. We visited the Museum of Sex where graffiti artists I adore such as Lush and Dickchicken had made stuff. We went to Desert Island in Williamsburg to browse comics and buy zines and then ate a big dinner at Food Swings. It was a really fun day. The weather was warm and I was sweating a bunch. We got lost a few times and we missed our preferred bus back to Albany, leaving us stuck laying on couches for a few hours before we could leave. I couldn't shake the dread that was clogging my arteries.
One night, Grace asked me if I, "wanted to be exclusive," via text. I called her right away, but she had sent it while at a party. I made some wisecrack about how she shouldn't drink and text only to find out that she was actually drinking. So I didn't respond. It was something I would have preferred to sit down and talk about, especially since I was a little confused as to how she distinguished "exclusivity" from "in a relationship". Later that night, she would go on to hook up with another guy while intoxicated. This girl was so confusing. After an entire week of her adamantly sticking to, "we can't date," she seemed to want to date and began treating me like her boyfriend, practically. She told me one week that she had gone on a few dates and hooked up with some guy, but told him she couldn't anymore because she only wanted to be with me. In one night, she'd contradict not only that, but the fact that she had just asked me to be exclusive. I planned on visiting her for another week soon, though.
Meanwhile, back at my grandmother's, the walls were closing in on me. My grandmother talked more shit to me and about me than my peers did in high school. One night, a friend of mine named Carissa who I hadn't really spoken to in a few years stayed overnight. The next morning, I was making us pancakes and my grandmother decided, as she always does, to use me having company as a podium at which she can talk about how fucked-up I am. Carissa and I were having a conversation and she was asking me some questions while my grandmother folded clothes a few feet away. Whenever I'd say certain things, she'd chime in with some insanity. I mentioned never wanting to work and she chimed in, "Yeah, he doesn't want to work! He sure has a bright future ahead of him!" I mention not having parents I can rely on and she adds, "You do have family! They love and miss you very much!" So, to put it in context, I told Carissa the entire story of what happened between me and my parents a year ago that lead to me no longer talking to them. My grandmother, encouraged merely by her devotion to the status quo and the nuclear family, called me an idiot and said, "It's time to forgive and forget!" It triggered a thunderstorm within me. No matter how many times I told that woman that just the mention of my parents gives me an anxiety attack, she would not listen. Carissa thought the woman was fucking nuts. On my way up the stairs, she continued to yell at me, unable to take what she constantly dishes out, and told me that, "all I do is use people." Not entirely sure what that could even be referring to. After Carissa left, my grandmother told me that she had mixed her low blood sugar medicine in with the orange juice we were drinking and then scolded me for drinking all of her juice. I freaked out and asked her what it was called, but she wouldn't tell me. I spent the day convincing myself I was sick from it and wouldn't find out until over a month later that she had actually lied to me that day to teach me a lesson or something about drinking her juice. Later that night, she poked her head into my room and asked if I could help her bring her broken TV to the car in the morning, adding that I was, "all she had." I looked at her and said, "I guess so." She rolled her eyes and yelled, "If you don't want to help me, then I'll find someone else to do it!" I looked at her and said, "Well, I don't see why I should help someone who treats me so terribly." She slammed the door and went to her room. A few minutes later, I tried to do the right thing and told her I'd help her with the TV. I said to her, "It's just kind of weird that someone who had just gotten done telling me how terrible I am and that I use people is asking me for help. Do you see why I wouldn't want to help you?" She yelled again, "Whatever, david! If you don't want to help, then I'll find someone else to!" I looked at her and said, "Really? No apology or anything?" She said, "I don't have anything to apologize for. I didn't do anything wrong." So I told her I wouldn't be helping her.
