Clueless 

She’s mad at me.

    I don’t know why. I don’t even remember how. It’s just one of those fights, you know? Where you fight over something so stupid and small but your pride and ego gets in the way and suddenly it’s tug-of-war with your feelings until one of you breaks and apologizes? Yeah, I’d say that’s what’s happening. Love is complicated, I guess.

    Marissa sits as far as she can from me on the couch. Her face is solemn and she is watching the television—I don’t know what she’s staring so intently at, it’s on a damn commercial.  She hasn’t spoke to me since forever.

“Hey,” I say, looking at her. She barely looks at me. “Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I love you. I don’t even know what we were fighting about.”

I must’ve said the wrong thing because she doesn’t even nod or give me any sign that she isn’t mad anymore. No “it’s okay, babe!” or “I’m sorry too, Leon”. I sigh. I’m getting tired of this. I wish back in college I just went out like my friends and got unattached to girls and just partied, but no, I had to decide to go get coffee and do my term paper that specific day. I had to sit by the window and have this cute girl reading her thick book sitting a table away. I just had to fall in love with her, didn’t I?

“Okay, I get it. You’re mad. I’m sorry that you’re mad and I’m an idiot. Please let me off now,” I try again. She barely blinks. And suddenly she stands and shuts off the television, eyes starting to water and all, and she goes off into our bedroom. Okay, let me correct that. Her bedroom since I can’t find my clothes or things anywhere in there anymore. She’s officially kicked me out of there.

Girls are so damn complicated. They want you to say you’re an idiot and when you do, they just ignore you. But it’s okay. We’ve had worse fights.

I sleep on the couch.

    Surprisingly the next day, I have no back pains, which is pretty surprising because I always do on the couch. Marissa continues to ignore me. She walks by me and acts like I’m not even there. I know I should do something—buy her flowers, get her chocolate—but I’m angry now too.

At night, I hear her crying in bed. It’s loud and I know she’s doing it on purpose. I feel bad. I really do. But, I don’t want to go in there and have her yell at me for coming in and then get more mad at me. I don’t know what to do anymore. We keep going in circles.

On Sunday, the home phone rings and before I can get it, Marissa jogs over to it—completely ignoring me, by the way—and picks it up. “Hello?” she says. “Hey, Kelly.”

She sounds sad and depressed even if her best friend is calling. I know she’s trying to make me feel bad. She wants me to know it’s my doing that is making her so unhappy. She wants me to get on my knees and beg my life for her to forgive me. Well, not happening. I always apologize. It’s always me. She gets to be angry and throw objects at me but I can’t be angry at her?

Kelly and Marissa talk for a while and eventually I stop listening.  I do hear bits and pieces like how Kelly will be over tomorrow with food and rented movies to cheer Marissa up. They’re ganging up on me, I swear.

So I come up with my own plan.

I pick up the phone and dial Dylan’s number. He’s been one of my closest friends and crazy party animal since we graduated college a couple months ago. Or was it days? I don’t know. Time is strange like that. He doesn’t pick up and I decide to try to call other guys from school but I don’t remember their numbers. I lost my phone the other day. The universe is trying to tell me I need to just apologize to Marissa. Well, sorry, universe, not today.

Marissa locks herself in her room all day and only comes out to go to the bathroom. She looks like a mess: red eyes, tangled hair, dark circles. All my resolve vanishes just like that. It’s not like I want to cause her pain. I don’t understand! I apologized! Several times, for Pete’s sake!

“Mar,” I call one time when she’s coming back out to go to the bathroom. We’re both on different ends of the hallway. My voice barely reaches her. “Please. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

She pauses at the door to the bathroom and stares at the white paint for a while. I’m thinking that this is it. She’s going to give it up now and forgive me. But when she walks into the bathroom and softly shuts the door behind her, I don’t know where else to turn. It’s not just about our stupid fight anymore. There’s something else. She’s sick of me. She’s sick of fighting with me.

That night, I feel so cold. Marissa probably cranked up the air conditioner (even though it’s mid-fall) just to piss me off. Well, it’s working. I have trouble sleeping.

Kelly comes over at the crack of dawn. I go into the bathroom and pretend to take a very long shower. I even go through the trouble of turning it on and just sitting there while I avoid the we-hate-Leon-gang outside the door.

I open the door a little because I hear Kelly drag Marissa out of bed and into the kitchen where she makes Marissa some pancakes. They’re talking and Kelly looks angry and I know I’ll probably get whooped by her before she’s gone. It’s girl code or something stupid like that. Marissa looks deflated and it looks like Kelly is reprimanding her. Probably telling her to dump me.

