Based on a Blue Story

His eyes were blank, and it was like looking into a mirror. I felt as empty as the amber pools set into his face. Once upon a time, I thought that if you took everything I was, and added just a little more sarcasm, lots of liquor, a British accent, and, of course, the Y chromosome, you would have him. Here with ihm now, I could see that wasn’t the case. He and I had never had anything in common, other than a desperate need for each other that had long since faded into…this. Nothing. Our emotions had merely been a morning mist that had disappeared once the sun got too hot for it to bear.

He swished his drink around and around, around and around. His fidgeting in general had alwasy driven me nuts. There had been a time where I could have covered his hand with my own, settled him down with just a look or a change of tone or a soothing stroke to the back of his neck. But that had only been a time, and was no more.

“She’s not you,” he was saying. “I mean, I don’t think she’s…as good as you are. But I don’t know.”

How ironic. Just two weeks ago, he was practically listing all the ways his girlfriend was better than me, more suited for him than I had been.

“Lately, she’s been shallow and jealous,” he said.

Of course, I had never been those things. According to him, I’d just been too young and we never could have worked. When he started dating Cheryl—who was a year younger than me—after two or three other girls who never could have worked—I moved on. It had hurt like hell, but I’d had no choice. I was many things, too many things that clashed with whatever he was, but patient wasn’t one of them. At least not anymore. And I was not shallow or jealous. How could I have been, to be so subdued by him? Shallow—that would have meant I’d felt about him the way he’d felt about me. Clearly not the case. And jealous…that would have meant I would have seen all this coming, and I hadn’t…at least, I hadn’t let myself.

“She knows all about you,” he said, shitty compensation. “She knows you’re important to me.”

Funny how my importance to him always seemed to be measured by how often he mentioned me to his friends—once a week would suffice—or whether or not the whore of the hour knew my name. It had taken awhile to learn, but I finally had: I wasn’t important to him unless he needed me, for whatever reason. After all this time, now and then I was still the only person he could turn to, the only person who put up with him. I was his best friend. He had never been mine.

Swish swish swish. I watched him swirling his vodka, which he always took straight. Hard liquor was nothing to him. He would pour it directly into his eyes if you dared him to. Pain and drunkenness were in his nature; they came hand-in-hand. He was, after all, the boy you couldn’t forget at parties, the one who would try to walk down a flight of steps on his hands, or heat up coins in a fireplace and put them in his mouth, so long as there was an expectant audience watching.

He was making me restless. I shifted in my seat, wondering if he was going to get to the point of this meeting. As it was, we only saw each other every couple of weeks. We only saw each other when he needed something.

“So,” I said. “What’s up?”

His eyes rose level to my face once more. They were heavy, weighed down with alcohol and—could it be?—guilt. But no. He couldn’t be guilty, because to him, he had never done anything wrong.

“Stuff,” he grunted. “Family stuff.”

Guilt could, however, weigh me down. Self-induced paralysis.

It’s not your fault, I told myself, closing my eyes for a moment. It’s not your fault you haven’t been there for him as much as you used to. He has people to go to. He just chooses you because it’s safe. But it’s not your fault if you’re not always there. It’s his.

He finally stopped messing with his damn drink and said, “This is still uncomfortable, isn’t it?”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “This will never be comfortable,” I said.

“We can’t talk anymore, can we?” he asked.

“That’s on you. I don’t care.” For once, I meant it. I’d stopped missing him, any part of him. I’d stopped wishing against all reason to rewind time and have it how it used to be—because I was finally understanding that how it used to be wasn’t even that great. I’d stopped hoping the old him would shine through somehow. I’d stopped putting him up on a pedestal where he’d never deserved to be. And, slowly, I was creeping back to life. He wasn’t going to ruin that, as hard as he might try.

“I want to keep talking to you,” he said. “It’s not on me. I don’t want to lose you.”

I downed the remainder of my drink. “The thing is,” I said, my throat constricted from the burn of alcohol, “it’s not up to you, whether you lose me or not.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s not up to me.”

“I never said it was. I meant, it’s your fault.” I stared him right in the eye. Six months ago, this wouldn’t have been an option. Provoking him like this. Six months ago, I would have already started to back down. This wasn’t six months ago, though. I wasn’t six months ago.

“Maybe it is,” he answered, shoulders sagging. This was where I was supposed to comfort him, apologize, assure him that he was a good person, inflate his ego a little. I remained silent. “I’m sorry I’m such a dick,” he said, caving. Man, if I had only known this six months ago. That was the thing about him. He was aggravating as hell. He spun you up and cut you loose. But if you gave him the slightest taste of his own medicine, he wound up gagging on it and surrendering. “I…I never meant to. I’m just confused. I need to figure out where you fit you into my life, I guess. You and Cheryl both.”

“I’m not something you can fit into your life,” I snapped. “I’m not something you bought. I’m not a pet or a piece of furniture, for God’s sake.” I pushed his drink away from him, sliding it across the tabletop. It left a thick streak of condensation behind. “When are you gonna start owning up to what you did to me?” I asked in a low voice.

His eyes darkened, and I knew he was about to turn it around on me. Like he did with every dispute. Somehow, no matter what we were arguing about, it was always my fault. He could run over my grandmother, but if I got upset, he was no longer to blame. “You know,” he said, “I’m not half as bad as you say I am.”

“Maybe not,” I retorted, “but you’re not half as great as you think you are, either.”

I stood up and—with perfect timing—Cheryl sauntered into the bar. She spotted him and walked over, smiling. Her smile only faded a little as she saw me. I wanted to shake her. I wanted to warn her. I wanted to ask how the hell she could be jealous of me, since I only saw him once a week, tops, and since she was the one screwing him. Then immediately I wanted to ask how she couldn’t be jealous of me. I was free. She was just beginning to be trapped.

“Hi,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder. It was such a familiar gesture, I almost laughed. Hadn’t I done the exact same thing? Hadn’t I tried to stake my claim on every part of him, no matter if there wasn't an inch of him that truly belonged to me?

He didn’t even look at her. He just looked up at me. “Don’t leave,” he said.

“I left six months ago,” I answered. “When you got over me. Remember?” Then I left. I left him to deal with his own shit, for once in his life. I left him to explain to Cheryl why I was there, why I had ever been there. Hell, I would have liked if he’d explained that to me, but no matter. I left because I didn’t need to stay, not anymore, and because hey, I had learned a thing or two from him, after all.