there was a boy / a strange enchanted boy

Eventually it became one of my favorite movies. It took a good long while. It will be crystal clear as to why in very short order.

First: a prologue.

Her name was - no. Let’s not do that. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone. Besides, giving a name to something quickly leads to them becoming dear, precious. Part of you. She isn’t a part of me. Yes, she is. Well, sort of. She’s still a part of me in the way anyone who came into your life, tossed your everything into the air, and then disappeared before all of it came crashing down could be.

So, yeah. No names.

My girlfriend at the time and I were over. We both knew it and had already begun moving on. To be fair nothing was actually ever said...but sometimes nothing need be said. The silence and forced smiles (and lovemaking, cohabitation, dinners, cat ownership, etc.) said it all. Four and half years of not-quite-happiness was coming to an end and neither of us fought it.

Enter: the other girl.

And I mean ENTER! All caps, bold, italics, exclamation point, fucking NEON! I don’t even know what happened. One minute I was content with exactly what I had and how it was. Not happy but content. The next moment she was there and nothing made sense anymore. A million questions all at once smacked my brain. Who? Where? How? Name? I couldn’t even think in sentence fragments. Only words; utterances. Luckily (?) my face didn’t broadcast my sudden onset dumbfoundedness.

And then it happened. My friend said the words I couldn’t form. “Come here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

I’d love to regale you, dear reader, with the minutia of the next three hours but that’s all lost to alcohol and whatever the pills du jour were for me at that time. There was karaoke. There was hand holding. Dancing. Whispers. Phone numbers exchanged. I walked her to her car. A kiss on the cheek. A smile that was both the first of many and not enough - and a warning besides.

I watched her drive away. I immediately called her number and joked that I wanted to make sure it was real. It was a mask for my lifelong insecurity and I’m sure she saw through it but she was kind enough not to point it out. Never once did my girlfriend cross my mind.

Until she did.

I held no ill will for her. I didn’t want to hurt her. I went home clutching the new girl’s number and promised myself I wouldn’t use it again until I ended things with my girlfriend. Six hours later I was sitting on the front lawn of her house explaining it was all my fault and to blame only me and blah, blah, blah. Then she scrunched her face as if the words I was directing at her were especially sour (which, in fairness, they were). She spoke.

“No.”

For the second time in as many days I was speechless. Could this actually happen? Was it allowed? Can someone reject a rejection? I don’t know how long I sat there, mouth agape as she studied my dental work with unblinking steady eyes. She shook her head as if prompting - defying - me to speak. All I could utter was a choked, “Um, yes?”

She reiterated her position with a nod and shrug.

I did the only thing I could think of: I got up and left. She didn’t stop me, which in retrospect I should have interpreted as a bad thing. But like most men - boys - of twenty I had other things on my mind. And that was, obviously, another girl.

No. Not just “another girl”. Not by a long shot. In the fourteen hours since I had met her (but who’s counting?) I had already elevated her to status higher than saint, princess, or queen. She was too precious to touch, impossible to behold with mere human eyes. She belonged on Olympus. She belonged on the highest possible currency in every country in the world. She could rule over every planet and civilization in the known universe. And when we map more of the stars she would take those over as well - and the inhabitants would welcome her with open arms.

Current me sees the folly in this. Luckily for you, dear reader, current me is still twenty years away at this point.

Buckle up!

The entirety of the courtship process was two dates, if you could call them that. A house party and a double date with another couple. The fact that we were “official” was never really official. We just sort of silently agreed to be a couple. Somehow that worked. Wow! We didn’t even need communication to make this work! Wow! (Yeah...I know...)

So there we were: one intergalactic overlord...and me. I only really considered to question why I was there after the fact. Years later. But I had only just begun my string of questionable decisions so what was one more?

To wit: I didn’t know until more than two weeks later that she was, in fact, still in high school. I’ll allow you a moment to regain your composure (and respect for me). It’s okay. I’ll wait.

Moving on.

