Jess.
Jess and I met over Tumblr before the peak of my online notoriety under the user name "uglyuglyugly". She was one of a handful of girls on there who gave me attention that I consistently pined over. This was almost four years ago. Unlike with the others, we became friends on Facebook and exchanged emails every now and then. One night, she sent me a series of seductive nude photos, completely unprovoked. In emails, she'd share very personal things with me and things she was going through that I could relate to but couldn't offer help with. I was intensely attracted to her. When we first started talking, she had dreads that were dyed a sewage tint of green that I couldn't pinpoint due to the glare of her shitty computer's camera. She was pale like paper, covered in freckles, and her eye lids hung low over her melancholic, metallic blue eyes. She has two prominent freckles right underneath each eye, symmetrically in the same exact spots. I loved her face, but also loved the parts of her body I was able to see when she'd post something revealing online. She was vegan and pretty aggressive about it. This almost made up for the shortcomings of being into marijuana and already having a son. One thing about her that stood out especially was that she didn't try so hard the way other people on there did. She was exactly and unapologetically her. As with most of my interactions with pretty vegan girls on Tumblr, I assumed we'd never meet, or that she'd be repulsed by me if we ever did.
Our communication with one another fluctuated, though when we'd talk the flirtatiousness would pick up right where it left off. Jess was vocal about her mental health issues and life troubles. She would unexpectedly disappear from the internet for several months at a time due to hospitalizations and other drama in her life, only to show back up like nothing happened and resume casual blogging. At the same time, my blog was being deleted every couple of months, only further yanking us from one another on what was one of the only means we had of keeping in touch. On one of her returns, she told me she had moved from her parents' place in North Carolina with her son to Tennessee where she was staying with a guy she'd just met over the Internet. They quite literally didn't know each other, but she'd moved to him. I remember telling her, "Next time you move in with a stranger from the Internet, make sure it's me." That was almost two years ago. During that time, she became very pridefully sober, which only added to how intriguing she was. The user name she had was "hatecopslovepigs" and she was very loud about anarchism and hating the police. She had even gone hitchhiking a time or two. We had a lot in common, it seemed. But the strange man she moved in with eventually soon became her boyfriend, making her another girl from the Internet who lived far away and found someone else due to closer proximity and better timing. The last time she disappeared from Tumblr, I honestly assumed she'd killed herself, based on the last couple of things she had said to me. My blog had once again been deleted and when I gave in and made a new one, I immediately went to hers to refollow her, only to notice that it had been several months since her last update.
While touring, I'd noticed someone on my dashboard had reblogged something from her recognizable username. Excitedly, I went to her page and noticed that she was back. I started following her again and reblogged a few things from her. It wasn't long before she sent me a message telling me she "loved me" and that I was "one of her favorite human beings on the planet" and that she was "so happy she found me again". It made me smile a lot, but I knew better than to get my hopes up about girls from the Internet at that point. Not too long after that, though, we started talking on the phone every night for hours at a time. She was a much-needed break from the toxic hypermasculinity and unrelatable bullshit of my all-male tour team. It was also nice to feel wanted since I was the ugly one on a team of guys who had no trouble attracting women towards them even when they were acting their worst. We clicked instantly and it became increasingly difficult to get off the phone with her each night. Though I'd technically "known" Jess for about four years, it honestly felt like we'd been close friends for the entire time on a level far beyond what we actually had been. Every conversation with her just felt so natural and comfortable.
At that time, Jess was back at her parents' house with her son in North Carolina. She lived in a rural town called Olin where there was absolutely nothing in walking distance. The closest town offered little to nothing when and if she could get there. There was no public transportation. She didn't drive. She was unemployed and trying for the second time to get approved by Social Security. She had broken up with the guy in Tennessee about three months prior, but he remained the only person besides me that she really spoke with each day. She was seeking therapy for BPD (borderline personality disorder) and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The last time she disappeared from the Internet, it was because of an overdose and suicide attempt, just as I’d feared. Her parents, particularly her mother, were abusive, mostly verbally and emotionally, and I could hear the constant screaming of her mother in the background at times, who spoke like a fire truck's alarm even when nothing was going on. Almost every single day, she was telling Jess that she had to find somewhere else to live. Jess cried to me a lot. Her son was four years old. They seemed to have a good relationship. She told me he was the only thing she was even alive for at that point. Her mother was continuously trying to undermine her mothering, though, and even took her son, whom she was raising vegan, to a McDonald's behind her back and coerced him into eating meat. I started becoming overwhelmed by the desire to be their hero.