Then it happened. Tia had stayed over one night to watch movies. While downstairs the next morning, my grandmother told me, "Your father is coming over to help me with the TV." I gasped and immediately went on a tirade, trying to talk her out of it. I knew she was doing it just to spite me. She doesn't take my anxiety over my parents and what they've done to me seriously at all because she doesn't have feelings or know what it's like to feel. I yelled and yelled, begged even, and offered to do it for her, but she wouldn't budge. Then she said, "You're gonna have to find somewhere else to live!" When I continued to yell, she threatened to call the cops on me. And I knew she'd do it, too. My father would be there in two hours, so I ran upstairs and started packing. It finally reached a breaking point; a line had been crossed by her and I knew for sure that I could not be there for even one more day because of how unsafe of a place it was for me. Between being put down all the time and having her go out of her way to bring up my parents, between the lack of Internet and endless yelping from the dog, between her invasion of my privacy and her going as far as inviting my parents over, I couldn't take anymore. I had no idea what would happen if I were to run into either of my parents. In the last year, it hadn't happened even by accident yet. Earlier that week, on Easter, she had invited them all over for dinner, even. I packed my backpack with anything I'd need and attached my smaller bookbag to it. I told Tia I needed somewhere to stay. Tia told me her sister said I wasn't allowed at the house. I absolutely could not be there while my father was and there was no way I'd be coming back. It was pouring rain outside. I left and walked around the corner with absolutely nowhere I could possibly go or stay. I had no family, no local friends besides Tia, and Schenectady had very little business nearby or open. So I sat on a porch of a recently condemned building and used a board of wood to help keep me dry. I sat there for almost three hours, just watching the early morning commute, wanting to sleep, and choking on disbelief over how fucking awful everything had been going the last month or so.
Where could I go? I explored my brain and checked my cellphone contacts. I couldn't think of anyone. Eventually, I walked in the rain to Starbucks and sat there for the entire day, waiting for the moment my grandmother would get my disability check in the mail so I could have her drop it off and I could be on my way to somewhere. I couldn't sleep, so I sat online and used their Wifi. Thankfully, none of the employees bugged me about the loitering. I met up with Tia later that afternoon and we ate at Bombers before sitting there until closing. An employee punched holes into a "frequent burrito card" and gave it to me so I could get a free burrito on another night, saying, "Hey, I heard what you're going through." It was really nice of them. I posted on Tumblr, asking for online donations and zine purchases and accumulated almost $100 in twenty-four hours. By nighttime, it had dried up, but by midnight, I still had nowhere to go. Not a single person had offered me a place to stay. I tried all three of the notoriously sketchy motels up State Street by my old neighborhood; each of them were no cheaper than $50 and one had no vacancy. Just as I was beginning to consider sleeping on the porch of another abandoned house, I decided to cave in and ask someone for help; something I had tried my hardest all day to avoid. I mostly didn't want to put anyone in a situation where they felt obligated to help. The fat that no one offered yet made me feel even worse about considering it. I texted Jess Ampersand and asked. She was on her way home and she said I could stay over without any difficulty. She was my hero. After a little while of conversing, she told me that a kid I used to know (and hate to this day) was yelling at her for letting me stay at her house, even going as far as telling her she needed to "get an apology" for him from me. It had been years since I'd seen or heard from the kid and, as far as I was concerned, he no longer existed. It was so bizarre to hear that someone out there was so angry with me for high school era drama. (Even funnier, the only reason he ever hated me was because I hated him first.) Her bed was really comfortable. My socks smelled terrible.
Before I left the next day, she told me I could stay again. I had no other plans than to loiter at Bombers all day with Tia. I had nowhere else to go. Halfway through the day, Jess texted me and told me she was on her way to the hospital; if I needed my bag, to contact her sister. Back to square one. Fortunately, that night, I wound up getting an invite from Tom and stayed over at his house for the night. The second I stepped foot out the door of Bombers, it began to rain, so I had to take a cab. I was so grateful to know such great people willing to help. By day two, I had reached over $150 in donations and zine sales all thanks to my post on Tumblr. I only asked for a dollar, but many people sent me $5, $20, and even $30 once. It was pretty incredible and one of those rare moments where people don't seem as bad as they usually do.
