After I put him on that birthday afterglow bus, I lived in the glow for a few days or a few weeks. I sat in my post-high-school job at Burger King (I would pretty much do anything to avoid a challenging job interview. Plus I’ve always loved tedium and discounted snacks!) daydreaming about his warm skin and soft hair and to-be-continued mixtape, looking out the drive thru window in a happy haze between customers. But then, just as the word “temporary” had derailed a lovely afternoon of our visit, three little words out of my face closed off whatever I thought might come next with him.
“I need you,” I found myself saying into my yellow
landline phone. I would very much like to go back and unsay it, even if the
results would still have been the same.
“You need me?” he wasn’t being harsh, just a
little incredulous. “I can’t be…needed right now.”
His reasons were sound and to be expected, but that
didn’t make the conversation any less devastating. He had just started college.
There were girls there with purple hair and he wanted to be free to live his college
life. Totally valid! But my heart both deflated and exploded into a fine, sad,
messy mist.
For some reason, his guilt or my sentiment or both or
just love, we decided to keep my planned visit a couple weeks after the
breakup. To say goodbye I guess. I met the purple-haired girl there—I remember
her name being Sloane but it’s possible she had only recommended the BAND Sloane
to him. (“She was underwhelmed if that’s a word, I know it’s not ‘cause I
looked it up, that’s one of the skills I learned in my schoooooool.”) She left
Perfectly 1993 Guy and me alone to lay in his tiny dorm room, on a pleasingly narrow
twin bed.
We stayed spooned up in that bed for a long time. I
looked out the window at the pretty campus feeling romantically achey. The Get
Up Kids wouldn’t be invented for two more years, but it was maybe the most emo
weekend of my life. That is REALLY saying something.
We decided to go see a Dead Milkmen show a couple of
hours away from campus by train. The club was at the beach so things did NOT
get less emo despite the very silly music. As we walked from train to club to
beach, he got grumbly because I was walking too close and kept walking into
him. Nonetheless, I put my head in his lap and rested on the train ride back. I
wanted him to be hard beneath my sleepy cheek so I would know his desire for me
had been real. I was vigilant for it but don’t remember the results being
decisive. What a sign to look for.
In his dorm room he had a childhood teddy bear named
Clyde and I decided to take him home with me for consolation. He was a pretty
big bear, dark brown with one of those really sincere faces that stuffed animals
sometimes have. Perfectly 1993 Guy told me years later that he hadn’t wanted me
to take Clyde, he just hadn’t known what to say. I feel such a longing to know
what happened to Clyde, to hug him tight. (Confession: For the past few months
I’ve slept with a stuffed peacock named Nancy, a platonic I-was-having-a-hard-day-post-attempted-coup
gift from Sweetie.)
We tried to be friends, especially when I came that winter
to a school a few hours away from his. I knew every day of my short photography
school life (With darkrooms! And chemicals! Glad I tried it while I still
could.) how close Perfectly 1993 Guy was by train. My first night at school, I
used a big handful of change to call and let him know I had arrived. After a
couple of will-we-or-won’t-we visits (More chaste, longing spooning with a
little wrestling thrown in? Odd.) things got too snitty and he stopped taking
my calls.
I called him a truly reprehensible number of times for
a couple of months, including on Valentine’s night surrounded by the mylar balloons
of my roommates’ more successful relationships. I imagined the phone ringing
and ringing and ringing in that tiny room, knowing purple-haired girl would
think I was pathetic. I definitely was.
Aside from nicely saucy letters from Pagan Boy, (RIP) my
loneliness that winter and spring was abject. Eventually, by some miracle,
Perfectly 1993 Guy did pick up the phone and we went comfily to a fantastic
King Missile show where I got to hug John S. Hall and accidentally poke him
with my spiky bracelet. (Another object I’s just LOVE to have today. Wonder how
it’s doing?) We saw each other a few more friendly times but he was one of the
few old friends/flames who didn’t make the real-life-to-MySpace-etc transition.
I looked him up on LinkedIn a couple years ago. Without his Eddie Vedder hair
he looks like a regular person, a regular BEAUTIFUL person.
I never won’t miss him. I’ll never forget that Bee
Girl moment of being loved by him, of being wanted. It both went by so fast and
lasted my whole life, like so many of the stories I tell you here. Thanks for
listening dears, I’m all wistful and grateful.
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