I bring this up because while it isn’t the ultimate in red flags it certainly should have been a little one, just visible in the corner of my eye. A tiny parade size hand flag down there in my periphery. Meh. Who am I kidding? I would have ignored that too.

I immediately convinced myself that eighteen and twenty wasn’t really such a far stretch. It’s only two years. Nothing weird or head turning about that. Yes, I know. I can hear you screaming it because I know it now: those are two of the most formative years in early adulthood. Personally I had spent a majority of that time drinking, drugging, and almost flunking out of a state school. (How the hell do you flunk out of a state college, you ask? Not sure, but it seems I was a natural at it.)

Before too long we were at each other’s side daily. Well, daily after, you know...school. And it was close to the end of her senior year. And I was her de facto boyfriend. I think you know where this is going.

It’s mid-May, I’m in a rented tux of her choosing, posing for pictures with her in a dress she ordered her father to buy for her. We went to the prom in a limo I couldn’t afford but she insisted upon. We got to the dance and only danced the numbers she liked.

Are you sensing a pattern?

Now: a flashback.

It’s 1989. I’m nine (but almost ten!). There’s a commercial on television all the time. It was during a rerun of ALF that my life and worldview shifted in a fundamental way. I really wish I had realized it and given the moment more ceremony than I was able to muster. But I was nine, so expectations were set to a default of ‘low’. The tag line on the commercial made no sense to me: A Lloyd Meets Girl Story. Huh? Peter Gabriel starts singing to his love about getting lost sometimes. His grand facade will soon burn. He is totally mute and sans pride. A boy stands in front of car. He is forlorn. He is lovesick. Even a nine year old can see that. Then it happens: John Cusack lifts the boom box and a few quick edits later the commercial ends with Lloyd and his girl driving away, most likely into the brightest and most perfect future any couple could ever hope for! Lloyd meets girl. As the screen faded to black I get it. 

What I’m saying is: I hold John Cusack personally responsible for not only my questionable relationship choices but my inability to accept that the person I’m with isn’t my soul mate. Seriously. All his fault. If I hadn’t seen Say Anything in 1989 who knows where I’d be today.

Now where were we? Ah, yes. The prom.

Given my penchant for romantic delusion I had actually been trying to figure out the perfect time and place to finally tell her a loved her. I had even prepared to counter her inevitable ‘but we’ve only been dating two months’. I would say that two months was actually fifty nine days more than I needed to know. Thinking back now as I write this I’m annoyed by a tiny voice from my memory chastising me for spouting this bullshit in the first place when I knew even then that it wasn’t true. But bullshit or not we were going to be on a cruise on Lake Michigan after the dance. I would take her to the deck and let the lights of Chicago and the starts above fill in for me if I lost my nerve. Let her get lost in the light as I fumble for my words.

After what seemed like far too long the dance ended. We made our way to the party bus, hopped on, and travelled downtown in relative silence. When we went aboard the boat the same DJ from the dance was playing the same songs he had just played at the dance for the same group of teenagers (and one twenty year old) that were just at the dance. It was surreal and deserves its own focus someday. But not now. Now is the time for true love to conquer all.

In the middle of Lady Marmalade she tugged me over to the side of the parquet dance floor and motioned for me to follow her further. She led me to the stairs that led to the deck. Well that was easy, I thought. I happily followed her like a puppy about to be adopted.

It was cold in the open air of the lake. I gave her my tux jacket and she accepted it with a slight smile. Then she turned to me. She took my hands in hers. We locked eyes. I opened my mouth and was drawing in a ragged breath to speak when she broke the silence.

“I love you.”

Wait. What? Huh. Okay then. Pressure off. Breathing and heart rate can return to normal. Shit! No they can’t! She just told me she loves me! And - crap! She’s still talking and I’ve been in my head since those three words. Did she just say something about college? Downstate? I’m in college upstate. Stop! Listen to her, for God’s sake!

“...but that’s months away. I just wanted you to know that I love you. Now.”

