It has been a good night.
The bus is sparsely populated. I can't remember the last time we spent time like this – just you and I and pitchers of lemon soju and one am. It was the third time we had been to that restaurant in three years; and they remembered us. We laughed as we stumbled out laughing. Who would peg us as memorable faces? We stayed out of trouble and always paid the bill – at least at this place.
It has been a great night.
I never understood what it was about bubbly Asian liquor that set us off. We always had more heart and emotion and logic and life to share, discuss, decompose and analyze over shots. At least we were consistent.
I lied.
I have occasionally resented you. You found Tolle at a young age, and he and you grew alongside one another. I'm sorry. He is the most important person in my life, you said, apologizing for admitting to me, your best friend of seven years, that no one could replace your deceased boyfriend.
But, actually, I am the sorry one. You are that person to me – the one I grew up with. Yet, you are not the most important person in my life. No one is. I have always been sad like that. Refrained. Practiced.
In a way, I am lying to myself as I lie to you. It is too bad that alcohol in moderation has a way of drowning me in reality – the reality of who I am and where I am broken.
You are broken too. Tolle's death did that to you. But Dearka was there to pick up the pieces for you. He is stubborn and resilient, and commands an obedience that held you together and rebuilt you.
When I broke, I dove into a relationship that stuck the pieces of me together with cheap, dollar store paste and abandoned me when I came unglued. It was a learning experience, but a harsh and poorly timed one.
You are afraid that in my fear I might lose The One.
I am afraid that I neither have your luck in love nor the courage to brave more heartache.
At the end of the day, we are both right. We both devote night and day to making romance strong and functional. You get the boy that returns your efforts. I get the boys that are twelve, who are still primarily interested in jacking off to Playboy Bunnies. We agree on this, thankfully, which assures me that I am not generous with unseeded blame.
Tonight, you are disgruntled because Tolle is not here now, as he promised he would be for all the milestones in your life. You feel you want everything – Me, Dearka, Tolle and all of his precious friends you lost at his funeral.
I feel you want closure.
It is funny how we started out the same, traveled different paths and changed so drastically and still end up across the same table discussing a problem we both have in common. We have both broken and neither of us has fully healed. You are battling the dissatisfaction of broken promises while I combat loneliness. Yet it all brings us back to the same place:
…this table, this pitcher and this spicy chicken dinner.
But I know tomorrow I will help you move in with Dearka and we will both be smiling and joking as we load and unload my car. We'll nibble on junk food and gossip about celebrity news and everything will be okay.
The bus pulls into my stop and I disembark along with a few other tipsy stragglers. The concoction of alcohol and loneliness makes the night darker and the shadows more real. In all these years of late night drinking, I have never feared the short walk home.
The street lights flicker.
Then half of them go out.
I wish someone was holding my hand.
My pace lengthens and I rush home without running suspiciously. I look back every few steps to assure myself the silent footsteps are a fragment of my liquored imagination. I fumble with the key in my front door and bolt shut the numerous locks on my door.
I race to my room and curl up under my blankets. My vivid imagination turns the spidery branches scratching my window into monstrous hands. My eyes squeeze shut as my frenzied thoughts deafen me till nothing but silence and heavy sleep exist.
I dream tonight.
Maybe someday there will be a warm body and a slow, steady heartbeat to calm me.