Dumb. That described me. Dumb girl who doesn't know about issues, who doesn't have a clue. And I haven't felt like writing lately, explaining myself to no one. I haven't felt like not writing, either.
Craig, Craig, Craig. It is like an obsession, a low grade fever, a demented idea that seems like it makes sense only because the neurons are pulling themselves apart, slowly and without pain.
I may be dumb but I'm not stupid. I know I feel a love for him that's light years beyond what he feels for me. And that's no one's fault. You never know what your heart is going to seize on, to demand, to devour. It comes like a freight train, running you over. Flattening you.
The thing is this obsession isn't happiness. I don't know why I persist in it. Don't know how my mind split in two like this, with part of me craving him and part of me loathing the desire. What would Emma say? Jumping up and down on the bed because we were going to see him at the 80's dance. We're light years beyond that.
And I loathe myself when I talk to him at school, trying to get him to see me, to interact with me, to stay in the circle of his attention. But I never have his attention. He looks around. He looks beyond me. He says my name with that desperateness to get away, the deep sigh in my name when he says it.
"Manny," and his eyes are everywhere and I still smile, still tilt my head, talk to him in a sweet voice even though when he looks over my head like that, looking for Ashley, I want to kick him in the shin.
"Is it your locker? You don't like it?" I'd said last year, and he took deep breaths, his eyes as trapped as a horse in a fire. People thought I wasn't getting it. Emma trying to be a good friend to me, 'maybe Craig isn't into this,' she said as gently as she could. I got it. I was getting it. It was one date and it didn't mean a thing. And I acted a little young, a little happy, giggling, pulling him around the carnival instead of watching the movie like he wanted to. Outside I was some silly 13 year old but inside I was 27, 37, 47, a woman who had lived and loved and knew what she wanted, what she had to have. Craig was like prey, he was in my sites. No matter how it hurt him or me I wouldn't let him get away.
I decorated the locker, so stupid and desperate. Such a kid move. But I didn't know how to reconcile the woman inside with the child I'd always been. Didn't know why I'd aged so fast. I, when I was near Craig I wanted to do things to him I didn't know the names for. When I kissed him I wanted to feel the texture of his tongue. I wanted to trace the roadmap of blue veins on his wrists. I wanted to feel his pulse.
"No, Manny…" Shifting eyes and the smile was still on my face but it was just plastic. My eyes were already filling with tears. I wanted to tear down the stupid paper hearts and the Polaroid picture. It didn't explain it, it didn't describe it. I felt like I'd died somehow and been brought back, seeing everything with new eyes. I felt dead already, anticipating whatever horrible rejection thing he was about to say.
"It's not my locker I don't like, it's you,"
Couldn't breathe for a second. I got it. Slid my eyes off to the side. In the obsession I'd fallen into I hadn't considered what to do if he didn't feel the same way. I blinked back tears, gulped like a fish in an oxygen less world.
I had been just 13, that was the problem. I had to get older. Craig was older, older than his 14 years because of things he had lived through. But I'd catch up. The tragedies would pile up on me, too, and with each one I'd have a new wisdom. I'd grow cynicism and jadedness like second skins. I'd lose all my babyfat and my school girl cheeriness and cute dimples and all that would be left would be the frightening maturity of that 24 year old in my head. I'd go back to Craig, go after him when I was mysterious and mature and my laugh was infrequent and deep. He couldn't avoid me forever. I'd surpass Ashley. I'd surpass everything. I'd be like a cat with Craig under my claw.