DIRT: the grunge diaries (𝒱𝒾𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶'𝓈 𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃)

entry #74 - heart-o-meter

'Tori, seeing you with another man... it hurts. Cause I could've been that man. You could've been my girl, but ...'. Mike speaks, and I just fucking bite the inside of my cheek at his sudden, honest plea. Very real, very heartfelt... very triggering. Because I love this guy like I'd love a brother, I've grown out of all of my semi- romantic feelings for him... and I can't stand to know that he's having it rough because of me. Because seeing me with another man, all giggles and kisses, happy and lighthearted, is making him regret the day he told me that he wasn't feeling like having a relationship with me. It's a bit too late to cry on the spilled milk, he's had his chance to be 'that man' and he didn't even once try to be 'that man'. He was too busy doing the romantic Casanova to realise that maybe, and I say maybe, I deserved a stint as his full fledged girlfriend. I can clearly remember wanting to be his full fledged girlfriend, at some point. And he turned me down, because he notoriously didn't want a full fledged girlfriend.
But still, I understand that it takes some time to realise some things. It takes some time, to get in contact with your feelings and embrace them fully. Now that he's embraced his feelings for me, and I don't have any love left in my heart for him, I can totally understand his hurt. I feel responsible for it. I feel sorry for him. And I feel useless. Because the only thing I could do to make it better for Mike is sneak back under his arm, and dump Sean. But I can't. I don't want to. I could never.

If there's one thing I've learned from Mike, among many, is that I always have to put myself first, and ride the wave that makes me feel the best. Mike used to make me feel like a full fledged princess. Sean makes me feel like I'm myself, only more spoiled. And between the two things, I'd always take the second one. With eyes fucking closed. All in. Aware of the risk of getting my heart broken again.

'I could've been your girl. I wanted to be your girl, Mike. But you realised you wanted me a bit too late...'. I answer, trying to trick him into thinking straight, no matter his hurt. I'm being reasonable here, I'm not tryna blame him because he never wanted me enough, and he never really tried to be that man. I wanted to be his girl, and he knows it. I never fought to be his girl, because I just don't do fighting for a man's affection and validation. They either give it to me out of their initiative, while I still want it, or I don't want anything from them anymore. That's how I am. Resolute. All in or all out. Set in my ways. Stubborn. And very, very prideful.

Mike is looking at me with sorrow in his eyes, and almost like he's humbled. While I'm the one who's tryna pull a smile right now. This guy has hit my cervix multiple times, and somewhere along the way, perhaps too late, he realised he loved me, and not just my pussy. Us women are more sensitive than men, we are more in contact with our feelings... but sometimes we rush to conclusions. Most of the time, wrong ones. Like when I came to the conclusion that Mike loved me, just because he was a class act to me, he'd call me sweet nicknames, and he'd shower me with cuddles after sex. I fell for him, and I was always honest about my feelings. We both will never forget the time I opened up about my feelings for him, that night in Portland of a few months ago. I talked my heart out to him, he told me that he loved me, but he wasn't feeling like having a relationship ... and I left his hotel room crying. Crying, and clad in nothing but one sheet of stolen from his bed. I cried and smoked in the hotel lobby for hours, until I bumped into his bandmate, Zakk Wylde, and he cheered me up by offering me unlimited drinks at the bar. I slept in Zakk's room that night, I wore his clothes the morning after, and then went back to talk to Mike. We came to an agreement to fuck with no strings attached, and we fucked to sign our agreement. We kept fucking with no strings attached everytime he'd be in my area, and I slowly fell out of love with him. We caught up in Tacoma one night, and we had one hell of a glorious fuck. All beautiful, until he decided to open up about his 'feelings for me', telling me that I meant much more than just sex to him. That I was special to him. That he'd gone days thinking about me and missing me a lot. But from the top of my emotional numbness towards him, I ignored his words and let them slide off me. Then he called me the night after Sean gave me his number, and he sounded like a sappy, kinda jealous boyfriend to my ears. Like that night in Tacoma, just a little bit more insistent and territorial. But at that point... Inez was just a good memory of the past, to me. My attention belonged to another man. A man I still hadn't seen naked. A man I hadn't even hit up just yet, after he scribbled his number down on one of my dollar bills.