During early March on my last tour, we had the entirety of Spring Break off, so I decided to meet up with her in North Carolina instead of going down to Florida with the guys. I had the extra money, so I could afford the motel and the Greyhound tickets and all that. I did all of this after several days of harassing Brian about going to South Carolina for a girl. I was a hypocrite and I'm pretty sure I was just jealous I didn't have a girl in another state who wanted me. Embarrassed, I didn't tell any of them where I was going, even when they drove me to the Greyhound station in Huntsville, AL. The ride took a little over half a day and she was set to meet me at the station in Charlotte, NC when I got there thanks to a ride from her father. Right as my bus was nearing the station, I got a confusing text from her: a rambling paragraph clearly not meant for me telling whoever it was intended for that she was going to visit "two friends" and "wasn't going to fuck anyone" because she "didn't want to have sex" and "wasn't interested in anyone". Whoever it was, she was lying to them to cover up the fact that she was coming to see me. My heart sank, and as I stepped off the bus, I instantly felt foolish for coming to visit some girl from the internet; for believing anyone could be into me, for believing that anyone could be a decent, honest person. She quickly realized she'd sent it to me and texted me an apology.
All I said was, "We're going to have to discuss that later."
It was too late to turn and run away.
I remember the first time I saw her like it was a slow-motion scene in a movie where time slowed down and symphonic music began to play as an aura of light shone from the outline of her body. She stumbled out of the truck a few yards away and smiled at me, causing her eyes to squint in the cutest way. Her brown hair was wavy and shaggy and just barely grazed the bottom of her cheeks. She was wearing a black dress that showed off her Neutral Milk Hotel chest tattoo that read the lyric, "How strange it is to be anything at all." Over it was her denim vest covered in patches, some of which were homemade like the tie-dye hand print of her son and the veganarchy feminist symbol. She wore black boots like Daria Morgendorffer over black tights. As she got closer to me, I could see just how covered in beautiful freckles she was. We hugged really long and tight and it practically knocked the wind out of me to be touched in such an intensely affectionate way. She went inside to use the bathroom and my mind returned to the deceitful text I'd accidentally seen. The short drive to the sketchy motel was pretty quiet. Her father didn't say much, which was a relief. In our room, I sat with some distance from her on the bed.
I brought up the text. She had sent it to her ex-boyfriend in Tennessee, Larry, who she had told me previously was no longer a part of her life. She told me she lied to him to keep him off her back. It was obvious to me who it was for and why she did it, but she insisted she didn't have any feelings for him anymore because he was abusive and didn't respect her. After that, we were able to get a little more comfortable. We ordered Chinese food delivery, watched King of the Hill, and talked for hours. As always, I kept a respectable distance between my hands and her body even though we were face to face and very close. We'd had some dirty conversations over the phone already, but I assumed she was already turned off by how I looked. Plus, I didn't want her to think I met her just to get laid.
"I've been holding myself back for hours now," she told me.
"Then take off your fucking tights," I said back.
Our kisses needed no navigation; our lips, swirling tongues, and bottom lip biting just happened so smoothly, as if choreographed. It had been such a long time since I enjoyed kissing another person. It just never felt as natural with anyone but Tara. The intensity was very present, but she had to change the ambiance. She needed just the right amount of light, so she threw something over the lamp. She was also admittedly insecure about her stomach and waist, which I loved the shape of, because of stretch marks left behind from the pregnancy on her tiny frame. The first time we had sex was incredible; honestly, the best sex I'd ever had since Tara. It hadn't been since Tara several years before that I felt so comfortable being that intimate and naked with another human being. It all just felt so right, so organic. I wanted to explore every inch of her soft skin. I wanted to bite and tear the flesh from her ass. She tasted and smelled delicious. It felt like we'd known each other for years, and not just online. We slept together like dead babies until late into the afternoon the next day.
We spent a little over four days together, eating vegan food, exploring cool parts of the city, talking, and having sex. It was surreal in how magic it all felt. We just clicked so quickly. Neither of us were looking for a relationship, of course. She had just escaped an abusive relationship a few months before that and I had already accepted a life of bachelorhood and involuntary celibacy. But we couldn't ignore the special something between us. We had a long talk about it, neither of us coming to any solid conclusion. Saying goodbye at the bus station was sad. On the bus to Florida, we continued to text. I told her I wanted a relationship, though neither of us knew how we were going to make that happen. In the past, I'd sabotaged potentially great relationships with and hurt people I loved out of a fearful aversion to commitment. I wasn’t going to let this escape my grasps this time. I had had such bad luck in love, kisses, and boobs; there was no way I was going to choose to keep looking for something rare but finally found just because of geography. At the same time, I felt odd going against all of my instincts. I vowed to never be in a long-distance relationship and I'd spent weeks telling Brian to, "never travel for a girl." In the end, the options were the unknown or the known: if I tried to keep her near even in distance by letting her know I wanted to pursue something long-term and serious, I didn't know what would happen--but something great could; if I ignored my feelings and went with my damaged guts, I'd know exactly what was going to happen--I was going to continue for an indeterminable amount of time all alone and untouched.
