by Andrew MacDonald
Today is the day of my closest friend’s wedding. She wanted my help organizing it, but really just had me pick everything, as if everything’s most important quality was that I liked it. Her fiancé–we’ve been friends for years–asked me to be his best man. I put some ice in a glass. The wedding started two hours ago. I didn’t go.
It’s not like I promised them I would be there. The timing was just plain terrible; I have really important work to do. Besides, weddings are stupid and pointless. They’re just another way for the rich to show off and make money. Middle-class weddings are for making and showing off debt. Poverty weakens marriages, and the wasted money is going to hurt their relationship. I won’t enable them to make terrible decisions.
I’m one sip into the sourest Schnapps there is. I didn’t go because I didn’t want to. If guilt and peer pressure had dragged me to the door, I wouldn’t be able to open it.
As if I haven’t learned by now; it would be just like it always is. Whenever anything in her life gives her anxiety, the first thought in her head is to shut me out: me, the guy who’s proven hundreds of times to be the only one who tries – who even wants – to help her. I’d walk in and she’d go through the motions greeting me. She’d say she’s glad to see me, ask why I was late, and follow the first distraction away from me while I try to talk. Under the slightest stress, she’s done that every time I’ve made her pay me one second of attention, made her hear me say one word. I can still hear her stock apology echoing in my head; each one she gave me over the years got trapped in there. If I close my eyes I can see the blank stare on her face, her eyes that meet mine but they can’t even see me; I could bite my tongue off and she wouldn’t notice. Ice cubes slid down a thin stream of Burgundy and crashed into my teeth. The path of least resistance would drop me off at a corner table, memorizing the labels on empty bottles. Might as well do that right here.
She’s never been good at speaking her mind; she had too good an upbringing. All the times she’s wanted nothing to do with me–there have been many–saying one word to chase me away couldn’t be harder if she were underwater. Her vocal cords don’t know how to make upsetting sounds… assuming she ever tried. The muscles in her face match the expression of the person talking to her, beyond her control. She called me three times before I turned off my phone. The autonomic nervous system responds to social pressure, says the words and performs the actions she’s been taught are good and proper.
The bitterness that settled at the bottom of my Manhattan came up my straw to remind me that I forgot to stir it. I’m tired of fighting for her attention. She doesn’t need me to toe the boundaries of platonic friendships with her–that’s what everyone else is for. Every once in awhile, she’d see those boundaries for what they really are: prison walls. Those were the times we were inseparable…
I don’t remember the day we first met. I do remember the day I asked her if she remembered the day we first met–she said no. We must have been too young for boys and girls to be public friends. How could we have had any interests in common? Our parents bought us different toys and our peers made fun of us if we looked at each other for too long. Such a conceited clique she belonged to. Her friends were almost as mean to me back then as they were to her.
I let out a deep sigh and my can blew off the counter. Against all odds, we must have gotten through to each other somehow. By the time I started sizing up girls who showed interest in me, it was always her I compared them to.
I never bothered to sort my memories in chronological order. The earliest ones I can get to put her at eleven years old; I must have been twelve, though I might be rounding up a little.
I remember what her face looked like with baby fat in it. She would take the odd opportunity, when her clique left her alone with me for a few seconds, to tell me intimate secrets. My best efforts to make the next moment less awkward were dramatic and useless. She needed someone to help her make sense of what was happening to her–not that I knew anything, or understood half of what she was trying to tell me. I still remember every word, every nervous gesture, every mouthed euphemism.
I took a sorry swig of the most disgusting vodka I’d ever tasted and checked the bottle to see what was really in my drink: the soapy water I was using to clean the glass. Who did she have, that it was safe to talk to like this? I took inventory of everyone in her life and rounded to one.
She was 12. Cosmetics had yet to do their damage to her skin. We were alone in her friend’s bedroom, some kind of party going on in the rest of the house. She was in there with her friends when I got there, but by now everyone else had left. She was lying on the bed, arms down; I was on my knees on the carpet, elbows also on the bed. I don’t remember what we talked about. Maybe it was something I said, maybe it was seeing your friends leave–probably both–but your mood at that moment was at its highest point in your life. My full attention was on the barely-visible hairs that had grown on your arms. You were embarrassed when I pointed them out; I couldn’t get enough. Our friends let us have our fun when they didn’t notice us missing, but soon enough–as always–the adults in your life brought a swift and terrible end to your free spirit.
Some of my drink came back up for a second taste, so I looked for something else to wash it out. After the ensuing storm, I obediently learned my lesson about proper conduct and adult supervision. I earned my reputation back as a good boy who follows the rules and respects girls’ private space. If I weren’t a complete idiot, I’d have thrown it all away to have that moment again.
