FCKMA

7 - I Ride The Elephant In The Room

I wasn’t the type of person who spent all of her thoughts, time, and energy directed at one specific person or thing. Rather, I barely had the attention span of a goldfish if it didn’t involve food or money. I usually bottled up all of my inner desires and feelings, which was why I was surprised to find myself downstairs at three am, crying my heart out.

Obviously I wasn’t wailing and screaming as I cried, otherwise I would have woken up my parents. They would have been extremely mad at me, considering they had spent half of the night talking to Mr. and Mrs. O’Reilly. The snow had started coming down hard, and trapped their car in our driveway at around ten, so my mother had convinced them to spend the night at our house. Ten years ago I would have stayed up all night, giddy with excitement that Julien was staying at my house overnight. Tonight, I felt dead inside.

I didn’t wander downstairs in the dead of night with the explicit intention of crying. I had only meant to go to the kitchen and get a glass of water for my sore throat. I had been trying to repress whatever feelings I had towards Julien’s engagement all evening, and the second I was alone, I found that I had been holding my breath. The water had done little to soothe my throat.

I almost had a coughing attack after trying to swallow too much water at once, so I sat down on the couch and tried to collect some air. It was hard to choke in a controlled manner, but I cared too much for the sake of others and their sleeping schedules.

I was swept into a childhood memory. It was some fifteen years ago when Julien and his sisters came to my house for the summer. It was getting dark outside, and his sisters were tired. My brother had gone out with a few friends, so Julien and I were partially alone, with the exception of my mother lurking in the kitchen. Julien and I had chosen to watch a movie, and although we were seated pretty far from one another, I couldn’t help but smile at him throughout the entire movie, hoping that he would one day ask me out, so that we could go to a theater together and sit side by side. My imagination was so vivid that I could almost feel the touch of Julien’s skin against my arm. I closed my eyes and tried to smile, but once I opened my eyes, the tears began to fall.

Due to his engagement to a girl who still remained nameless to me, I would never be that girl that went out on a date with him and smiled bashfully as he kissed her goodbye. I would never be able to hold him close and know he was mine –because he wasn’t. I had held onto the idea of ‘maybe’ for so long that I had deluded myself into thinking that it would come true one day. It was hard to let go of that seventeen year old idea, so letting go of my tears was easier.

I wiped my eyes with the side of my bathrobe sleeve and reached for a tissue. As much as this pain was consuming me, I didn’t want my nose to run all over my face. I leaned over the side of the couch towards the tissues and froze when I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

“So the meeting went well? Oh, that’s good to hear,” I heard a hushed voice whisper hurriedly. “Yes, it’s a little early in Wisconsin, but it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”

The footsteps got closer, and the person turned on the kitchen light. I was blinded for a moment, until my vision cleared and I saw it was Julien, and he was talking on the phone. He let out a quiet burst of laughter. “That’s great!” he said. He then turned around, and jolted in surprise when he caught sight of me. I could hear the voice on the other end talking hurriedly, and Julien nodded. “I can’t wait to hear all about it, honey,” he said. “I love you. Bye.”

I began to stand up from the couch, and Julien shoved his cell phone into the pocket of his sweatpants. “Hi, Julien,” I said, hurt in the sudden realization that he had been talking to his fiancee. 

“I didn’t think anybody else would be down here,” he said. I shook my head. “No one is, usually,” I said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”