“You wouldn’t,” I reminded him with false sweetness. “Didn’t we agree you were the dumb one?”
“Yeah, know what else I’ve been before?” His tone was cold and sharp. Uh-oh, I had time to think. “Not terrible at sex, so since you’re so smart, what conclusions can we—" There was ice in my veins, the words left me cold, and I wanted to close my eyes and brace for impact but then—
“You’re not having phone sex, are you?” My roommate asked, peeking his head in the room.
I don’t know what expression I gave him but whatever it was had him ducking back out again.
Luke and I stopped fighting, said goodbye. I don’t know. I ended the call in a daze.
It was really scary. Having such a dramatic fight. We fought before but it wasn’t vicious. Every word meant just to wound. And we were always in proximity then. It was just too much this time. It felt so good for a moment, having an outlet, something to lash out at, it felt like I was doing something, even if all I was doing was tearing down everything Luke and I had built together.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones or whatever. There was a whole other discussion about whether there needed to be glass houses in the first place. But that didn’t stop people from throwing stones despite the material their house was made of, that didn’t stop people from making houses out of whatever they wanted. That’s why there was a saying about it, because people were dumb.
I was dumb.
Fighting with Luke felt good for a moment.
It didn’t last long enough. The fury, the righteousness, the satisfaction that we were finally getting somewhere. But the after part where I felt terrible? That stuck around.
* * *
Luke
The night of the… awfulness with Ryan—god, it really sucked that I had to be more specific—the night we screamed at each other, I got a piece of printer paper, wrote ‘out of order’ on it and hung it on my door. Then I propped a chair against the door for good measure. I hid under my blankets and listened to Billy Eilish, who I only knew of because of Ryan and who I hated, but I thought she would suit my current vibe. I still didn’t like her music and it only made me wonder if Ryan was doing the same thing.
When I got done with work the next night, I thought my car had been stolen. Ryan’s dad had to give me a ride. And that was just great. On top of everything else, I’d been burglarized. It turned out my family had taken it. Dad dropped Mom off with the spare keys and she went and took it to the shop.
They told me they trusted me, knew I would make smart decisions, etc, etc. My parents were in that group that were like, ‘as long as you be safe’ when it came to sex. Really, they didn’t want a scandal involving a Chambers and a baby. And there was no way there could be a baby in this case, so that was something, I guess.
My dad was the one who gave me the birds and bees talk when I was younger and it always ended at the point when he said, ‘I know I can’t tell you not to have sex, I can only tell you be safe.’ And it always ended at that point because it was immediately followed by, ‘when I was your age, I didn’t listen to my parents about this. Hell, I—' And then, never ever wanting to know how he was going to finish that sentence, I ended the conversation.
They were slowly dealing with this whole me being bi thing and while I don’t think they were totally comfortable with me going up to visit my boyfriend, it came down to whether they trusted me or not. I was so happy they did.
At least something was going right.
Maybe I shouldn’t visit Ryan. I said dumb things. He said dumb things. That was another thing we had in common: we were dumb. Things were getting worse and worse between us. It didn’t feel like I should sit at home worrying while everything fell apart.
I drove up there.
If there was a word for the complete realization that you just tried to hurt the person you loved most in the world, that’s what I felt. Despair, sadness, misery, whatever. My whole heart hurt.
I didn’t mean the stuff I said. I wanted to show him that, cross the distance between us. All we had to do was be together in the same room, then we could figure everything out.
* * *
Ryan
Luke had said some hurtful things. I kept telling myself that. You are not the worst person ever in the world, I said to myself. Luke said some hurtful things too. The only problem…
I remember being hurt in the moment. I remember the chorus of, ‘doomed, doomed, doomed, we are so doomed’ ringing loudly in my head. I remember feeling low and wanting to hurt him as bad as he hurt me. I just… don’t totally remember what he said. Because the things I said? Turns out those were the words still playing over and over in my head.
That really sucked. I wanted to be the wronged party here. Maybe I was. But my stupid heart and brain didn’t care about that, they just kept replaying what I said, how I hurt Luke because I was scared and angry.
Every part of me had been worried about Luke and me, and I so badly wanted things to be better. I so badly wanted us to last. I’m not really sure how all I could want was for things to be good between Luke and I and yet that led me to starting a fight.
Temporary insanity, maybe?
No, that was an easy out.