A couple weeks later, I paid for Jess to come visit me again. We were going to a school in Wilmington, NC, a couple hours from where she was. I was excited to see her again, but also thought a second visit would reveal a lot about whether dating her was a good idea or not. We had a great couple of days and the special something was still very much there. Talking to her every day kept me sane while on tour. We hated the same things and were emotionally flammable in the same ways. Our passion for the things we loved and hated were equally matched and our senses of humor, experiences, and desires were on the same page. We complemented each other almost perfectly.
♥
Jess mailed me this patch she made for me. The pigeon drawing on it was something she drew and intended to mail to me in a letter a long time ago, she told me, but never did.
We were officially dating at that point and it was all very exciting to me. I was totally infatuated with her and she acted just as obsessed with me. We were both very clingy and open about it. I liked having someone who was as needy, jealous, and sappy as myself. Our past relationships with our significant others and families had led us to similar points and both of us seemed very conscious of exactly what we wanted out of life and love. It was my first real relationship in almost six years. It was scary, and being long-distance was frustrating, but I had something to look forward to about ending my travels for the first time since I'd started traveling four or more years ago.
During my last month of touring, though, I did see some bloody red flags. I knew she suffered from a history of mental illness, addiction, various disorders, and trauma. How much of them were self-diagnosed wasn't entirely clear to me. I appreciated those damaged parts of her, though, because it meant she had a better empathy for my own damages and deficiencies. However, I quickly saw small examples of how much worse hers were than mine. One of the first arguments we ever got into was while we were tabling in Wilmington. I was using my laptop when I left a lady friend a comment on Facebook. She had tagged me in a picture of herself, saying something along the lines of, "This is my first selfie. Don't vomit on me, dave." This was referring to a status I'd made a few days before about wanting to vomit on people while they take selfies. I responded with a comment saying, "I'll vomit on you any time.&Hearts;" Jess wasted no time flipping out about it.
"Did you seriously just send another girl a heart right in front of me?!"
I quickly explained it, reminded her that I had no interest in anyone besides her, et cetera, et cetera. As I was forced to realize, though, her jealousy was magmatic in its consistency and unwavering. She'd bring it up not even a week later while on the phone and actually wind up yelling at me. She spoke to me in a tone and manner that I had not experienced with her yet and it too closely resembled those of the other women who had hurt me in my life: my mother, Burgundy, Kara. She took a long time to calm down, and even though I thought I'd fixed it, she'd bring it up again a few days later because her therapist told her I was "definitely flirting". After being yelled at a lot by her, I told her that if she wasn't ready to accept that I wasn't like her exes, that if she wasn't ready to accept a relationship with a guy who could treat her right, that if she wasn't ready for a relationship, then maybe we shouldn't try. This got her to beg for forgiveness and to suddenly have a change of heart about the stupid Facebook comment. An even worse argument erupted when I told her I wasn't against pornography, which she claimed was sexist and promoted "rape culture". The conversation would dissolve into an erratic argument that only she was waging, and she would suddenly be talking down to me, swearing at me like someone she didn't even like, and behaving in a very troubling, unpredictable way, like she had absolutely no control over herself. I didn't like how familiar that verbal treatment was.
Arguments like these happened several times over my final month on the road and almost every time I'd return to the conclusion that she just wasn't emotionally or mentally ready for a relationship yet. But every time I'd say that to her, she'd start crying, pleading, and apologizing, and I'd inevitably acquiesce. We actually broke up one night. As it neared the time for me to go home, she started acting weirder. I honestly felt as though she were trying to sabotage our relationship or something. We were having a really great conversation on the phone one night and she suddenly brought up having concerns. When I pried to have her share them, it really only came down to one thing: She didn't want to commit to a completely sober lifestyle; she wanted to smoke weed again one day. We argued about it for a while, and I went on rants about the health issues behind smoking weed, how it would be irresponsible to bring drugs into our future home and around her son, how small dealers funded gang wars and larger dealers funded international wars, how I would never want to experience her as anyone but her true self. She responded with every slogan and headline she could think of in defense of weed and the conversation ended with me telling her outright that I could not and would not date someone who had interest in drugs of any kind. She angrily told me I was a hypocrite because I ingested caffeine, and hung up. It hurt to do, but I had my line that I had drawn. I didn't even know it was an issue, as she had told me earlier on that I was right about what I said about marijuana and that she wanted to be completely sober. She must’ve only been saying what I wanted to hear. Of course, after a day or so without talking, she called and was calm enough to have a real conversation about it.