Two other touring bands played that night that weren't that bad, but I wasn't really paying attention. I was too hung up on how bad I knew I smelled and how I was going to decide to spend my final night in Ithaca with Grace. In the mean time, I got typically male inquiries from Carl: "Did you fuck her?!" I felt lame only having kisses, held hands, and lengthy cuddle sessions to vouch for, but they were enough to me. While a band called Typewriter played, Grace came up to me and asked me in my ear, "Do you wanna go make out in the bathroom?" I was really taken aback by it and asked her, "Are you drunk?" Of course, I eventually said yes, even though I was nervous like a school boy about it for some reason. The bathroom in the place was the opposite corner of where music was happening and for some reason contained a ridiculously fancy stand-up shower, along with a corner bathtub filled with colorful, plastic ball-pit balls. We tried to unsuspiciously make our way into it, but Lauren was in there when we went for the door. We ran in after she left and I hoped no one had seen us. All the lights were off and we made out fiercely against the wall while my hands wandered. I almost felt like an attractive teenage version of myself again for a moment. The loud music blared in the distance, muffled by the walls separating us, and I wasn't really sure what to say, what to ask, or if it'd be appropriate to do either of those things. When we left the bathroom, we saw that someone had politely placed two stools right in front of the door. It was pretty funny. I got to talk to the people from Run, Forever that night; they were really friendly and seemed interested in possibly playing my city and letting me book them sometime in October. I bought a riot grrl zine from their bassist. Unfortunately for them, the bulk of the crowd had dissipated or become too exhausted to give them the energy they deserved. I sang along excitedly while they went through a half-hour set with little enthusiasm. Appropriately enough, he went on a little speech about how he can't believe people still use certain words, alluding to terms like "faggot", and said, "And if you can't respect that, I can't respect you." It was cool.
I stayed over with Grace that night and nothing more than casual making out and whispering happened. I had to get up early the next day and take a bus downtown. It was sad to say goodbye. Not exactly sure of what the week meant to either of us, I decided in my head that I'd return to my life as a lonely, single guy who no one wanted to be with once I got back home. Luke and his temporary fake girlfriend Alexi picked me up a little later. I caught a ride back to Schenectady with them. Alexi didn't have much of substance to say, but it was really cool hanging out with Luke again. He says a lot of funny and insightful things and showed me a lot of cool music during the ride. An hour or so from home, his tire blew out. Thankfully, he had a spare rubber doughnut to hold us over.
That Sunday was Easter and I had another show booked for Heroes and Martyrs. Carl joked that he was going to pretend he was, "on tour." I had them opening up for Mixtapes with some other local bands. A lot of people told me that it being Easter would severely effect the turnout, but I couldn't imagine that many people actually being into such a stupid child's holiday. There was some trouble getting the PA at first, causing the show to start an hour later, but it did start right at 8pm and everything remained smooth the rest of the night. By the time Public Noise Concern had started their set, the place was packed, probably beyond capacity. It was by far the most heavily attended show of my "career", something like fifty people coming out. Heroes and Martyrs were happy, so I was happy. It was also nice to know I could maybe take some money for a change. Mixtapes are all really nice people and I was actually really amazed that they even inquired about a show in Albany after the last time they played. They were in the middle of a really huge tour with The Wonder Years, Cartel, and Fireworks, playing mostly big venues that were selling out. It was a relief to see that they were still interested in playing small, DIY shows on their days off. I Was A Hero played a good set and spent the entire time before and after following Mixtapes around like fanboys, which I can only imagine is probably pretty annoying. Their set was long, hard, and sweaty and they did mostly requests. I fucking love them. I was able to pay all the bands and even donate $60 to the Social Justice Center. It was a great night and I was really pleased with how everything went. Jess Ampersand and her not-boyfriend Jeremy were nice enough to give us all rides home.
A moniker I've been seeing scrawled around the 518.
