Aw, Kara, what’s become of us? This is so damn far from where we started. How the hell did we get here? It was so easy how I fell for you. And I fell hard. I thought it was just a crush. Actually, at first I didn’t even think about it. I just fell hard. Drowned. Was buried alive and wallowed in every delicious moment of it. That was only 5 months ago.
It was crowded at Nell’s Bar that night we met. More crowded than I had ever seen it before. You remember? It was the night the Saints won the Super Bowl. I was so happy! I was happy like I would be getting some of their millions for it. I was delirious with it. Until you shoved up to the bar and ordered that crazy looking drink. What was that again? A fuzzy something? I still think you ordered it to get attention. I wasn’t the only one looking at that tall glass with the thick orange liquid with the red layer on top. What the hell was that? I guess it doesn’t matter now. It didn’t matter then either. It just never did. None of the things you did or said or wore or read or performed ever mattered. They were all just you. Crazy and wonderful you.
You were wearing skin tight low slung black jeans so perfect for your ass. I think I slobbered. Watching you walk away. Rick elbowed me in the ribs and told me to close my mouth. I just about killed myself following you through that place. People pressed up in there like a mob and nobody giving an inch. I was sure I had a broken rib or two by the time we left there. But we left together. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face for days; weeks.
I felt like I was high; stoned to my eyebrows and loving every second of it. I wanted to go everywhere you went. I missed so many days of work, Rick called me all worried. He was all big-brotherly; paternal even. But he was right; I had to keep my job “for God’s sake!” he said. Still makes me laugh.
I wasn’t thinking about that damn job when I was racing over here tonight though. I got here as fast as I could manage without running over anybody or getting arrested. I didn’t even read the whole note. I knew; I just knew it! I saw it in your eyes when we met Evan at Satan’s Oasis. You looked at him the way I had looked at you just half a year before. And you did drool. You started to. Then you licked your lips. My heart froze. It stopped like the hands of a broken clock; for a second, still like your heart is now. You actually licked your lips! Right then I knew I was screwed; that I had lost you; would lose you in a matter of mere hours.
Evan was smooth. He took his time, testing you and testing me. He must have known from the start that he’d have you. Surely he recognized the greed and lust in your eyes. I imagine he recognized the envy and loathing in mine. And when the time came, he pinpointed my fear, too. Because I was afraid. I hadn’t figured out yet how to keep a hold of you. With your mind and your heart always open to any possibility, I needed some kind of guarantee; some insurance; something! I thought about moving; about getting a new job somewhere far from everything here, far from him, and taking you with me. We were in love; of course you would come. Or I could join the military, and after basic training we would get married, and live on base in a pretty small house. Or we could have a baby!
Obviously I hadn’t figured out what to do, and there was Evan. And we knew—each of the three of us—that your interest in me was over. Our little spark could not compete against the gulf between my boring stability and your carefree artistry; especially not with Evan inhabiting that gulf. It got to where every day when I walked into our apartment, I was surprised to find you there, or your erotic Kama Sutra statues all over the apartment, or your clothes crammed into the closet. It was like a little present every day. Until today.
I saw the note on the counter right away. I wanted to chuckle because you’d written my name on the outside. Who else did you expect to read it? I snatched it up before I took off my coat. I dropped my briefcase right by the door and went to get that note.
It was time, you said. Surely I could tell, wouldn’t be surprised, you said. Let’s make a clean break of it, you said. You were able to get back your old apartment, which you had always loved. Surely that was a sign if ever there was one. Well, it was a sign, I guess, and not just for me.
I ran out of there without reading to the end. Outside, the sun was finishing a glorious setting. The rush hour traffic had dissipated. I got here in record-breaking and neck-breaking time. But still, it took too long, and I was too late. The lock on the entrance gate was broken. The elevator was waiting, open on the first floor, for me. The doors began to close as soon as I stepped in. And as they slowly slid toward each other, I saw Evan across the street. He was standing in front of the tobacco store. That doorway where the sun never reaches the sidewalk, as you had discovered one day that you spent at home sick. As I watched him, his face came into closer focus, like I had zoomed in, or he was rushing toward me. His complexion was the rigid, white-marble I had never grown accustomed to. But his black eyes shone like jet. And his lips were stained the deep red of a heart wound. And the elevator doors closed.
Your door was ajar. The curtains billowed at two open windows. And all the lights were on.
And now… Now there is nothing. There is only this… this disaster. How did we get here? Our meeting at Nell’s Bar seems like old history. And now here you are, growing cold. I’ve never seen you be so still, so perfectly still, for so long. Now, you’re lying here.
But my heart still beats for you.