It ended with a crash. He stared at me with eyes blank with lost love and spoke the dreaded, “I hope we can still be friends.” I do not share his hope. I screamed silently and pushed him away from me. He opened our, no MY, door and walked out, slamming the door and our future shut with unnecessary force. “Goodbye, David,” I whispered. The bastard. I swore at him under my breath until the silent responses broke me. Shaking, sobbing, I fell to the floor. It was over.
He told me he needed some space, a boy’s night out. I assumed that meant trouble and didn’t sound thrilled. He was instantly defensive and I knew that meant trouble, but I decided to be the bigger one in the relationship. I pretended not to care.
“God, Lottie, it’s just one night, alright? We’re gonna get some beers, watch some football, just guys for a night, ok?”
“Sure, babe, if that’s what you want.”
“Don’t guilt trip me over this, I’ll be home by one, ok?”
“Fine, I’ll be fine. Have fun with the boys and I’ll see you at one.”
He didn’t come home at one. He didn’t come home until the next morning. He slinked in and tried to quietly get under the covers.
“You look like shit,” I greeted him warmly.
“I feel like shit,” he grunted back, “too many beers, game went late, sorrry.” He slurred his rs. He smelled of vodka, cigarettes, and cheap perfume. Must have been some night with the boys. I got up minutes later to get ready for work. The bastard.
We had settled into something of a routine. We fought it at first of course; we were young; we wanted spontaneity not routine, but it was inevitable. I had the nicer, more spacious apartment so after a while of him crashing here nearly every night we decided to save the money and the trouble, and live together. Most likely a mistake, though it was glorious at first. I had never lived with anyone before. Oddly, it made me feel like a little girl again, like I was just playing house with the nice boy from school. All night long spooning, late Sunday brunches out on the deck, movie marathons with popcorn and hot chocolate on rainy days. Young love in the city. But all too quickly, the grown up stuff wore us out. We fought over who should clean, who should cook, which friends were allowed over and which were absolutely not. Three fourths of the time we were having makeup sex and the rest of the time we picked fights with each other just to add some drama.
We had been open for the first few months of seeing each other. Going exclusive was a big deal these days; who wanted to be tied down? Surprisingly, he was the one to pop the big question. He took me out to the fanciest French restaurant in town so I figured something was on his mind, though I assumed he just wanted to guarantee he got laid that night. Over the fine wine and cheeses, he finally got the nerve.
“Lottie, the last few months with you have made me feel like a new man. You make me smile and you turn me on,” he flashed me his killer smile. “How do you feel… about being… exclusive?” He looked up at me and a boyish nervousness passed over the chiseled, confident face I had come to love. How could I resist?
“I would love to be with you, exclusively, David.” We skipped desert and headed back to my place. Oh, to be young and in love.
He wrote me a love letter, as an apology I suppose. He had a bouquet of flowers sent to my office and attached one of those fancy pieces of parchment with bits of petals intermeshed with the off-white paper. On it he had scribbled in his endearingly boyish handwriting:
I am sorry for last night. Please forgive me. I never meant to hurt you. Having you in my life has been like a dream. I wake up each day smiling at the thought of being able to see you and be in your arms again. You are the only girl for me and I am sorry if I have led you to believe otherwise.
I love you my beautiful,
As soon as my boss wasn’t looking, I called to thank him and forgive him for everything. How could I resist?
About a month after we had started dating, he called me and told me he had a surprise for me. Put on something nice, he told me, I’m coming to pick you up in one hour. I slipped on a light blue dress that hugged my body in all the right places and emphasized my tanned skin. I wore simple gold heels and let my hair fall over my shoulders in loose waves. One hour and ten minutes later, he was at my door. He looked even better than usual; he was wearing suit pants and a whit collared shirt, not buttoned all the way up so that a hint of his tanned chest peeked through. He was clean-shaven and I had to fight off the temptation to cover his cheeks with kisses.
“Daaamn,” he cooed as he looked me up and down. “You look gorgeous.”
“You too,” I replied. “So, where are we going?”
He swept me from my feet and kissed me passionately before answering.
“It’s a surprise,” he finally responded. How could I resist?
We got in his car and he took me to the marina, at which point I realized just how special this night would be. A cruise boat was waiting; bobbing atop the water that looked as rich as black velvet, illuminated in the night’s darkness by the city lights behind; it was magical. How could anything go wrong? It turned out, of course, that there was plenty of opportunity. We were into our third round of cocktails when David suddenly found an old friend, or rather an old girlfriend. She was a waitress on the cruise and in her low cut black dress, the most beautiful one. At first I didn’t mind; I was happy even, that I was the new girl he was with. But when he introduced me to her as his ‘friend’ I was not quite as happy. And when he invited her to have drinks with us as they reminisced about their “wonderful, oh why did we ever break up?” relationship, I was anything but happy. I took a twenty-minute bathroom break just to regain my composure and when I returned, they hardly seemed to notice. Worst of all, when I confronted him about it, he brushed it off, like I was being the rude one in not wanting her to join in on what I thought was supposed to be a romantic date between US. I would have stormed off, but given the situation, had to wait for the boat to get around the whole island before I had the chance. The second we touched land, I ran to the car. When David finally found me there, I was crying.