Against my better judgment, I wanted to make this relationship happen. I consciously ignored the red flags because I wanted love. I allowed the good to outweigh the bad; to give her the benefit of the doubt like I'd wished so many other people had granted me. I kept telling myself that she would only get better with time; she just needed patience and to finally see what it was like to be in a healthy, loving, caring relationship free of abuse, disrespect, and objectification. Part of me knew I was lying to myself. That was when I started planning to kidnap her and her son from North Carolina after tour and have them move in with me in Schenectady. Eventually, they'd move again with me and my friends to Philadelphia. It was all a very scary, intimidating thought, but I wanted love, I wanted a family, I wanted all the things that my life had been lacking since Burgundy left me almost six years earlier. I eventually dropped off tour a month early for reasons outside of my relationship with Jess. When I got back home, I'd devised a plan that was much easier than the original plot of taking a bus to North Carolina, picking them up secretly, and then taking a bus back to New York with them. To make it cheaper, more comfortable, and allow for more space for all involved, I asked Matt for help and he was able to borrow his brother's car. I'd cover gas, Matt would drive, and we would go pick them up from Olin. We had less than three days to do it because of Matt's brother's stipulations, which included a full tank and oil change upon return. Jess was sick of being away from me, sick of not knowing when she'd see me again, and sick of her mother, who still trying to undermine her own mothering, verbally and emotionally abusing her and everyone else in the household, and telling Jess every day that she needed to leave and find somewhere else to live. Well, I was giving her somewhere else to live. Unfortunately for her mother, we were taking the kid, too.
Tuesday, April 29th
A combined 1,581 miles.
Matt and I left the night before to get in as much driving as possible. I think we made it to somewhere in southern Pennsylvania by sunrise. We slept for two hours in the car in a parking lot as it rained. We needed to get to Jess by a certain time so we could get her and her belongings out of the house while no one was home. Then we had to pick her son up from school. She had already told her mother I was coming to see them and that I was going to take them all out for dinner and movie. Her mother, of course, thought we'd be bringing him back for his usual bedtime. She also thought Jess was moving out and in with me somewhere in Charlotte. The eleven-hour drive was long, but Matt held out. I tried to stay awake with him in solidarity. Even under the conditions, the road trip was still a fun experience. The closer to Olin we got, the more desolate it became. The space between buildings and houses became wider, the amount of concrete became lesser and lesser, and roads became more narrow and with less traffic. Eventually, we pulled up. The first thing I noticed was the field of dairy cows she had told me about, who she frequently visited and talked to. She was standing outside of her house. The moment I saw her again, my heart froze and my feet got cold. I finally started getting nervous about what I was trying to do. But we packed up the car, anyway. There was no turning back now. She left a note to her mother explaining things and left it in a drawer by the computer where she wouldn't immediately find it. We wanted to get a considerable distance before she knew anything.
She had moved with her son before with her last boyfriend in Tennessee. Her mother had called Child Protective Services on her and told them a bunch of lies about how mentally unstable she was. Upon investigating, they declared her suitable to take care of her own son. Jess was certain her mother would do this again, so we tried to prepare for it. We picked him up from school not too far from there in the biggest area nearby, Statesville. He was short and blonde with bright blue eyes, taller and more developed than most kids his age. He was wearing a shirt with a patch Jess had made him of the Grim Reaper on a skateboard. She had asked him what he wanted on a patch and that was exactly what he'd requested. His grandmother said goodbye and I almost felt bad about taking him from her without her knowing it was happening. I had to remind myself that she wasn't a good person, though. We all went out for pizza at the Mellow Mushroom in Charlotte. Her son was as hyper as any other child, but really funny and clever. He was unusually vocal and articulate about veganism, and had a precocious personality overall. Jess had done a good job so far of raising him into an inquisitive, excited, sarcastic little boy.
Then we started driving back. We kept him calm by telling him we were staying at a hotel for the night. He apparently loved hotels. Even after five hours of driving and getting stuck in a traffic jam, he was very cool and collected. He didn't interrogate us about what was going on, he didn't whine, and he didn't get grouchy. He was having fun and embraced the adventure until he fell asleep in his child seat. By the night, my phone started getting the expected calls from Jess's mother and family. I got a text saying that the police and CPS had been called. We hadn't done anything illegal, though. We stopped for the night somewhere in Staunton, VA because Matt knew some people there from his past in community college. As we brought him up to the motel room, Jess stayed in the car, sobbing on the phone to her mother, who was unforgiving and ferocious. It was clear she saw Jess's son as her own and had no real compassion for Jess. We got through the night, though, and no one felt bad. Jess and I stayed up late, waiting for him to finally fall asleep. We still hadn't fully explained to him what was going on. We tried to have sex in the tiny bathroom, but it was nearly impossible.
