Chapter 4: I'm In Touch With Your World
I'm in touch with your world, so don't you try to hide it, I'm in touch with your world, and nobody's going to buy it
1981
Donna came by my place while Eric was in Washington D.C. on a field trip for college civics class. Jackie was in Paris with her mother, trying to patch things up. It was three weeks before she was Forman's forever. Somehow the timing was perfect and we both knew it without really speaking. I'd just moved into my old house, left to me when my mom died so I was finally out of the basement. It was one reason why it happened, I felt like I didn't owe Eric anything anymore. I never asked him to save me, or help me, or even give a shit. But he did. Because he's Eric Forman: nice guy. My best friend.
My best friend, and I'd felt like I owed him for years.
Donna and I sat on my front porch, the same as what we'd had, but with beer. We talked about our families, we talked about her scholarships, her upcoming third year of college. We talked about everything except Forman and three weeks ahead. It was hot and humid which was rare. Donna was wearing a skirt which was rarer still. She smiled and laughed with me like she wasn't trying to hide how scared she was just to be sitting here, just to be thinking those thoughts.
And I still loved her.
And she knew it.
"It's weird you know, I always felt like you knew me better then anyone."
"Did you?" I asked.
She wiped a droplet of sweat off of her neck with her finger, I guess she noticed that I'd been watching it trickle down. Her hair was up in a haphazard knot on top of her head, little wisps falling in her eyes in a way that looked accidental, but I knew was engineered just for me.
"I did, I mean, I still do sometimes. Everyone goes to Eric when they need help."
When she mentioned his name she paused slightly, like a tiny shudder, like guilt. But she went on.
"I tell Eric everything, I love him. But he doesn't see through me like you do."
"Donna…"
"I miss the porch Steve. And I feel bad because I know this is going to hurt like hell, but I don't care anymore. Because I don't think I can love Eric without it."
And I somehow knew exactly what she meant. Like when we were together, we were part of one world, separate from the one with everyone else. In order to survive in one, we had to experience the other and then let it go.
I knew it would hurt.
I didn't care.
There was no point in arguing facts. She was with Eric, she loved him. I was with Jackie, I loved her. But right now they were gone, and we were here, together, on the porch. We loved each other. It's the only sense we had to make.
We made love nonstop for the whole week, often forgetting to breathe, to stop touching each other long enough to prevent slipping into some kind of mystical coma. We didn't eat, drank only water, and survived somehow on our love.
Like a fasting.
On the last night we mostly held each other, both agreeing in silence that
It was wrong
It was necessary
It was the only time we'd ever been alive.
Donna left at about two a.m., we said our good byes and see you laters without a strange note between us. We'd finally let it go.
We hoped.
It's a sticky contradiction, it's a thing you call creation, everything is science fiction, and I ought to know
Jackie called from Paris, she told me that she'd wrote our names on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower. She also said she was coming back to Wisconsin a bit sooner than she thought.
She'd gotten food poisoning.
She needed to talk to me, but not over the phone.
She loved me.
Donna was gone, Jackie was coming back, and I'd never felt less empty.