The hardest reality to face once you have fallen in love with someone is that you were the other guy. I was only there for a limited time to fill a void. This situation is not so uncommon, and there are even other people out there who thrive in these scenarios.
I wish I were one of them.
My mind races through the list of songs that songwriters have articulated on this subject so well throughout the years.
“Everything I Miss At Home” - Cherrelle
“No Rhyme, No Reason” - George Duke
“Secret Lovers” - Atlantic Starr
“As We Lay” - Shirley Murdock
And the list goes on and on with songs on the other side of the 1980s. These songs do well because there is a need for them. I feel as though I could write a few of them right now myself. The only thing that I imagine would be worse than what I’m feeling is if I were her boyfriend and she was experiencing all of this with some other guy.
I try her on her cell phone again later in the day, and when she doesn’t answer, I realize I have no one to blame but myself.
I met Maya Smith because she used to work at a diner I frequented back when I was living in my grandmother’s basement. I was a long way from my current weight, and my self-esteem needed a bit of work, but she was kind to me and that went a long way.
I would order the weekly Salisbury steak special with mashed potatoes, and she was always my server. Then one day while I was using the restroom at the restaurant I overhead someone robbing the restaurant through the restroom door. I was so worried about what could have happened to Maya that I burst through the door and just happened to slam the door into the dude holding up the joint. He dropped his gun, and I threw myself on top of him until the police came.
It was the only time in my life where I ever felt like a hero, but even that meant little to me, especially when compared to the fact that Maya was now interested in me. As any person who has seen the movie Speed already knows, relationships built around intense action fail to hold up over time. Maya and I were no exception.
Marcia, on the other hand, is the first woman who was ever drawn to me without the need for some dynamic outside factor. That made this experience feel very different. I wasn’t a hero; I was just a guy she was drawn to for whatever reason a woman can be drawn to a man, and she was a woman I was drawn to, although I would have, at any other time, have viewed her as being outside my league.
I look at my cell phone, hoping to see any message from her. I even go so far as to troll her Twitter account, just to make sure she’s actually alive (she is). And even though I know she has forty-eight hours left on her Rumspringa, I know in my heart that we’re over.
I consider calling J or Ran, but I’m afraid I will get an “I told you so.” I also think about calling Cool or Dizzy, but I know that they are both in love with women who are in love with them and talking with them would only depress me further.
I feel so down and out that I could kick sixteen bars on Pharcyde’s “Passing Me By,” a song where all of the members of the group lament their bad luck with their love interests. I think about that last verse where dude sends the girl a love letter that comes back three days later “Return to Sender.” If my memory serves me correctly, Dizzy wrote a letter for Lailah when they were on the verge of ending their engagement. If I thought it would help, I’d do the same.
My only hope is that Marcia will contact me once she and her boyfriend have reconnected after the Rumspringa. But how likely is that? They have fifteen years of something. The question is will that fifteen years of something trump our nearly two weeks and the promise of a future built on those weeks?
When I lie down on my bed and close my eyes, I replay each moment we spent together. I see her smiling, laughing at my jokes, watching movies with me, eating with me, and playing Jeopardy with me as we tag team while watching the TV show. But those moments when we were intimate burn the freshest in my memory, and that alone makes me feel some optimism about our future.
Still, I have not heard from her all day, and if tomorrow is the same as today, I doubt that optimism will remain.
The Rumspringa has officially ended, bookending the most amazing moment in my life between two invisible, seemingly arbitrary, boundaries that I had no role in erecting.
The only equivalent I can think of for what I have experienced is having been dumped. Granted, that would not be a first for me. Maya left me. But this feels different.
I wasn’t in love with Maya. Even now, it’s hard for me to admit I’m in love with Marcia, especially given the length of time we spent with each other, but sometimes your heart is oblivious to the calendar. I read somewhere that often times the short relationships are the most intense, and based upon this experience, I have little choice but to agree.
How a person knows that he loves someone is a peculiar thing anyway. I imagine for many guys it is not that different from my situation. Some people you love and others you don’t. It isn’t a meritocracy thing where a woman has to earn a man’s love with loyalty or pampering. It’s just something a man knows. That’s the reason why I was afraid of Marcia initially—not that I loved her then, but I knew she was a person who could potentially bring that out of me.
I wonder if her boyfriend, Von, felt that way about her fifteen years ago. My guess is that he didn’t, or he wouldn’t have gone along with this Rumspringa thing.
When I try to think about this situation from Marcia’s perspective, I can only see one thing: time in a relationship is an investment, and this much time has to pay off some kind of way. That’s the only way I can wrap my mind around the fact that she hasn’t left him for me. She is protecting her investment. The funny thing is that men don’t tend to think that way at all. So while there is a part of me that hopes that she gets what she wants (because you want that for people you love), there’s another part of me that doesn’t want her to get what she wants. I almost feel guilty about that.
I look at my phone and consider attempting one last call, not remotely concerned about how thirsty I might appear, but I decide against it. Instead, I check her Facebook page.
According to her profile, she uploaded a new photo today, and it’s one of her and Von. As I look at this dude, I scratch my head at what has attracted her to him. He is a really tall, light complexioned guy with a nose that looks like it’s been broken a few times. His eyes look like they are bulging from their sockets, and he has a scraggly, unkempt beard. She is standing next to him, wearing that sweet smile that I have come to think of as my smile. Beneath the photo is the comment “I said, ‘Yes!’” That’s when I examine the picture more closely.
Is that what I think it is? A fucking ring? Seriously?
I stare at that picture for a few minutes, my body a hollow shell of where passion once resided. I need more than ever to talk to her.
I send her a quick direct message to her inbox.
There are only two words: What happened?