I could talk about each of the times we sorted out your feelings after each of your nasty breakups, betrayals, abusive influences. I could go on and on till you come back from your honeymoon, but I’ll skip to the phone call in the middle of the night. You were 14, and you gave your boyfriend an early present for his big 18–the one thing he made it clear he wanted most. I couldn’t wrap my head around the reality of it. Denial is the first stage of grief. You kept saying “it just happened”. I’ll never reconcile those words. In ten painful minutes you went from putting your faith in his cereal box engagement ring to wondering if you’d ever hear him say your name again. I said your name as many times as I could. I sat on steps in a parking lot, miles from you, where radio waves could only bring you my voice, and I tried to put together the words I thought you might need. None of my words were able to make any difference; they all came to you in my voice, and for that they had no power. I hung up, hid, and waited while your new ex pulled in, parked, and whistled to his MP3s on his way to bed. I called back and told you the call was dropped. You had taken a multiple-choice test online, from a sidebar ad, which congratulated you for the end of your life as you knew it. I told you not to trust it, but you couldn’t risk letting someone see you buy the test in plastic.
I was at the bottom of my Whateversinthefridge-tini. From the next day to the rest of until now, you didn’t learn your lesson. What was the lesson? If you didn’t learn it in nine years, what is telling you right now gonna change? You dated so many other guys that some canadian dude drew comic books about me being a rockstar and beating them all up, and he got a movie deal, although he lied about the ending. And all of those guys were your type, just like the first one; the type of guy I’d have punched in the face to keep you from meeting them; they might’ve been good boyfriends if it had been me there to do it every day of your life.
Imitation vanilla, the cheap kind that tastes a bit like aluminum. A sampler at the mall bullied you into buying some and the smell came out of you ever since. I don’t know if you won a lifetime supply of it or you just really love the stuff; for all I know you might as well have been drinking it. It was the smell of your sweat and your farts; it came out with your laughs and leaked out between your teeth when you smiled. I called you “Vanilla” once; thought it’d make a cute nickname. You yelled at me, told me not to call you boring. Real vanilla is boring, but your cheap stuff was a million times better. And this was right about the time you stopped dressing like an amish nun. You were rocking your spaghetti straps, your adventurous black ruffled skirt, and your shoes… who cares about your shoes? That skirt stopped halfway to your knees! Fireworks–no, exploding airplanes– would have been too boring to get my attention…
A rush of blood to the head brought me out of a blackout. This memory redirected my blood flow, and, as diluted as it is by now, my brain couldn’t spare a drop. Later, you talked about how embarrassed you were when your friend clued you in on how hilariously oblivious you were when guys hit on you. She, of course, was not the first person to explain this to you. Up till then, I always thought of myself as forward and hard to misunderstand. We both learned something about ourselves.
You were almost 18. You must have confused me with your dad and thought I wasn’t the boss of you anymore. You invited me to your birthday to meet the next guy. I played nice and we had a great time. You took your first chance, when he wasn’t around, to ask me what I thought of him, in front of your friends. I said he was a tool. The next day your phone broke and it wasn’t getting my calls anymore. Something kept you busy every time you ran into me. It took him a while but he proved me right.
In my hand, on my shirt, and all over the room was a blend of a bunch of stuff I should have known better than to try to drink at the same time. Most of a year later, you got your phone fixed and you had some time to see me. You wanted my take on your new boyfriend. I told the truth. Suddenly you were busy and had another broken phone.
One of our mouths tells a lie every time it opens and one doesn’t know what lying is. Who is which I don’t even know anymore. Maybe I’ve just been wrong about everything. Maybe it is me, but I still think it’s you. Why can’t you just see it? It’s right there and I just want you to see it. But it’ll never happen; you don’t see anything. Your eyes don’t work. Blind people’s brains don’t react to movement in front of them. That’s you.
Everyone’s some kind of drunk and I’m the one that talks too much. I sound like the lonely jealous guy who thinks he’s better for you than the guy you wanna marry, the guy who has it all together but I’m not. I like this new guy. You changed your type a little and you have a chance this time. I don’t even wanna marry you; I never did. I never wanted anything in my life the way you needed someone. I would be the worst thing that could happen to you and I’d never let anyone do that to you–not even me. The last thing you need is me throwing molotov cocktails at your big party. All I want is your eyes to be looking at me and for you to see me. It was never about me and what I want.
I’ve told a few lies in my life. For one, I’ve never had even one drop of alcohol. I went through a Crush, a Fanta, and a Hi-C. I just thought you might understand me better if I acted like I was drinking; men get a free pass to whine about their problems when they drink. I took the day off work for the wedding and spent it at home, shuffling through Coldplay albums and drinking myself into a sugar high. My car was in the driveway and my brother didn’t even knock when he stopped by.
It’s not like I can complain that anything should be different. If she wants to play by the rules and go get married like she’s supposed to… well, what’s there left to say? I’m tapped out. Questions, comments, complaints; I got nothing. Sure, I’ve got plenty of thoughts. Feelings. Can’t do anything about it if I don’t have any words. Words just aren’t what we do, me and… I mean, that’s what I have these speakers for. Did I mention they were a gift, from her? And you know, Chris Martin gets a lot of crap, but I gotta hand it to him: he’s got all the words I’ve never been able to say. Whenever she needed them, when I needed them, they weren’t there. They were in the songs.
What I know is that things are gonna be different from now on, between the two of us. Except this isn’t where they start being different, because really, everything about us has been completely aberrant all along. Now, that just… has to stop. Everything gets put in its place, and that’s how we keep it. There’s no other way this can go.
Now, after all this time, you didn’t really think I’d go and make this all about me. As if starting now, of all times, I could give any care to what I want.
