The summer I was sixteen he took me on our first date. I had known him for years. My parents had known his dad at school and he had grown up down the street. I'd had a crush on him and he just asked me out one day. He took me to a roller skating rink. He knew how much I loved skating, but that I was just bad enough that I didn't go often. He pulled me out on the wooden floor and led me around in the circle, holding my hand and not letting go. Even when I fell, he either tightened his grip to keep me from hitting the floor hard, or fell right beside me. After we were both sufficiently sore, we turned in our skates and he played arcade games for tickets for an hour, leaving me alone. At the end of the date, he turned in the tickets at the booth and got me the giant teddy bear I had said was so adorable when we walked in. He drove me home and, before I got out of the car, leaned over and kissed me over the teddy bear's head.
I tore the teddy bear into so much stuffing and fake fur on the floor of the bedroom.
The summer I was seventeen we decided to try cooking. We stayed home one day and found a recipe for chocolate cake. When we made it, we burned the top. The first time. The second time, we added too much salt. The third time, we forgot the baking powder and ended up with a dried disk of chocolate cracker. By the end of the day, we had tried a total of eight times. The last one finally tasted okay, but by that time we were so tired of chocolate cake, we took one bite and put it on a plate for anyone to eat. We still make one once a week, because that's about how long the cake lasts around us.
I flung the cake onto the walls and squished it all over the table.
The summer I was eighteen was when we graduated. We waited in line for the procession in to begin. He came backed up in the line to stand by me. He pulled a velvet box from under his robe and opened it. He slid a ring onto my left pinky finger. He grabbed my left ring finger and told me that finger was for forever. He lifted my hand up towards my face and touched the ring, saying it was for until forever. He had given me a promise ring. It was small and silver with a heart made of turquoise. I laughed and kissed him and said yes. I cried the rest of the afternoon and couldn't take my eyes off the ring.
I threw the ring in the kitchen sink and flicked on the garbage disposal.
The summer I was nineteen my favorite perfume was discontinued. I would spray a little on every night before I went on a date with him. He would always smell my neck when we kissed and would always make sure I had enough perfume at home, and if I didn't, he offered to go buy some. It made me feel confident. When it was pulled off the shelves, I didn't know if there was another scent that could make me feel that beautiful in his eyes. He took care of it. He paid a custom perfume maker to recreate the scent using what little there was left in my bottle. It cost a fortune, especially compared to my original, but he paid for each refill. It made me happy to have my favorite smell and it made him happy to make me happy.
I smashed the perfume bottle on the bathroom floor.
The summer I was twenty I was invited to a huge party. It was formal wear, of which I had none. He went with me so I could find something that was beautiful, but not so revealing that men would get the wrong impression. He always wanted to make sure that nobody got the wrong impression about me. I tried on gown after gown, in satins, velvets, laces, and taffetas. Some had sequins, some had fur, some had more ruffles than I knew was possible to fit on a dress. Some he nixed because they just didn't look good, some he nixed because they showed more than he thought strangers had a right to see. When I slid into the floor-length powder blue silk gown, I knew that was it. I walked out of the dressing room and he looked at me. He got up and started dancing with me, spinning me in circles and dipping me without music. He said I looked beautiful and if I didn't buy the dress, he would get it for me anyway. I wore it every time I had an event to go to. Every time he said I looked more beautiful than I had last time.
I shredded the dress into tiny strips of silk that I left in a pile in the closet.
The summer I was twenty-one we went on a trip to Greece. I had always wanted to go to Greece. The history, the beauty, the charm. We got there and I realized that, with all my double and triple checking, I hadn't thought to bring a camera. I complained about this all the way to our hotel. When we reached it, we carried our bags up to our room, and he immediately opened his suitcase and pulled out the camera that I had forgotten to pack. He knew I would go crazy if we had this trip and no pictures for it, so he packed it himself. We ended up with ten rolls of film in our one week there, all of which I got developed as soon as we got home. We put the pictures in albums, all but a few which were taken by this sweet lady who thought we were a honeymooning couple. She got us in the most romantic settings. Those pictures ended up framed.
I burned the pictures one by one in the fireplace and left them smoldering.
The summer I was twenty-two we moved in together in our own apartment. It was great. There was no yours and mine. Only ours. We bought dishes and furniture together. We decorated everything together. We had the same address and the same phone number. We bought groceries together. And we forgot things together. So we bought a dry-erase board to put in the foyer of our apartment. It's where we wrote everything from "Have a good day" to "We need milk." He bought a package of markers in every color so we could keep it interesting.
I used the red marker to furiously scribble "Check your messages" on the board.
The summer I was twenty-three he asked me to marry him. I said yes. I loved him so much. He gave me a beautiful golden ring with a huge diamond in it. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen and sparkled like his eyes. It had an engraving on the inside. "For forever."
I believed I had a forever with him.
When he sees everything I've done to the apartment, he'll think I hate him. When he sees the teddy bear, he'll think I'll hate him because he sometimes left me alone. When he notices the cake, he'll think I hate him because he was childish sometimes. When he hears the garbage disposal grinding, he'll think I hate him because we've been together so long. When he smells the perfume, he'll think I hate him because he wouldn't let me buy things for myself. When he finds what's left of the dress, he'll think I hate him because he was overprotective of me. When he feels the heat from the burning photographs, he'll think I hate him because he knew me too well. When he reads the board, he'll go listen to the answering machine, and he'll think I hate him because I found out about her.
I stand outside Rose's apartment building, where I'm going to stay for a few days. I'm not going back to the apartment. I will never intentionally see him again. I pull my engagement ring off my finger and look at it. It still sparkles in the light from the streetlamp outside, but I don't think of his eyes. I don't think of him at all. I just drop the ring onto the street and it falls through the grate into the sewer below. I've decided to let go because he's right. I do hate him.
Because I still love him.