Faded Flannel

There wasn't a damn thing I could do about Cierra Beauregard. Not a damn thing, which is a damn shame, because she was my damned angel.

The room got all spinny-like and I realized that I couldn't see straight. Everything in my line of vision seemed to be filled with water, which was preposterous because this one-roomed, 10x7 apartment was very, very dry.

She hated me, and she did exactly what she intended to. The thought of how she must have spoken of me, thought of me, the way her voice must have lulled when she slid over my name in normal conversation, how she must have struggled to avoid looking in my direction in a crowd... It stung, all of it. Hit me like twenty Pounds of bricks taking a shot at my admittedly lackluster mid waist.

I comforted myself in the thought that she must go out of her way to push me into the nonexistent realm of her very narrow minded world view. However, at some point in my musings, it occurred to me that I put too much stock in my object of affection.

You see, it occurred to me that Cierra Beauregard did not think of me at all. I was not a plaything of hers anymore. She had replaced my spot in her weekly rotation with some tall and muscular blonde with an exceptionally defined jawline. I was nothing, as I had been when we were together.

The only difference between before and at that very moment was that the simple fact that I offered her nothing anymore.

I did not shower her with compliments she did not reciprocate. I did not kiss her as sweetly as I knew how in an attempt to drive the thought of any other man in her life out. I did not, out of sheer boredom, write her a letter or two and tuck them in her windshield wipers or on her desk while she slept through Astronomy anymore. We didn't fight. I didn't struggle for her, boosting the already pompous ego of hers.

We were nothing, as we had always been. She had no reason to hold on to me because any of the others she led on a leash could do what I had done, except maybe with more gusto. They were not clinically depressed, they didn't feel the same level of pain and absolute desolation in the deepest parts of her heart that I did. I was the damaged psycho because she made me the damaged psycho in order to maintain her pristine record.

All of this slammed me harder than the twenty pounds of bricks and anger bubbled under the surface of my skin like a hot wave of pain and hurt and humiliation. She was despicable and she could burn in hell, damn it.

So, why? Why did I want her still? Why, when there was absolutely nothing there? I was aware that I missed the memories more than the woman I saw before me on a regular basis. I knew that, and I knew that I had no reason to be a little bitch about this.

She made me cringe and want to beat a locker door to a pulp.

I still longed to know how her day was. I still wanted to tell her when she looked drop dead gorgeous. I still wanted to be the reason she smiled and get an occasional goodnight text from her.

Sometimes I suppose it was worth it, all of the pain, for the small shockwaves of pure joy she sent through my being. She was dynamite and magic and there is nothing in the world that will ever convince me that knowing her was a mistake.

I guess my belongings swimming in my vision helped me clearly see what was before me; oblivion. Were I to keep hoping for what would never come, I would send myself into absolute oblivion over one girl. One brilliant, sexy, talented woman. A bitch, a viper and a devil. And she was worth every bit. I had grieved over the loss of women who amounted to much more than her, who were worth so much more than she was.

However I put it, though, she was my paradise of sorts. I had never felt so relaxed and contented with her in my arms, and I doubted anyone would ever make me as crazy as she did. I hated every fiber of her being, and I wanted nothing more than to be interwoven with them.

She had been right. She had found a way to crack me and she would never know because I didn't exist.