Ironically, Leigh and I parted ways because I finally figured out why it was that I was in love with her in the first place. She was still as pretty as ever when I told her I thought we ought to call it quits. There really wasn't any good reason for me not to love her.
"Won't you tell me why?" She asked. But her face was tired. She wanted it too. "Tell me the truth, Dennis. Are you seeing somebody else?" I half-expected her to ask if I had a Christine too. But my car was ugly and neither of us ever wanted to say that fucking name.
"No. Listen, Leigh, I think it's...I don't know, but us being together kind of gives me the creeps nowadays. It feels like I'm disrespecting his memory. And I've pissed off enough ghosts." Neither of us had to say who he was.
She sighed and gave me a sad little smile. She was so pretty. Too pretty for me to be shitting on her happiness like this. "You are in love with somebody else." As if she saw how I tensed, she continued. "It's okay. I'm still a little bit in love with Arnie too. I understand, Dennis." And she told me all about how grief was like this and it tore you apart from the inside and you just had to let yourself break. I felt like an asshole, but I wasn't really listening. I was too busy looking at her, because if I looked hard enough I could see Arnie next to her in his huge glasses with a pimple-freckle combo dotting his face. It was my mind. I know it was my mind. Conjuring him up because I missed him.
Which is a nice segue into the real point, which is why I loved Leigh in the first place, and why I stopped loving her. It's going to sound queer. Not queer in the weird way, I've stopped giving disclaimers on that front, but queer in the other way. Queer in the way nobody wants to talk about,
You see, after we killed Christine and Arnie went down with her, I found the only reason I could love Leigh anymore was because she reminded me of Arnie. Because she'd loved Arnie. And I guess when Leigh Cabot loves somebody she keeps little traces of them on her. When I kissed her, my eyes were open because somehow I could feel remnants of Arnie on her lips. I can't explain it. He was just there. Like the Holy Ghost between two Christian kids getting it on. He was everywhere; on her hands, in her hair. I could even feel him in her private spots the one, pitiful attempt at making love we tried after our battle with Christine.
I think-I know that it was all in my head. I missed him. God, I missed him. And it wasn't just Leigh either. You can break up with a girl but you can't break up with pimples or cars or ant farms.
My dad said it was natural for grief to go this way. I don't think he really understood. I don't think anybody in the whole of Libertyville or even the whole world could really understand how I felt about Arnie Cunningham. I liked him because he was loyal and funny and kind and stuck to his guns. I loved him just because he was Arnie. Maybe even more than that, because even when he almost wasn't Arnie I loved him.
I don't know what the hell I mean by any of this. I could've made sense of it if I'd acted a little quicker; there were plenty of times for it, like all the days we laid on my bed together and just looked at each other or the time when we were fourteen and a girl turned him down and he told me that he didn't need any girl, just me. Just Dennis. His best friend. What the hell do I mean? I don't fucking know and now that he's not here I don't suppose I ever will.
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First person is a change from the usual and Dennis has a fun voice. More stuff transcribed from the notebook.