We got to Schenectady by the next night and carried her son into the living room still in his child seat. He slept on the couch and Jess and I spent the night relishing in finally being together for good. I had no idea what the next month would be like. I'd just spent several hundred dollars of savings on getting her there. It was almost like betting on a race where all the horses were walking slowly. I'd also spent a month arguing with Tia, who obviously was unsure about letting some total stranger and her son move into our tiny apartment. But I held tight to fantasies of us being a great little family together.
Our communication with one another fluctuated, though when we'd talk the flirtatiousness would pick up right where it left off. Jess was vocal about her mental health issues and life troubles. She would unexpectedly disappear from the internet for several months at a time due to hospitalizations and other drama in her life, only to show back up like nothing happened and resume casual blogging. At the same time, my blog was being deleted every couple of months, only further yanking us from one another on what was one of the only means we had of keeping in touch. On one of her returns, she told me she had moved from her parents' place in North Carolina with her son to Tennessee where she was staying with a guy she'd just met over the Internet. They quite literally didn't know each other, but she'd moved to him. I remember telling her, "Next time you move in with a stranger from the Internet, make sure it's me." That was almost two years ago. During that time, she became very pridefully sober, which only added to how intriguing she was. The user name she had was "hatecopslovepigs" and she was very loud about anarchism and hating the police. She had even gone hitchhiking a time or two. We had a lot in common, it seemed. But the strange man she moved in with eventually soon became her boyfriend, making her another girl from the Internet who lived far away and found someone else due to closer proximity and better timing. The last time she disappeared from Tumblr, I honestly assumed she'd killed herself, based on the last couple of things she had said to me. My blog had once again been deleted and when I gave in and made a new one, I immediately went to hers to refollow her, only to notice that it had been several months since her last update.
While touring, I'd noticed someone on my dashboard had reblogged something from her recognizable username. Excitedly, I went to her page and noticed that she was back. I started following her again and reblogged a few things from her. It wasn't long before she sent me a message telling me she "loved me" and that I was "one of her favorite human beings on the planet" and that she was "so happy she found me again". It made me smile a lot, but I knew better than to get my hopes up about girls from the Internet at that point. Not too long after that, though, we started talking on the phone every night for hours at a time. She was a much-needed break from the toxic hypermasculinity and unrelatable bullshit of my all-male tour team. It was also nice to feel wanted since I was the ugly one on a team of guys who had no trouble attracting women towards them even when they were acting their worst. We clicked instantly and it became increasingly difficult to get off the phone with her each night. Though I'd technically "known" Jess for about four years, it honestly felt like we'd been close friends for the entire time on a level far beyond what we actually had been. Every conversation with her just felt so natural and comfortable.
At that time, Jess was back at her parents' house with her son in North Carolina. She lived in a rural town called Olin where there was absolutely nothing in walking distance. The closest town offered little to nothing when and if she could get there. There was no public transportation. She didn't drive. She was unemployed and trying for the second time to get approved by Social Security. She had broken up with the guy in Tennessee about three months prior, but he remained the only person besides me that she really spoke with each day. She was seeking therapy for BPD (borderline personality disorder) and PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). The last time she disappeared from the Internet, it was because of an overdose and suicide attempt, just as I’d feared. Her parents, particularly her mother, were abusive, mostly verbally and emotionally, and I could hear the constant screaming of her mother in the background at times, who spoke like a fire truck's alarm even when nothing was going on. Almost every single day, she was telling Jess that she had to find somewhere else to live. Jess cried to me a lot. Her son was four years old. They seemed to have a good relationship. She told me he was the only thing she was even alive for at that point. Her mother was continuously trying to undermine her mothering, though, and even took her son, whom she was raising vegan, to a McDonald's behind her back and coerced him into eating meat. I started becoming overwhelmed by the desire to be their hero.
During early March on my last tour, we had the entirety of Spring Break off, so I decided to meet up with her in North Carolina instead of going down to Florida with the guys. I had the extra money, so I could afford the motel and the Greyhound tickets and all that. I did all of this after several days of harassing Brian about going to South Carolina for a girl. I was a hypocrite and I'm pretty sure I was just jealous I didn't have a girl in another state who wanted me. Embarrassed, I didn't tell any of them where I was going, even when they drove me to the Greyhound station in Huntsville, AL. The ride took a little over half a day and she was set to meet me at the station in Charlotte, NC when I got there thanks to a ride from her father. Right as my bus was nearing the station, I got a confusing text from her: a rambling paragraph clearly not meant for me telling whoever it was intended for that she was going to visit "two friends" and "wasn't going to fuck anyone" because she "didn't want to have sex" and "wasn't interested in anyone". Whoever it was, she was lying to them to cover up the fact that she was coming to see me. My heart sank, and as I stepped off the bus, I instantly felt foolish for coming to visit some girl from the internet; for believing anyone could be into me, for believing that anyone could be a decent, honest person. She quickly realized she'd sent it to me and texted me an apology.