Only if she knew I was right there, listening.

Curious, I pry the door open just a little more so I can hear better and stick my head out. They can’t see me but I finally hear more of what they’re actually saying.

“You need to get out, Marissa! Find someone new and better!” Kelly is saying. What a bitch. She’s convincing Marissa to leave me when I’m in the same damn room? Well, sort of. “I know you still love Leon but you need to end this! All you do is cry and sleep in your room. Are you happy?”

Marissa doesn’t touch her food. Just stares. “Do I look happy?”

“You look miserable! You are miserable, M!”

“Well, yeah, what do you expect, Kelly?” Marissa doesn’t even sound angry, just deflated. She’s not even defending me. I don’t know whether to feel hurt or angry.

“Look at you!” Kelly says, hands in the air. “You don’t even smile anymore. You don’t go out. You don’t even eat!” She points to the untouched plate of pancakes. “What about your life? There’s so much to do. So much left that hasn’t been done! Don’t waste it!”

Marissa’s cheeks start to redden and I get excited. She’s angry. Not at me for once. “Kelly! What the hell do you expect? It’s only been a month!”

Wait, what? We’ve been fighting for a month?

“It hasn’t been a damn month, Marissa!” Kelly’s arms are crossed and she’s fuming, steam basically coming out of her ears. She looks down and suddenly her face changes. “It’s been three and a half….” There’s tears in her eyes and I’m so confused. “We all miss him. But he’d want us. . . to move on. To be happy.”

What the hell is going on?  Did something happen to Marissa’s brother or dad?

I can’t take any more confusion so I walk out of the bathroom. My chest is tight and suddenly I’m getting a crazy headache. “Guys, what the hell is happening?”

Kelly continues looking at Marissa and Marissa barely acknowledges me. Enough is enough. I walk around the granite counter and yank Mar’s arm. Only I can’t. My fingers wrap around her forearm but I can’t feel her. It’s like when your foot falls asleep and you touch it. Numb. Empty. Cold.

“Marissa…,” I whisper. I gently touch her cheek. Same feeling. Like I’m touching nothing, which doesn’t make sense because she is my everything.

“He’s gone,” Kelly says, her hands on Marissa’s shoulders. “Ever since that car accident with him and Dylan, it’s been different since graduation night. I know. We all can feel it. Two lives were lost from stupid drinking and we are all devastated.  You got hit harder because you loved him and you planned out your entire life with him, I know!” Tears are slowly passing down her face or maybe it’s me. “But you can’t destroy your life, too!”

Marissa’s in tears too. Sobbing. Her words are choked.

“You don’t understand, Kelly! We were fighting that night! That’s why he left with Dylan instead of me! That’s why it’s my fault he died! If he had been with me, if I hadn’t run my mouth, if I had just let. It. Go. Maybe if I had just done that,” she yells before her voice drops notches down, “maybe they wouldn’t have found him wrapped around a tree.”

It all clicks to me. It all starts clicking. Why she’s been ignoring me. Why I feel so cold all the damn time. Why the couch didn’t hurt my back. Why I couldn’t remember anything clearly, just a fuzzy outline. Why I don’t remember the last time I ate or went to the bathroom. Why Dylan didn’t pick up. Why I haven’t been going to work. Why she hasn’t been going to work. Why she always sounds sad. Why she never goes out to even do anything. Why she hadn’t responded to me every time I reached out to her. Why the shower that I had left running isn’t even on.

She was never mad at me! She was mad at herself! I was such a prick, always making everything about me. And all those nights of her crying—oh my god, she’s been crying and alone in the dark for three months now? She’s been crying all by herself in her room for me? Because I’m dead? I want to smash something and then cry and yank out all my hair.

“Marissa, I’m so sorry!” I’m screaming as I sit on the floor, my arms on my knees, head in a cocoon of myself. My face is wet and I’m shaking with fear, anger, misery, sadness, but of course she can’t see me. They both can’t.

t o   b e   c o n t i n u e d :-) (i hope)

moral of the story is: don’t drink & drive bc u’ll end up thinking you’re alive when you’re really not and you’re really just waiting for that moment when u find out ur dead BUT OH WHAT IF THAT MOMENT IS RIGHT NOW??? what if you’re “living” with all these people you’ve made up in your head bc ur in denial u died just like Leon??? WHAT IF