Kara stayed over that night. She was dressed up really cute and, as always, she stole my heart the moment I saw her again. It's never an "out of sight, out of mind" sort of situation; more like an "out of sight, out of love" thing, I guess. I can convince myself that she doesn't have my heart while I'm out and about, but once I see her in person again, she owns every part of me and has my full attention. We were laying in bed and I went in for a kiss, which she moved her head away from. I could tell something was wrong. In retrospect, I have no idea how the conversation started. My memory of who said what and when is completely erased and all I can really remember is what the long, sad, angry, confusing conversation came down to: Kara did not love me anymore. "Sometimes, I do, and sometimes I don't; that has to say something," she said. She said she no longer wanted a physical relationship with me and didn't care anymore if we'd ever date. When I asked her what triggered all of these revelations, she said, "I don't know." We argued that entire night and she said a lot of unintentionally mean things to me. I cried for the first time in over a year. She cried, too. We were up all night, arguing, hashing out the past, me interrogating her and getting almost no clear answers in response, and crying on each other. She was acting like she was kicking a bad habit and I felt like my entire world was crumbling around me. Kara had been my best friend, my only family, and more or less the best and most important thing in my life since the summer of 2008. At a time in my life when so many things were going wrong, this was the last thing I would have expected... and it was happening. I always used to tell her that the only thing I saw when I thought about my future was her. With her feelings for me changing, the dynamic of our relationship would change; without those special feelings and the intense closeness and care that came with them, we would likely lose the rare chemistry that we shared together. I could not for even a second begin to imagine what it would be like to not be more than friends. I wasn't even sure if we knew how to do that. I felt betrayed and stupid for thinking I could depend on anyone.
She left the next morning and nothing had been resolved. I couldn't help but wonder how long she had been feeling that way and how much longer she would have kept it from me had she not stayed over that night. She told me she no longer got butterflies when we were together. That maybe hurt the most because I still did. Other than that, she was so vague, so I was just there, hanging from her fingertip from a noose, confused and scared while the rug gets pulled out from underneath me by the only person I've ever felt like I could truly rely on. The night before, she told me about all of these instances that had made her feel bad about herself. Of course, she was trying to explain to me how her feelings were all my fault. Just a few days before that, I was telling Grace that Kara and I worked so well because we communicate everything. Like an idiot, I had to find out that I was actually totally wrong. It seemed as though Kara had been allowing feelings to fester within her and stopped opening up to me about a lot of things. That night was apparently the floodgates opening, most of which could have been avoided had she just spoke to me the way I thought we always did. Now, I know I had just spent a week with another girl, but other girls had never really had an effect on what Kara meant to me. For the most part, I just wanted to be liked and to not feel like an ugly monster anymore. Kara loving me the way she did had become commonplace, like all love does to little boys in men's bodies such as myself. There was also the unnerving fear of commitment that Kara symbolized. Faced with how real what we had was, the best I could do was keep it at arm's length and hope for little flings here and there; safe experiences with other girls who I would never want to commit to. Unfortunately, that plan obviously never worked out, and because I am generally unappealing to the opposite sex, Kara wound up being the only real person in my love life. From there, over the last three years, it had only gotten more and more serious. I asked her to date me once over the phone a year ago, but she stuttered nervously and made me lose my nerves, so I quickly changed the subject and never asked again. We always talked about "us"; what we were and what we'd be. It always came down to being afraid of what could potentially happen to us if we were to ever officially cross that line. Label or not, we still were, and we naively told ourselves that the label would change everything when it was really our bodies the entire time. Plus, we could simply not deny the magnetic surge between us. We were closer than anyone else either of us knew, even other couples, and we had seen for ourselves that we could be together every second of every day for months at a time and not get sick of each other. It didn't occur to me until that night, but we had become some unspoken open relationship, something that, as it turned out, had been killing Kara for a while, although we both acted supportive of romantic endeavors either of us had, masking our jealousy by pretending we were just being good friends to each other. We, and especially I, had fucked everything up. I couldn't help but feel like Chris had something to do with this.