All I said was, "We're going to have to discuss that later."
It was too late to turn and run away.
I remember the first time I saw her like it was a slow-motion scene in a movie where time slowed down and symphonic music began to play as an aura of light shone from the outline of her body. She stumbled out of the truck a few yards away and smiled at me, causing her eyes to squint in the cutest way. Her brown hair was wavy and shaggy and just barely grazed the bottom of her cheeks. She was wearing a black dress that showed off her Neutral Milk Hotel chest tattoo that read the lyric, "How strange it is to be anything at all." Over it was her denim vest covered in patches, some of which were homemade like the tie-dye hand print of her son and the veganarchy feminist symbol. She wore black boots like Daria Morgendorffer over black tights. As she got closer to me, I could see just how covered in beautiful freckles she was. We hugged really long and tight and it practically knocked the wind out of me to be touched in such an intensely affectionate way. She went inside to use the bathroom and my mind returned to the deceitful text I'd accidentally seen. The short drive to the sketchy motel was pretty quiet. Her father didn't say much, which was a relief. In our room, I sat with some distance from her on the bed.
I brought up the text. She had sent it to her ex-boyfriend in Tennessee, Larry, who she had told me previously was no longer a part of her life. She told me she lied to him to keep him off her back. It was obvious to me who it was for and why she did it, but she insisted she didn't have any feelings for him anymore because he was abusive and didn't respect her. After that, we were able to get a little more comfortable. We ordered Chinese food delivery, watched King of the Hill, and talked for hours. As always, I kept a respectable distance between my hands and her body even though we were face to face and very close. We'd had some dirty conversations over the phone already, but I assumed she was already turned off by how I looked. Plus, I didn't want her to think I met her just to get laid.
"I've been holding myself back for hours now," she told me.
"Then take off your fucking tights," I said back.
Our kisses needed no navigation; our lips, swirling tongues, and bottom lip biting just happened so smoothly, as if choreographed. It had been such a long time since I enjoyed kissing another person. It just never felt as natural with anyone but Tara. The intensity was very present, but she had to change the ambiance. She needed just the right amount of light, so she threw something over the lamp. She was also admittedly insecure about her stomach and waist, which I loved the shape of, because of stretch marks left behind from the pregnancy on her tiny frame. The first time we had sex was incredible; honestly, the best sex I'd ever had since Tara. It hadn't been since Tara several years before that I felt so comfortable being that intimate and naked with another human being. It all just felt so right, so organic. I wanted to explore every inch of her soft skin. I wanted to bite and tear the flesh from her ass. She tasted and smelled delicious. It felt like we'd known each other for years, and not just online. We slept together like dead babies until late into the afternoon the next day.
We spent a little over four days together, eating vegan food, exploring cool parts of the city, talking, and having sex. It was surreal in how magic it all felt. We just clicked so quickly. Neither of us were looking for a relationship, of course. She had just escaped an abusive relationship a few months before that and I had already accepted a life of bachelorhood and involuntary celibacy. But we couldn't ignore the special something between us. We had a long talk about it, neither of us coming to any solid conclusion. Saying goodbye at the bus station was sad. On the bus to Florida, we continued to text. I told her I wanted a relationship, though neither of us knew how we were going to make that happen. In the past, I'd sabotaged potentially great relationships with and hurt people I loved out of a fearful aversion to commitment. I wasn’t going to let this escape my grasps this time. I had had such bad luck in love, kisses, and boobs; there was no way I was going to choose to keep looking for something rare but finally found just because of geography. At the same time, I felt odd going against all of my instincts. I vowed to never be in a long-distance relationship and I'd spent weeks telling Brian to, "never travel for a girl." In the end, the options were the unknown or the known: if I tried to keep her near even in distance by letting her know I wanted to pursue something long-term and serious, I didn't know what would happen--but something great could; if I ignored my feelings and went with my damaged guts, I'd know exactly what was going to happen--I was going to continue for an indeterminable amount of time all alone and untouched.
A couple weeks later, I paid for Jess to come visit me again. We were going to a school in Wilmington, NC, a couple hours from where she was. I was excited to see her again, but also thought a second visit would reveal a lot about whether dating her was a good idea or not. We had a great couple of days and the special something was still very much there. Talking to her every day kept me sane while on tour. We hated the same things and were emotionally flammable in the same ways. Our passion for the things we loved and hated were equally matched and our senses of humor, experiences, and desires were on the same page. We complemented each other almost perfectly.
