I've got anger issues. I've got anger issues, but he's always there to take the brunt of it. It makes me feel bad about how I take advantage of his fragility, so I truly try to make him smile because I know how easy it is to make him cry. And I know that pretty soon I'll find myself wanting to make him cry, so here I am doing my best to make him smile.
He wanted to take my half restored 1967 Rolls Royce out rather than our less luxurious 1997 Nissan Pathfinder despite my preference of this car staying in the garage as one of my most prized possessions. My father gave it to me.
He wanted to play Queen, although I wanted to play The Beatles, but I let him play Queen.
He even had a smoke
despite my deep hatred for the smell of cigarette smoke and the damage it could do.
He could have what he wanted today, because I just need him to be happy. God, it's so hard to make him smile sometimes. He's so fucking beautiful when he laughs, but he just won't do it.
For the longest time, I thought it was because of me. I'm a violent controlling bitch, but when I asked him he told me that I wasn't the reason. He never told me the reason. I never pushed it. Though, I've made it a priority to make him happy as long as he lets me be angry sometimes.
It's a toxic understanding to the common eye; however, it's love for us.
The hate that one has established in the world always manages to install itself into the commerce between people. You can just about tell who in the world hates the world versus those who hate themselves. I don't know who in the world he hates, but I know it's not himself.
The way he carries himself in silent confidence just tells me he doesn't hate himself. He feels that he's good enough for himself and that he doesn't have to prove anything to anybody.
He doesn't need protection from the bitterness of the world,but things tend to slip from his hands very easily. I on the other hand, need protection from the bitterness of the world,and I tend to control things so easily.
Now, he doesn't necessarily protect me from the world, but he willingly becomes the subject in which I displace my anger on to. In turn, he indulges in the idea of being under someone else's control. He's smart, but he doesn't like to think, so I do that for him.
A relationship with reciprocation is good, right?
The guilt bothers me.
I shake off the thoughts once we near the gates to the carnival. The crowd of people pulses in and out. So many goddamn people. He knows I hate large crowds, but it's not about me and my hate today.
Today is about him.
Throughout the entirety of the evening he gawked at all of the gimmicks and trades set along the sidelines of the carnival. We visited some fortuneteller loon in a tent. She told us that we would find good health and fortune in our future just like she tells all the other people that visit her tent. I didn't mind the people trying to buy and sell happiness on the sidelines because all their gimmicks were making Carter laugh and smile.
Jealousy began to creep up again. Why can he be made happy by some cheap made-in-China gimmicks, but I can't make him smile? Carter is by no stretch a shallow person, and yet the only thing that's making him happy is stupid surface fluff.
Just like always, I push my feelings to the back of my mind in order to preserve that look of happiness for Carter. I'm just going to grin and bare it. I'm just going to like what he likes. I'm going to laugh when he laughs.
We get in the car and the high from laughing so hard dissolves. I'm left with my own thoughts again. So much guilt, I feel so much guilt.
He senses my disgruntlement, and moves to straddle my waist. I know he's looking at me with that goddamned face, the face he makes when he's concerned with me. I don't look at him, though. I know if I do, I'd make him feel uneasy, because I control all of my emotions except anger. That's all he knows of me and that's the reason for the guilt.
"Why won't you look at me, miss?"
He asks dragging out the words.
I don't answer him. I'm so focused on my guilt, but I have answer him because he deserves an answer.
"I'm just," I was about to give him a generic lie,"—I don't deserve someone like you. I can't make you happy."
I resign to the honesty.
"You do make me happy, but not in the conventional way. You make me content, an emotion that I think is more intrusive than anything." He pauses to get off my lap.
"Though, sometimes I don't know how to feel around you. You always seem to be thinking about something, and never really being happy. You suck at expressing happiness, y'know."
He says simply.
This time I look at him to see a slight genuine smile.
Wait, he says I'm bad at showing happiness.
It took my a while to configure exactly what would lead him to that conclusion. He's right, though. After work the only two emotions I really show is anger and indifference.
I do something that I don't usually do.
"I'm sorry."
I say.