I was crippled with depression and a debilitating shock for days and then weeks after that. I didn't do a lot and mostly stayed in bed. Everything was hitting me all at once: being technically homeless, staying at my grandmother's where I was being shit on daily, having had to give up my dog friend, and now Kara basically breaking up with me. Every now and then, I'd try to hang out with Tia. She's come over and we'd try to squeeze on my tiny bed to watch a movie. I tried hanging out with Kara once or twice and both times it wound up slowly creeping up on me how different and fake things felt between us, usually leading to me bringing it all up, dropping the act, and getting too upset to process or speak coherently about my own feelings. I always wound up getting mad and saying bitter things. I went days at a time avoiding speaking to her. I had this scheme in my head where I was going to stop talking to her and make her realize what she missed. She slowly revealed more and more things to me, eventually cornering me and making me feel like everything was my fault, bringing up things from years ago like the time I stopped talking to her and hooked up with Tara for a few months. It reminded me of Burgundy and how she left me after suddenly deciding to bring up the past and act like it happened the other day or something. I battled with beating myself up over pushing her away and getting angry with her for giving up on us. I stayed at her house one night because she was having a family crisis. I was able to put my shit aside and be there for her until later that night when we were both in bed and she suddenly told me, "I'm thinking about moving to Bloomington." The air got knocked out of me. Not only was she no longer in love with me, but she was now willing and considering leaving me altogether to move hundreds of miles away where we'd never see each other. And I refused to believe it was a coincidence that it was where Chris lived. I didn't make her talk about it too much and instead cried into her shirt between her shoulder blades. She just kept surprising me. I felt like I was being punished. Whenever I'd bring up us kissing or going out on a date or something, she'd say the same thing as though it were rehearsed and she had a rehabilitation sponsor helping her through twelve steps: "I don't want that with you anymore." Each and every time, it hit me like a kick to the diaphragm.
Our conversations went in circles every time until I began to feel like I was trapped inside of a burning building with her. One of the things that hurt the most was the nonchalance she went about everything with. Aside from the few times she cried about me crying, she mostly seemed indifferent to what was going on. When she'd bring up something like us being "just friends", she acted like it was something so easy for her. The ease and calm with which she read her demands made me feel so meaningless. When people asked what was going on, I had to tell them, "I don't think Kara and I are friends anymore." It all felt so surreal because I honestly wouldn't have expected it coming in a thousand years. Tia was supportive and it was comforting to know that I wasn't the only one totally blown out of the water by her decisions and seemingly spontaneous change of feelings. I decided to try to cut ties with her. She would tell me over and over again that she missed me, but it got to a point where I had no idea what that could even mean. So I ignored most of her texts and tried to distract myself with whatever was going on between me and Grace, who I was talking to a lot on the phone. She said a lot of sappy, romantic things to me and I said a lot of them back. It was, at times, a decent break from the whole Kara thing. So I started trying to put my all towards it like it were something that I had to do in order to survive. I also started scheming escape plans to other cities and states by myself, all of which I backed out on because I didn't want to do them alone. Everything I could think of doing to save myself seemed impossible without Kara; it was so weird trying to escape her rather than escape with her for a change.
We had plans to table zines at the Brooklyn Zine Fest not too long after the broke my heart that one night. I tried to force myself into sticking with the plans since I knew it was a great opportunity for me. The night before we were supposed to leave, Tia and her came over. What wound up happening was a long, restless, awkward night of me losing my mind, spewing venom towards Kara, and making Tia feel uncomfortable as she sat front row for our dysfunctional relationship's demise. Eventually, I decided I wasn't going to go. I had no energy in me to get up and smile at strangers all day. Tabling zines with Kara would have felt different, anyway. Everything did, like she had suddenly become a stranger. I felt like I'd lost a limb that I required to do the things I loved doing most. After Tia left, I cried a lot and so did Kara. I told her I didn't think we could be friends anymore. It was awful. We wound up kissing, but I don't know why. I said something about wanting one last kiss and she obliged. It sucks to think that even if it had actually been our last kiss, it probably didn't mean anything to her. We skipped the zine fest. I regret doing that. The next day, Tia and I wound up going to New York City. She was looking forward to the zine fest so bad, I wanted to make it up to her. So we took the $15 Chinatown bus there and spent the entire day walking around. We met up with a cool mutual friend from Tumblr named Alyssa, who skipped school to hang out. We visited the Museum of Sex where graffiti artists I adore such as Lush and Dickchicken had made stuff. We went to Desert Island in Williamsburg to browse comics and buy zines and then ate a big dinner at Food Swings. It was a really fun day. The weather was warm and I was sweating a bunch. We got lost a few times and we missed our preferred bus back to Albany, leaving us stuck laying on couches for a few hours before we could leave. I couldn't shake the dread that was clogging my arteries.
