Part 11 - 5 Hours After
"It was raining from the first, and I was dying there of thirst… So I came in here. And your long-time curse hurts, but what's worse, is this pain in here… I can't stay in here… Ain't it clear that I just can't fit?" Bob Dylan (via Jeff Buckley), Just Like A Woman
(The following are transcriptions of journal entries from 3.12 and 3.13 of 1998.)
3.12 – about 11 or something, I don't really know.
Writing from the toilet... the one place I know she can't go.
There is no heat in this room. Being surrounded by tile and porcelin doesn't really help matters much. You wouldn't imagine someplace so cold could feel like hell.
I know this is going to end badly. I can feel it... Every time she looks into my eyes and then looks away... Everything she tells me she's never told anyone before. She spent all night drawing me in, closer and closer, and then says things like "And that's why I can't trust anyone," crying and beating on my chest yelling about how unfair it is. She doesn't exclude me from that statement. She laments to me about how awful she feels, that she thinks she's leading me on but being honest at the same time. She loves me and she fears for me. She wants to be with me forever, and that's why she can't be with me forever. And then she falls asleep while crying on my shoulder and whispering both the things I've always wanted to hear from someone and the things I've always feared hearing from someone.
Knocking at the door. More later.
3.13 - about 3:00 AM
Friday the 13th. How apt.
We fell asleep while talking... Talking and talking and talking. She wanted to know if I was okay. She wanted to know how I felt.
I told her. We both fell asleep crying.
I woke to find myself staring through the sliding glass door of our hotel room, out into the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Katherine must have been facing me, because I felt her hand on my back.
I had to get out of that room.
I'm sitting here on what really is nice patio furniture that was probably recently put out, the hotel probably expecting this to be a warm weekend as it normally is this time of year. The moon is full and its light breaks into a thousand pieces upon the choppy waters. By all rights - ESPECIALLY when contrasted to the weather earlier today - this is the most beautiful night I've ever seen in my life.
And yet I can't appreciate it. The one person whom I'd want more than anything to share this experience with is behind a sliding plate of glass, asleep on the bed, exhausted from an hour's worth of explaining to me why we can never really be together and how we should appreciate and enjoy this experience for what it is. She loves me with a love that transcends romantic love, the love of real friendship. She thinks I'm the most beautiful person she's ever known and can't bear the thought of polluting me with her presence. She wants more than anything to be with me, she just can't let that happen while there's a chance that she could hurt me unwillingly.
And I doubt she'll ever understand just how much she hurt me with that statement.
A million thoughts fly through my mind right now. I invented this. I made it what I wanted it to be in my mind. She's using me for an escape. It's her fault. It's my fault. It's fate playing another cruel trick on me. I can help her. I can fix her. I can show her what it's like to be loved and not have to be scared of it.
It's all one big thought and it screams at me with one hundred different voices in varying levels of volume and tones. It makes me hate her, it makes me love her, it makes me so confused. I don't know what to think or feel.
All that I know for sure is that nothing on this Earth can ever match the pain of loving someone who can never ever love you back.
What am I going to do?
about 9:45 AM
I'm going to do the only thing I can do.
I'm going to try to enjoy myself as much as I can for the next few days.
I'm going to pretend that I am having the time of my life with the love of my life and I'm going to smile and laugh and catch a small hint of the smell of her perfume on the cold winds that will be blowing through me. I will laugh at her jokes and smile when she laughs at mine. I will make every effort to be there every night when she cries into my chest about everyone who's hurt her. I will rub her back and kiss her cheek and let her know that everything is going to be just fine, that I am going to be here for her anytime and every time she needs me to be.
And in a few days, as her plane is backing away from the tarmac and I strain to see if I can catch a glimpse of her bright red hair sitting on the other side of the airplane's window from the terminal, I'm going to try my best not to curl up into a little ball and cry and make a spectacle of myself.
That's what I'm going to try to do.
about 10:45 PM
I played chess at a small cafe near the Savannah College of Art and Design with a man who used to play saxaphone with Count Basie's band. He regaled Katherine and I with the most amazing tales of his long life. His name was Kenney. He's a United States Marine who lost his leg in World War II. His wife died 2 years ago, and he's lived in Savannah with his granddaughter and her husband ever since. He comes to this cafe every Tuesday and Friday while his granddaughter and husband take a drawing class over at the college. He absoultely and completely schooled me at chess and laughed as he did it. I was honored to meet him and was thrilled beyond belief that I had that experience with him this evening.
Then, Katherine and I went for a walk along the beach. She told me how she'd been thinking about it and how she really felt that she was just scared and that if I can deal with that, we could really work it out and make things happen.
We came back here and things were very hot and heavy. I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine. Things felt exactly how they've felt this entire time for me. And that's why I had to get out of there.
So now, I'm sitting here in the restaurant of the hotel, drinking quite possibly the worst cup of coffee I've ever had and writing in this thing instead of making love to a beautiful woman who told me she was ready to try and make my dreams come true.
WHY?
Why the FUCK am I down here and not up there? Why am I even questioning myself? Why is this a thought? WHY?
What is wrong with me?
| 
| 
| Twitter | Facebook | LJ
