youareanobject:

You roll over and wonder if you can make it to the gym before it closes. The dilemmas of your life on a Sunday morning. A Sunday ‘noon’, technically. You check your phone. No one has tried to communicate with you, not even your parents. You check your email—a couple of things there; one’s a coupon, one’s a new Twitter follower. You like checking your email on your phone, so your phone has something to do—you imagine it’s sometimes disappointed that you’re its owner. Like, it was built for this one thing that it never gets used for—communicating with the people you know—so it’s like you’re showing the phone that it can have a happy, useful life even though it’s not being optimized the way other people’s phones are. You do this sometimes—pretend to know what things are thinking. Sometimes those things are people. Either way, you’re usually wrong. This doesn’t bother you as much as it bother others, probably because your brain is so used to it. It’s not gonna beat itself up about this character flaw as much as it used to; it’s just in you. 

Days like this, your body hungover, you usually have to apologize to someone about something. Today it is Bradley. What you want to apologize for is introducing him to someone that would go on to take your place, but what most people would say is that you should apologize for almost causing a scene, for taking advantage of the fact that he cares as much as he does. You feel like apologies should make both parties feel better, not just the receiving party. Every moment of life is connected to so many people, some of whom you will never meet, will never talk to or see in a crowd; you feel like maybe people should spend all day thanking each other for taking existence so well, that is, when they’re not apologizing for when they slip up and let themselves down, and so, since everything is a part of everything else, letting the team down. Team Humanity. For example, you should thank Bradley for looking so handsome last night. It is a sight that made your life better, made the party suddenly worth being at. Made the loud music bearable. You want to text him thank you for that, thinking maybe it will help his day, what with his mom being sick. You want to apologize for frowning when you saw Elizabetha trailing behind him through the crowd to join your group. Elizabetha works with you, and you introduced her to Bradley back when you thought you wanted him to be happy even if that meant being happy without you. Two weeks ago, that makes it. You want to thank him for pretending not to notice and giving you a hug and a “Hey, big guy,” for allowing you to let the hug linger. Liz was dressed what you would call ‘hot’ and you quietly damned her for this. Maybe you were damning the universe for tilting the scales so much toward people who could pull off a dress like that, for making it so easy, even if she thinks life is hard for everybody. You get what that means, but you always laugh before agreeing with whoever says it. ‘LOL, yeah, I get it.’

You want to apologize for getting so drunk. How that happened…it’s hard to say. Bradley threw back drink after drink with you as you two and Ariel, your friend, made fun of the people all around you, and then Brad stumbled to the ‘dance floor’. You hung back with Ariel and watched. Lying here now in bed, you quietly thank Ariel in your mind for driving you home, for pretending it wasn’t weird that you didn’t say a word, for not noticing how often you peeked over her shoulder, at them, at their bodies pressed together, and this night, this drunk night, a moment in time that, when they look back at moments in time that they can’t believe was ever really their lives, just…the seeds of this memory sparkles beneath their half-closed eyelids and the rest is a blur. The rest of the night, that is. You know there was maybe you asking him to talk, and him maybe blowing you off, telling you to stop always being that way, stop being jealous, and the j-word cuts through you, not because it’s untrue, but because he was never supposed to notice. He takes you two steps from Liz, the two step where the music will be too loud for her to hear, and he says, basically shouting, because of the music, “I notice, dude. Do you know how many girls come up to me and ask me what your deal is? ‘What’s the deal with the gay kid, is he in love with you’…”

“I’m sorry,” you say, or something. “I thought…we were friends.”

He goes, “Shithead, I know. I just hate this jealous shit. I don’t wanna get into this right now, ok? Just don’t be weird. Please? Not tonight. I like this girl. Jesus, dude, do not cry here.”

But it’s too late, the tears are in your eyes. You wipe them away before they become, like, a ‘thing’. “You’re making me feel bad,” he says.

You want to complain about how the world sucks; how the world can go fuck itself for making you something that it’s okay to leave alone, to leave by itself, how that’s just okay…but you don’t, you walk away with your head down as he calls after you, tells you to come to him. You want to run back and be held by him while loud music plays and people enjoy what being alive feels like all around you, what people are left. But you pretend this is not what you want. You pretend getting away from him is what you want, like it could ever be. Even if it was something you ever had to do, it will never be something you want to do. You drunk texted him before you passed out, but he was busy.

When you get to the gym today, Bradley is there, working out with his work buddies. He’s never here on Sundays, so this sets off an anxiety thing and you turn around and leave before you are seen. You are putting the key into your car door just as he is standing beside you. You heard his footsteps approach but pretended not to. “Dude,” he says.

“Hey,” you say, afraid to make eye-contact, afraid of melting.

“I don’t remember too much of last night. How much do you hate me?” he says.

You do not respond.

He smirks and runs a hand over your head. “Who loves you the most?” he says.

And you break, sigh, shake your head, cover your face with your hands, and then you wrap your arms around him. He laughs. “Do I really turn you on that much?” he says, returning the favor, then pulling away from you, slowly. “You don’t have to be ashamed, dude, you know I don’t give a shit. I still love you. You still love me, right?” he says, and you blink at him, as if he asked you what your license number was…then you nod. “That’s all that matters, then. Hit me up later,” he says, jogging back toward the gym, into the building, waving goodbye before he disappears. You’re pulling into your driveway when you realize that you never said thank you, never said you were sorry, and so you run upstairs, into the bathroom, and you lock the door. You look at yourself, and you say it: thank you, I’m sorry, thank you…

A voice in your head tells you not to stop until you finally forgive yourself, for being the things that make up whoever you are, but you’re pretty sure your just gonna stop whenever you get hungry.

It’s called ‘being alive’, and everybody does it at least once.