One night, Grace asked me if I, "wanted to be exclusive," via text. I called her right away, but she had sent it while at a party. I made some wisecrack about how she shouldn't drink and text only to find out that she was actually drinking. So I didn't respond. It was something I would have preferred to sit down and talk about, especially since I was a little confused as to how she distinguished "exclusivity" from "in a relationship". Later that night, she would go on to hook up with another guy while intoxicated. This girl was so confusing. After an entire week of her adamantly sticking to, "we can't date," she seemed to want to date and began treating me like her boyfriend, practically. She told me one week that she had gone on a few dates and hooked up with some guy, but told him she couldn't anymore because she only wanted to be with me. In one night, she'd contradict not only that, but the fact that she had just asked me to be exclusive. I planned on visiting her for another week soon, though.
Meanwhile, back at my grandmother's, the walls were closing in on me. My grandmother talked more shit to me and about me than my peers did in high school. One night, a friend of mine named Carissa who I hadn't really spoken to in a few years stayed overnight. The next morning, I was making us pancakes and my grandmother decided, as she always does, to use me having company as a podium at which she can talk about how fucked-up I am. Carissa and I were having a conversation and she was asking me some questions while my grandmother folded clothes a few feet away. Whenever I'd say certain things, she'd chime in with some insanity. I mentioned never wanting to work and she chimed in, "Yeah, he doesn't want to work! He sure has a bright future ahead of him!" I mention not having parents I can rely on and she adds, "You do have family! They love and miss you very much!" So, to put it in context, I told Carissa the entire story of what happened between me and my parents a year ago that lead to me no longer talking to them. My grandmother, encouraged merely by her devotion to the status quo and the nuclear family, called me an idiot and said, "It's time to forgive and forget!" It triggered a thunderstorm within me. No matter how many times I told that woman that just the mention of my parents gives me an anxiety attack, she would not listen. Carissa thought the woman was fucking nuts. On my way up the stairs, she continued to yell at me, unable to take what she constantly dishes out, and told me that, "all I do is use people." Not entirely sure what that could even be referring to. After Carissa left, my grandmother told me that she had mixed her low blood sugar medicine in with the orange juice we were drinking and then scolded me for drinking all of her juice. I freaked out and asked her what it was called, but she wouldn't tell me. I spent the day convincing myself I was sick from it and wouldn't find out until over a month later that she had actually lied to me that day to teach me a lesson or something about drinking her juice. Later that night, she poked her head into my room and asked if I could help her bring her broken TV to the car in the morning, adding that I was, "all she had." I looked at her and said, "I guess so." She rolled her eyes and yelled, "If you don't want to help me, then I'll find someone else to do it!" I looked at her and said, "Well, I don't see why I should help someone who treats me so terribly." She slammed the door and went to her room. A few minutes later, I tried to do the right thing and told her I'd help her with the TV. I said to her, "It's just kind of weird that someone who had just gotten done telling me how terrible I am and that I use people is asking me for help. Do you see why I wouldn't want to help you?" She yelled again, "Whatever, david! If you don't want to help, then I'll find someone else to!" I looked at her and said, "Really? No apology or anything?" She said, "I don't have anything to apologize for. I didn't do anything wrong." So I told her I wouldn't be helping her.
