I wish I'd never seen her.
It's a terrible thing to think, but it's true, and I've been haunted by that ever since I did. Seven years of regret, focused into a bitterness that never leaves me now, not for a second. I carry it like a scar, invisible to everyone but me. Invisible to her, even though she looks at me once in a while as if she can almost see it.
Seven years ago my life was finally on an even keel, I was managing, putting issues behind me as best I could and getting on with life. What life I COULD have, in a manner of speaking. Going through the routines, finding quiet joy in outlets a bit different than what other men had. I sharpened my mind in lieu of pursuing what I couldn't have, and it focused me to the vocation. It's amazing what you can accomplish without distractions: Doctorates. Awards. Patents. Full collections of certain species.
I contented myself with those, all the while carefully learning to keep the distance I needed to stay sane to some degree. Not that it was difficult; I've never been a joiner, a participant in most things. I'm aware of what people say and think and don't care, really. There's no percentage in worrying whether they think I'm gay or repressed. I know when to put on a show.
And then I met her. Big brown eyes, gapped smile, mesmerizing voice. She asked all the important questions, kept a conversation going long after the other students had hurried off to other classes. Despite myself I felt the attraction, that gentle pull that in other circumstance might have been the seed of something much more.
Sara lingered, physically and mentally.
After I finally left her, I walked for miles that night, arguing with myself in the same old pros and cons that I'd gone over so many times they were grooves in my mind, and in the end, I took the low road; it was all that was left to me anyway. Not that I'm given to puns, but what Hemingway said is still true—a man may be destroyed but not defeated. Back when I'd first read that in high school I thought it was pithy. Now that I'm living it, the implications are much more bitter.
I kept in touch with her when I knew I shouldn't. I should have made myself forget her number, her Email like I had with the others. Instead I wrote and called, taking pleasure in the guise of friendship. Over the phone she'd never know what a cheat I was, how l'd never be the man she thought I was. The man I wanted to be. I fed off her admiration, and later, her infatuation, telling myself it was all innocent, that sooner or later she'd realize the truth.
Catherine did, early on in our friendship. Ironic, really, but once she ascertained I'd never be susceptible to her charms she relaxed and took me at face value. I probably was a relief after a lifetime of manipulating her way through a testosterone jungle. Catherine has a compassionate intuition at times, and even though we've never said a word aloud between us on the matter, ever now and then I catch a glimpse of something close to pity in her eyes.
That's when I pull back, close up. I don't want pity, ever. What I want I'll never have, and I sternly remind myself that life goes on.
Life. Yet at three in the morning on a Saturday, when I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling watching the play of light and shadow as cars pass, their beams moving in white slashes through the darkness, the well of pain within me runs deep. I'm hurting her. I keep hurting her, not able to say a word in explanation or defense. I can see Sara across from me at the café, our hands linked. I can hear Brett's words coming from her mouth.
"Oh Grissom, we could have had such a damned good time together."
And I know all I can say back is Jake's, "Yes, isn't it pretty to think so?"
END
(Author's note: The Sun Also Rises)