♥
Jess mailed me this patch she made for me. The pigeon drawing on it was something she drew and intended to mail to me in a letter a long time ago, she told me, but never did.
We were officially dating at that point and it was all very exciting to me. I was totally infatuated with her and she acted just as obsessed with me. We were both very clingy and open about it. I liked having someone who was as needy, jealous, and sappy as myself. Our past relationships with our significant others and families had led us to similar points and both of us seemed very conscious of exactly what we wanted out of life and love. It was my first real relationship in almost six years. It was scary, and being long-distance was frustrating, but I had something to look forward to about ending my travels for the first time since I'd started traveling four or more years ago.
During my last month of touring, though, I did see some bloody red flags. I knew she suffered from a history of mental illness, addiction, various disorders, and trauma. How much of them were self-diagnosed wasn't entirely clear to me. I appreciated those damaged parts of her, though, because it meant she had a better empathy for my own damages and deficiencies. However, I quickly saw small examples of how much worse hers were than mine. One of the first arguments we ever got into was while we were tabling in Wilmington. I was using my laptop when I left a lady friend a comment on Facebook. She had tagged me in a picture of herself, saying something along the lines of, "This is my first selfie. Don't vomit on me, dave." This was referring to a status I'd made a few days before about wanting to vomit on people while they take selfies. I responded with a comment saying, "I'll vomit on you any time.&Hearts;" Jess wasted no time flipping out about it.
"Did you seriously just send another girl a heart right in front of me?!"
I quickly explained it, reminded her that I had no interest in anyone besides her, et cetera, et cetera. As I was forced to realize, though, her jealousy was magmatic in its consistency and unwavering. She'd bring it up not even a week later while on the phone and actually wind up yelling at me. She spoke to me in a tone and manner that I had not experienced with her yet and it too closely resembled those of the other women who had hurt me in my life: my mother, Burgundy, Kara. She took a long time to calm down, and even though I thought I'd fixed it, she'd bring it up again a few days later because her therapist told her I was "definitely flirting". After being yelled at a lot by her, I told her that if she wasn't ready to accept that I wasn't like her exes, that if she wasn't ready to accept a relationship with a guy who could treat her right, that if she wasn't ready for a relationship, then maybe we shouldn't try. This got her to beg for forgiveness and to suddenly have a change of heart about the stupid Facebook comment. An even worse argument erupted when I told her I wasn't against pornography, which she claimed was sexist and promoted "rape culture". The conversation would dissolve into an erratic argument that only she was waging, and she would suddenly be talking down to me, swearing at me like someone she didn't even like, and behaving in a very troubling, unpredictable way, like she had absolutely no control over herself. I didn't like how familiar that verbal treatment was.
Arguments like these happened several times over my final month on the road and almost every time I'd return to the conclusion that she just wasn't emotionally or mentally ready for a relationship yet. But every time I'd say that to her, she'd start crying, pleading, and apologizing, and I'd inevitably acquiesce. We actually broke up one night. As it neared the time for me to go home, she started acting weirder. I honestly felt as though she were trying to sabotage our relationship or something. We were having a really great conversation on the phone one night and she suddenly brought up having concerns. When I pried to have her share them, it really only came down to one thing: She didn't want to commit to a completely sober lifestyle; she wanted to smoke weed again one day. We argued about it for a while, and I went on rants about the health issues behind smoking weed, how it would be irresponsible to bring drugs into our future home and around her son, how small dealers funded gang wars and larger dealers funded international wars, how I would never want to experience her as anyone but her true self. She responded with every slogan and headline she could think of in defense of weed and the conversation ended with me telling her outright that I could not and would not date someone who had interest in drugs of any kind. She angrily told me I was a hypocrite because I ingested caffeine, and hung up. It hurt to do, but I had my line that I had drawn. I didn't even know it was an issue, as she had told me earlier on that I was right about what I said about marijuana and that she wanted to be completely sober. She must’ve only been saying what I wanted to hear. Of course, after a day or so without talking, she called and was calm enough to have a real conversation about it.
