I thought I’d left all that behind in Minnesota, but here we are. Savannah is telling Athena, who was undoubtedly going to tell one or all of her fucking brothers about my misdeeds and my past will be dredged up all over again.
If anyone would give me a hot fucking minute to explain myself, they’d maybe realize I wasn’t a soulless, heart-breaking monster, just a naive boy, trying to do a good thing, for a damsel in distress.
Justin
(4 YEARS AGO/16 YEARS OLD)
Applebee’s is quieter than usual, almost empty in fact, but the rush is coming. I’m early for dinner. And yet, my usual booth is occupied by a redhead, bent forward, hands over her face, and her shoulders shaking with the force of her heavy sobs.
I turn a full circle but don’t see anyone who might have either been responsible for her tears, or there to help comfort her. It’s a sign that she’s in my booth, right? That means I need to go help her… Right? Dad says my “intuition” is—and I’m quoting here—“bullshit,” but my gut hasn’t led me wrong so far. And I hate to see someone in so much pain.
Decision made, my feet carry me toward the crying girl. I’m pretty sure she’s in my grade at school, though I don’t know her name. I might not know who she is, but no one should cry alone.
I clear my throat and toe the heel of one of my hand-me-down Chucks from my cousin Gabe. They’re starting to get tight around my big toe, leaving red marks from the friction, but I know my parents can’t afford to buy me new ones, and my grandparents just helped them replace our broken washing machine and bought me new-to-me skates, so they’re tapped out too. Maybe for Christmas.
When she doesn’t look up, I clear my throat again. “Uh… You okay?”
She jerks upright and blinks at me like it’s a surprise to find someone standing next to her in this very public place she’s chosen to have her breakdown. “What?”
“I asked if you’re okay.”
She gives me that look. The Girl Look. The one that says “are you fucking serious?” and simultaneously calls you a goddamn idiot. It strikes deep in my chest.
“I’m fine.”
The sarcasm from her two words clings to my clothes and hair as she wipes her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
“Wanna talk about it?”
Her eyes flare wider like she wasn’t expecting me to persist, and she shrugs. I slip onto the bench next to her. The sadness radiating from her feels personal, intimate, as though she needs to speak quietly and have someone beside her for comfort.
If I sit across from her, staring at her, waiting, she might not share what she needs to unload. It’s easier to talk when you’re not being looked directly at. You can’t feel people’s judgment quite so much.
She sucks in a stuttering breath before taking a sip of her pop. “My parents are getting a divorce.” Her shoulders sag like a 100lb weight was placed on her muscles. “It’s messy, angry…” She sniffs and her glassy eyes meet mine. “And just really, really sad.”
I nod and pat her back, her misery sinking deeper under my skin. Empathy is what my mom calls it when I experience other people’s emotions all the way to the center of my being. I thought it was the same for everyone, but Mom says some people feel nothing at all. I have no clue how that’s even possible. She also says some people do feel things, but they aren’t accompanied by physical reactions. How weird?
I’ve always had big feelings. Each emotion also has a physical response in my body. Anger feels like hot iron striking metal, a deep vibrating fire burning in every one of my cells. Jealousy tastes bitter, fizzing like acid in my stomach. Happiness is like stepping into the sunshine on a warm day… It’s hard to believe that not everyone literally feels their emotions like I do.
My girlfriend, Molly, says she doesn’t have visceral responses to her feelings. Anxiety doesn’t make her feel sick in her stomach, and sorrow doesn’t make her every muscle hurt like she has the flu. I guess I’ve always been a bit of a weirdo that way. I wonder what it would be like to not carry the weight of emotions with me everywhere I go.
I’d love to not feel things so deeply, so…entirely. I’d love to not be exhausted from sitting in a room full of people feeling their feels and living their lives like they’re not painting their emotions on me. My empathy often feels like a double-edged sword—I can relate to people, connect to them but it can also be terribly draining.
Case in point: sitting in a restaurant comforting a girl I don’t know over things that aren’t any of my business.
The girl blows her nose and wipes her tears. “Do you know that half of all marriages end in divorce?”
I nod but stay quiet. It doesn’t feel like she’s finished saying what she needs to say.
“We have a one-in-two chance of finding The One and keeping them. It’s so depressing.” Her lip quivers like she’s fighting a battle inside to stop her tears. “I feel like my whole life is a lie.” Another sob rolls through her body as she launches herself at me, linking her arms behind my neck and burying her head into my shoulder.
I have no idea how I find myself in these situations, but I really need to extricate myself from this one before someone from school sees and tells my girlfriend.
Gripping the redhead by her shoulders, I try to ease myself out of her hold. Her head snaps back a little, then her lips are on mine. I freeze. What the fuck is happening right now?
A gasp to my left wakes me out of my WTF stupor, and as I shove the stranger away from me with more force, I hear Molly say my name.
Fuck. It looks like I’m making out with a girl in my booth, our booth in Applebee’s. I push back out of my seat and jump to my feet. Turning toward Molly’s voice, I find no trace of her other than her family. Her brother is glaring at me so hard my own jaw clenches to mirror the twitching in his, and her folks are staring at me with that mix of parental anger and disappointment that I think they hand out to moms and dads when kids are born.