I mustered something like ‘right..’ before finally snapping fully back to the deck of a boat on a lake in front of a city that suddenly seemed small next to this woman - this girl - in front of me. I smiled and returned her I Love You with one of my own. It felt right. I felt like I was telling the truth. Mostly. The woman - the girl - smiled and kissed my quivering lips. If I only knew at that moment just how much closer to a girl she was than to a woman...

Interlude: Love, smiles, I Love You’s tossed like rose petals at our feet. Days spent together in public, nights spent in private. Soft, vague plans of someday...someday... Above all else though: a willful ignorance of the future. And reality.

Cut to: The future. And reality.

We didn’t fight. Not directly. We did however stop talking. Obviously communication was never our strong suit but even the rudimentary process we had atrophied with disuse. She got new friends I was never introduced to. Or maybe they were old friend reconnected. I never knew.

Then she set up her first campus visit to pick her college. It seems I had missed that part when we were on the boat when my brain pulled the double clutch. That’s what she claimed and since I had no real way to disprove this I smiled and nodded. She would be gone for a weekend. I shrugged it off and tried hard to ignore the fact that I had never heard of an all weekend campus visit, especially to one of the smallest colleges in the state. So like any dutiful boyfriend I packed her car, give her a kiss, and waved goodbye.

In more ways than one, it would turn out.

I’m not going to pretend I was perfect and blameless over the course of the weekend. I remain at a total loss even today as to why I called her room so many times or why I insisted on talking to her repeatedly at midnight or later. Contrary to my actions I’m not stupid. I’m not going to defend my behavior but still. I knew a girl like that with no supervision...my heart was in for a smack down.

She came home Sunday night. My phone rang and in lieu of an “I missed you!” she told me to take her to a movie. She was tired from the drive and activities from the weekend. I agreed on the condition that we talked afterward. I didn’t know I was not only driving to my very own romantic Waterloo but also pay for the noose she would soon tighten around the neck she hugged so lovingly just seventy two hours before.

She would drive. The theater wasn’t far and she was, she claimed, beginning to get a second wind. So off we went in total silence. When we arrived I ask a general and inconsequential question. I got a mumble and a shrug.

I got denied when I went in for a kiss while waiting in line. Same for a simple hand hold. We get to the ticket booth, she tosses down a fifty, and says, “Two for Moulin Rouge.”

Moulin. Fucking. Rouge.

A musical that, while I had been waiting to see it, I was not expecting to take in that night. But here we were, tickets already paid for. No choice but to get on with it. We did not stop at the concession stand. We found our theater, found out seat. As the lights began to dim she whispered, “I saw this over the weekend with Brian and I think it’s important for you to see.”

Brian? Who the fuck is Brian?!

I’m sure there were trailers but I don’t recall.When the film company’s logo flashed on the screen she leaned over and say, “Pay attention.” and nodded to the screen. And I can’t be sure but I almost recall something akin to whimsy cross her face. From barren to whimsy in five seconds flat. Damn.

The screen flickered for next two hours and ten minutes. Lavish songs, dancing, acting, and overacting filled every frame. It’s a marvel of filmmaking. Gorgeous.

But who the hell is Brian?

She had said to pay attention. I did. But I also gave sideways glances to her facial expressions. They were not innocent. Was it guilt? Maybe. But as it happened the movie was the most obvious admission of guilt she could have possibly displayed. And I got it from the first frame.

We open on a heartbroken and recently disheveled writer at a typewriter (a little on the nose, don’t you think?). His anguish is the most elaborate set piece in the shot. As he begins to type you learn the source of his pain - and the reason I’m in the theater: the woman he loves is gone.

Imagine understanding that, having it all click into place in the first few seconds of a two hour and ten minute movie. Eleven seconds before, you were spoken for. Now you’re a single dope in a dark room with a woman who is enjoying herself a little too much. Just as David Bowie sings about his Nature Boy her face switches from whimsy to smug satisfaction. Unmitigated, unwelcome, and unearned satisfaction. Does she really think this movie is going to be a sort of Dear John letter to me? Not quite...but that’s getting ahead of the story.