Then it happened. Tia had stayed over one night to watch movies. While downstairs the next morning, my grandmother told me, "Your father is coming over to help me with the TV." I gasped and immediately went on a tirade, trying to talk her out of it. I knew she was doing it just to spite me. She doesn't take my anxiety over my parents and what they've done to me seriously at all because she doesn't have feelings or know what it's like to feel. I yelled and yelled, begged even, and offered to do it for her, but she wouldn't budge. Then she said, "You're gonna have to find somewhere else to live!" When I continued to yell, she threatened to call the cops on me. And I knew she'd do it, too. My father would be there in two hours, so I ran upstairs and started packing. It finally reached a breaking point; a line had been crossed by her and I knew for sure that I could not be there for even one more day because of how unsafe of a place it was for me. Between being put down all the time and having her go out of her way to bring up my parents, between the lack of Internet and endless yelping from the dog, between her invasion of my privacy and her going as far as inviting my parents over, I couldn't take anymore. I had no idea what would happen if I were to run into either of my parents. In the last year, it hadn't happened even by accident yet. Earlier that week, on Easter, she had invited them all over for dinner, even. I packed my backpack with anything I'd need and attached my smaller bookbag to it. I told Tia I needed somewhere to stay. Tia told me her sister said I wasn't allowed at the house. I absolutely could not be there while my father was and there was no way I'd be coming back. It was pouring rain outside. I left and walked around the corner with absolutely nowhere I could possibly go or stay. I had no family, no local friends besides Tia, and Schenectady had very little business nearby or open. So I sat on a porch of a recently condemned building and used a board of wood to help keep me dry. I sat there for almost three hours, just watching the early morning commute, wanting to sleep, and choking on disbelief over how fucking awful everything had been going the last month or so.
Where could I go? I explored my brain and checked my cellphone contacts. I couldn't think of anyone. Eventually, I walked in the rain to Starbucks and sat there for the entire day, waiting for the moment my grandmother would get my disability check in the mail so I could have her drop it off and I could be on my way to somewhere. I couldn't sleep, so I sat online and used their Wifi. Thankfully, none of the employees bugged me about the loitering. I met up with Tia later that afternoon and we ate at Bombers before sitting there until closing. An employee punched holes into a "frequent burrito card" and gave it to me so I could get a free burrito on another night, saying, "Hey, I heard what you're going through." It was really nice of them. I posted on Tumblr, asking for online donations and zine purchases and accumulated almost $100 in twenty-four hours. By nighttime, it had dried up, but by midnight, I still had nowhere to go. Not a single person had offered me a place to stay. I tried all three of the notoriously sketchy motels up State Street by my old neighborhood; each of them were no cheaper than $50 and one had no vacancy. Just as I was beginning to consider sleeping on the porch of another abandoned house, I decided to cave in and ask someone for help; something I had tried my hardest all day to avoid. I mostly didn't want to put anyone in a situation where they felt obligated to help. The fat that no one offered yet made me feel even worse about considering it. I texted Jess Ampersand and asked. She was on her way home and she said I could stay over without any difficulty. She was my hero. After a little while of conversing, she told me that a kid I used to know (and hate to this day) was yelling at her for letting me stay at her house, even going as far as telling her she needed to "get an apology" for him from me. It had been years since I'd seen or heard from the kid and, as far as I was concerned, he no longer existed. It was so bizarre to hear that someone out there was so angry with me for high school era drama. (Even funnier, the only reason he ever hated me was because I hated him first.) Her bed was really comfortable. My socks smelled terrible.
Before I left the next day, she told me I could stay again. I had no other plans than to loiter at Bombers all day with Tia. I had nowhere else to go. Halfway through the day, Jess texted me and told me she was on her way to the hospital; if I needed my bag, to contact her sister. Back to square one. Fortunately, that night, I wound up getting an invite from Tom and stayed over at his house for the night. The second I stepped foot out the door of Bombers, it began to rain, so I had to take a cab. I was so grateful to know such great people willing to help. By day two, I had reached over $150 in donations and zine sales all thanks to my post on Tumblr. I only asked for a dollar, but many people sent me $5, $20, and even $30 once. It was pretty incredible and one of those rare moments where people don't seem as bad as they usually do.