Against my better judgment, I wanted to make this relationship happen. I consciously ignored the red flags because I wanted love. I allowed the good to outweigh the bad; to give her the benefit of the doubt like I'd wished so many other people had granted me. I kept telling myself that she would only get better with time; she just needed patience and to finally see what it was like to be in a healthy, loving, caring relationship free of abuse, disrespect, and objectification. Part of me knew I was lying to myself. That was when I started planning to kidnap her and her son from North Carolina after tour and have them move in with me in Schenectady. Eventually, they'd move again with me and my friends to Philadelphia. It was all a very scary, intimidating thought, but I wanted love, I wanted a family, I wanted all the things that my life had been lacking since Burgundy left me almost six years earlier. I eventually dropped off tour a month early for reasons outside of my relationship with Jess. When I got back home, I'd devised a plan that was much easier than the original plot of taking a bus to North Carolina, picking them up secretly, and then taking a bus back to New York with them. To make it cheaper, more comfortable, and allow for more space for all involved, I asked Matt for help and he was able to borrow his brother's car. I'd cover gas, Matt would drive, and we would go pick them up from Olin. We had less than three days to do it because of Matt's brother's stipulations, which included a full tank and oil change upon return. Jess was sick of being away from me, sick of not knowing when she'd see me again, and sick of her mother, who still trying to undermine her own mothering, verbally and emotionally abusing her and everyone else in the household, and telling Jess every day that she needed to leave and find somewhere else to live. Well, I was giving her somewhere else to live. Unfortunately for her mother, we were taking the kid, too.
Tuesday, April 29th
A combined 1,581 miles.
Matt and I left the night before to get in as much driving as possible. I think we made it to somewhere in southern Pennsylvania by sunrise. We slept for two hours in the car in a parking lot as it rained. We needed to get to Jess by a certain time so we could get her and her belongings out of the house while no one was home. Then we had to pick her son up from school. She had already told her mother I was coming to see them and that I was going to take them all out for dinner and movie. Her mother, of course, thought we'd be bringing him back for his usual bedtime. She also thought Jess was moving out and in with me somewhere in Charlotte. The eleven-hour drive was long, but Matt held out. I tried to stay awake with him in solidarity. Even under the conditions, the road trip was still a fun experience. The closer to Olin we got, the more desolate it became. The space between buildings and houses became wider, the amount of concrete became lesser and lesser, and roads became more narrow and with less traffic. Eventually, we pulled up. The first thing I noticed was the field of dairy cows she had told me about, who she frequently visited and talked to. She was standing outside of her house. The moment I saw her again, my heart froze and my feet got cold. I finally started getting nervous about what I was trying to do. But we packed up the car, anyway. There was no turning back now. She left a note to her mother explaining things and left it in a drawer by the computer where she wouldn't immediately find it. We wanted to get a considerable distance before she knew anything.
She had moved with her son before with her last boyfriend in Tennessee. Her mother had called Child Protective Services on her and told them a bunch of lies about how mentally unstable she was. Upon investigating, they declared her suitable to take care of her own son. Jess was certain her mother would do this again, so we tried to prepare for it. We picked him up from school not too far from there in the biggest area nearby, Statesville. He was short and blonde with bright blue eyes, taller and more developed than most kids his age. He was wearing a shirt with a patch Jess had made him of the Grim Reaper on a skateboard. She had asked him what he wanted on a patch and that was exactly what he'd requested. His grandmother said goodbye and I almost felt bad about taking him from her without her knowing it was happening. I had to remind myself that she wasn't a good person, though. We all went out for pizza at the Mellow Mushroom in Charlotte. Her son was as hyper as any other child, but really funny and clever. He was unusually vocal and articulate about veganism, and had a precocious personality overall. Jess had done a good job so far of raising him into an inquisitive, excited, sarcastic little boy.
Then we started driving back. We kept him calm by telling him we were staying at a hotel for the night. He apparently loved hotels. Even after five hours of driving and getting stuck in a traffic jam, he was very cool and collected. He didn't interrogate us about what was going on, he didn't whine, and he didn't get grouchy. He was having fun and embraced the adventure until he fell asleep in his child seat. By the night, my phone started getting the expected calls from Jess's mother and family. I got a text saying that the police and CPS had been called. We hadn't done anything illegal, though. We stopped for the night somewhere in Staunton, VA because Matt knew some people there from his past in community college. As we brought him up to the motel room, Jess stayed in the car, sobbing on the phone to her mother, who was unforgiving and ferocious. It was clear she saw Jess's son as her own and had no real compassion for Jess. We got through the night, though, and no one felt bad. Jess and I stayed up late, waiting for him to finally fall asleep. We still hadn't fully explained to him what was going on. We tried to have sex in the tiny bathroom, but it was nearly impossible.
We got to Schenectady by the next night and carried her son into the living room still in his child seat. He slept on the couch and Jess and I spent the night relishing in finally being together for good. I had no idea what the next month would be like. I'd just spent several hundred dollars of savings on getting her there. It was almost like betting on a race where all the horses were walking slowly. I'd also spent a month arguing with Tia, who obviously was unsure about letting some total stranger and her son move into our tiny apartment. But I held tight to fantasies of us being a great little family together.