“Take me home,” I ordered.
“Baby, what’s the matter?”
“Don’t even talk to me, David. You certainly didn’t care to back there, so you know what? Just don’t. Take me home.” I refused to say anything else to him the rest of the car ride. He better make this up to me, I thought as I fell asleep that night.
For our third date, David invited me over to his apartment. I was nervous; I hadn’t been there before and I knew that a man’s apartment could make or break a relationship. Things had been going wonderfully so far, but what if he had a penchant for thick shag carpets or those inspiration posters? I knew that would be the end of it. Luckily, it wasn’t. His place was actually nice, a little messy and too modern for my taste, but nice. And he cooked! Not even one of those ten-minute meals from Safeway that look like they took hours, but a real home cooked meal. He laid out fresh tomatoes, mozzarella and basil, pasta covered in a red sauce thick with cut up vegetables, and big glasses of red wine.
“My mother is Italian,” he explained with a shrug as I marveled at all the food. He put on some new jazz CD he had just “discovered” and we sat down to eat. The food was delicious, the CD was great, and the wine was strong. We talked about a million things and let our hands find each other’s above the table, as our feet found each other’s below the table. Pretty soon we forgot about the food entirely. I allowed him to lure me into his room, which was the nicest in the apartment. There was a large window that looked out at the twinkling lights of the city and a larger bed covered in soft, white cotton sheets. We fell on to it, laughing at a joke he had whispered in my ear. He lay down beside me and kissed me softly, then harder as he unbuttoned my shirt and slipped out of his own. Should I make him wait? The question circled around my mind, but with one last gaze at his perfectly sculpted, tanned body; I gave in. How could I resist?
David called me just a few days later. He was adorably nervous.
“Hey, Charlotte, it’s David, from the café? I was wondering… if you weren’t busy tonight… if you’d like to come out with some friends and me; we’re going to this new bar that just opened downtown, Element. What do you think? Can you come?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Tonight? I have to wake up pretty early in the morning.”
“I’ll have you home at a decent hour; I promise. Come! It’ll be fun; it’s supposed to be a great little place.”
“Well, I guess a drink or two wouldn’t hurt. Sure, I’ll come.”
“Great! I’ll pick you up at nine.”
The bar was fun. David was cuter than I remembered and his friends were great; that’s always a good sign. We had a good time. The bar was one of those super-trendy places that seemed to be popping up all over downtown and there was a long line of super-trendy people waiting to get in. David knew someone at the door and we were able to skip the whole line, much to the dismay of the hundreds behind us. The bar was split up into different sections that were supposed to embody the different elements of the world: fire, water, earth, and air. We sat in ‘water’ atop clear stools, with thousands of bubbles in the plastic and a table before us that had a disappearing fountain all around one raised, central piece of glass to rest our drinks on. Shimmering bead and glass curtains in shades of blue dangled around us. David bought us all a round of drinks and we got to know each other over our aquatini cocktails.
I was sitting in my usual perch at the back of my favorite local café, sipping on a cup of coffee and reading my newest novel, an account of the tumultuous life of Jacques Derrida, when I noticed him. A man sitting just a few tables away, writing something on his laptop, but stopping every few words to look up, seemingly at me. We caught eyes for a moment and I blushed. His eyes were a dark green and seemed to pop off of his olive toned skin, though they threatened to be obscured by his slightly long, unruly dark hair. He wore a simple t-shirt that struggled to contain his muscular chest and wide shoulders. He had something in Italian tattooed on his forearm and a piece of worn leather tied around his wrist. He was gorgeous. I tried to pay attention to my book, but couldn’t help but steal glances at each new page. After a while, I had to leave and walked past him and out the door with a heavier step than usual, thinking I would never see the man again. Just a few steps outside, I heard a voice over my shoulder.
“Excuse me? Excuse me, Miss, you left your book!” It was him, carrying my book in one outstretched hand as he hurried to catch up with me.
“Oh my God, thank you so much!” I responded, more excited by brushing his hand with my own as I took the book back.
He smiled. “You’re welcome. I noticed you back there, reading it…The life of Derrida,” he read the title, “what a fascinating man, wouldn’t want you to lose this book.”
“Yea, it’s really interesting. Thanks for running after me; I don’t know where my mind was back there.” I blushed as I remembered exactly where my mind had been. He interrupted my thoughts.
“My name is David.” He held out his hand.
“Charlotte,” I replied, shaking his large, firm hand, “Nice to meet you.”