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I turned on the engine and peeled out of the parking lot. It only took me a few minutes to get out of the city, onto the dark, winding country roads.
I pushed the pedal down as far as it would go and enjoyed the sensation as the Mercedes launched me into fucking space.
I wanted to feel something; anything. The thrill of being alive, instead of having to feel dead all the time. I wanted to see colors again instead of wandering through this long stretch of gray; this cursed life filled with problem lined up after fucking problem.
Before I knew it, I was parking at an outcropping. My subconscious must have taken me here.
This had been our spot.
I threw the Mercedes into park with a view of the glimmering city below. I took a moment to indulge in the lost memory of one of me and Grace’s first dates, when we were teenagers, out here with this view and a picnic. But that memory was now tainted; tossed around with the truth of things that had happened between us.
Everything we shared. The thing about long-ass relationships like ours was that you shared the good times, and the bad. And even if it was mostly bad, you were still stuck to them. They were inextricably wound through your past with the nastiest, stickiest glue.
Grace. Grace. Grace.
“Fuck!” I hissed trying as hard as I could to clear my mind of this obsession with her. But it was no use. She was all I thought about day and night.
She was my addiction. My drug. I knew it was unhealthy. I knew there was nothing particularlyspecialor extraordinary about her. I knew she secretly wanted to be a housewife, but she felt shameful about it. I knew she thrived on having a neat, orderly schedule, taking care of the details and all that. And I knew any derivation from that would send her into one of her goddamn anxiety attacks again…
I pulled out the tin box and lit up a joint. As soon as I took the first puff, I leaned back in the seat and relaxed.
Better.
The tingling in my arms died down. Finally, I didn’t have to care about things as much. I could let go of my fixation, if only for these few moments.
It was easier to let my mind drift to the crickets chirping outside, and the acid green fireflies gracefully floating around in slow cursive.
They didn’t give a fuck about Grace.
If only I could reach that level of not caring.
I didn’t want to have to care about how passionate she was about teaching. How gentle she was around children, how shelistenedto them no matter what stupid shit they prattled on about…
Okay, maybe there were good things about Grace.
But it wasn’t worth it to date someone with severe anxiety like that. And just like that, I fixated on what it was like toward the end of our relationship. It was like dating a to-do list and a ball of worries and what-ifs. I didn’t feel like her boyfriend anymore… I felt like her counselor. Every conversation degraded into me reassuring her that no one was going to die as she would try to worry a hole in our relationship.
And honestly, it got tiring as fuck.
It was so much harder to keep a solid foundation when the other person insisted on jackhammering it with so much unnecessary fear.
I took another drag and sank into the seat a little further.
The weed unblocked things within me. It made it possible to feel things besides constant resentment. I could look at the good times from way up here, in the clouds…
If I had the ability to cry, I would have, in that moment.
I felt sadness. Wistfulness. Longing for the way things were, when they were good. Was there any way we could get back to that?
I thought of how she looked leaning against the wall, smoking my blunt. That was not the same Grace I used to know.
She was changing.
Then my mind conjured those two assholes she had wrapped around her finger.
I frowned. They’d be hard to get rid of, but it could be done.
All I knew was that I needed to get Grace alone.