The movie utilized several 1980s pop songs in its narrative and it becomes quickly obvious that the male lead is my emotional doppelgänger. That’s all fine and good (and demoralizingly accurate). But by that logic the female lead is her. The female lead. The prostitute. The one who doesn’t leave the man, but rather dies. Okay...if you say so.

If one looks only at the end of the first act to the beginning of the third, which is to say the majority of the love story itself, it does a surprisingly good job at conveying her message. She didn’t want to hurt me so she was going to push me away - make me blame her for everything. She’d take blame, wear it like a badge of fallen honor. I couldn’t say it was a foreign concept to me.

When the lights finally came up the male lead was still suicidal, the female lead was still dead, and I was still wondering who the fuck Brian was. I didn’t want to look at her but was fairly certain she was looking at me so I moved my eyes. Nope. She was fumbling in her pocket. She had slumped down a bit, deflated at some point, I missed exactly when.

She handed me a twice folded sheet of college ruled, spiral bound paper. It was warm from her body heat. I was struck with the realization I never would be again. I could see writing on both sides in her loopy script. I could also see the closing. It stung. I wasn’t expecting it. I probably should have.

The word was “sincerely”.

The word was not “love”.

“Read it at home.” She ordered politely, though I could have drowned in the acrimonious undertow. She got up and walked out, presumably to the car. I remained frozen. My tears refused to fall even with my implicit permission to do so. The film ran out and I blinked hard. I shoved the note in my pocket and slouched out. I caught up with her in the parking lot. I was more than a little shocked she had waited. Needless to say the ride back to my car was drenched in silence.

We got to her house and she killed the engine.

“Read it.”

Caught off guard but eager to read it (against the nagging voice in my head) I tentatively took it out and unfolded it. Before my eyes had a chance to focus on the first words she began crying. I ignored her to the best of my ability.

Dear _____, I’m so sorry.

“I’m going to finish this at home.” I stuffed it back in my pocket and almost tripped extracting myself from her car. I knew she continued to cry but to this day I don’t know if they were tears of sorrow or relief. It doesn’t matter. But I hope they were sorrow.

I never read the note. It’s still sitting in a box in my closet. Sure, I skimmed it. I learned enough. Brian was a sophomore at the school, a “nice guy” - I would “like him” - she actually wrote that. They went skinny dipping in a river. She told me that too. There was more but I studied the closing more than anything. It hadn’t changed. No love. No hearts. No feeling. Sincerity is not a feeling. In this case I wouldn’t even consider it an action. 

My phone rang early the next day. It was her.

“Come over.”

I was used to jumping for her so I grabbed the cleanest dirty clothes I could find and rushed over. It had rained overnight and the sky was threatening to let loose again in that singular way only the midwestern sky can.

And let go it did!

I should have pulled over. Visibility quickly dropped but I continued on. As I approached her street it seemed to let up but the rain still fell in thick cold splats on my windshield. I pulled into her driveway. I could see her through the glass of the front door.

My heart leapt. I was flush with lust, forgiveness, foolishness, and an urgent need to touch her; to feel her in my arms and feel her lips on mine. I needed - required - the smell of her hair in my nostrils. I needed to be reminded of everything perfect and unalterable and undeniable. I needed her.

My door was open and my left foot touched the ground before the car was in park. I don’t recall the sensation of walking or breathing or the rain on my head because I could see her. She was just on the other side of that door, not thirty feet away. I smiled as big and as real as I could. This was it. She was going to be mine again. I would hold her, cherish her, protect her. We would be happy. We would be-

She opened the door wide, then cracked the screen door. She cleared her throat loud enough to hear from the driveway and over the rain. She motioned for me stop.

She wasn’t smiling.

I stopped smiling.

She looked past me. (Had she ever not?)

I looked directly at the face I knew I loved.

She cleared her throat again.

She spoke.

“I don’t love you.”

She shut the door. She locked the door. Disappeared somewhere behind it.

I stood in glorious confusion, but only for a moment. My senses returned in a flash. I blinked.

The movie had ended this way:

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

My story ends:

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is how to love without being loved in return.”

I win.