To all, I give my joy with life. If the shells were in the same place as the gun, they would have a layer of dust thick enough to choke a cat. I'm fine. Please enjoy what I hope to be the last part of this depression. God bless.]
I pulled her in for a closer hug and whispered through her hair. I said forever and she said "for all time, Sam" and giggled soft and low. She was a thing of beauty, you know, all happiness and light and vibrancy and joy. And hot, you know. All curves and thin and smooth and just perfectly proportioned and short enough to be right for me but tall enough to be completely irrepressibly languid and flowing like the feel of watching a cheetah in slow motion flowing and pouncing and striking. Let me tell you, she's a killer.
Forever is a long time.
We weren't cute together like those couples on tv and we weren't incredibly mushy like those couples on tv but we were right together. You know that? That unshakably perfect feeling like the end of the world could come and you would last right through it because nothing wrong can destroy the right. And we were together for just long enough for me to say forever and for her to say "for all time" and to really really mean it.
I had to overcome my fear, you know. The last relationship I was in was pretty o.k. too but there wasn't that unshakable rightness about it. We just kind of hung out and made out and went out and things were good and then that was when this girl she said she--well you know how it is, you never really notice your potential feelings for someone until they admit their feelings for you? Like there's someone you've never even thought about particularly and then their friend comes up and says hey my friend likes you and you're all like well that's awesome and then you think about it and the more you think about it the more attracted you are--well anyway this girl I dated and who dated me, she said she loved me. Well. It shook me down to my toes let me tell you and I didn't know what to say, but I thought about it and I thought about it and I kind of realized I could love her back, you know, given enough time. Well it was about that time that we started getting really serious and she started saying things about how her love for me would mean things that were exactly what I wanted and so I asked her to love me that way, and just so, and really love me, and I got just to that day of everything was just right and I found out she was also sleeping with my best friend (I mean I'm sixteen at the time you can't take everything so seriously but she was still sleeping with my best friend and I at the same time and it destroyed everything she meant with me). And she left me and yelled all sorts of profanities and told me she hoped I died of syphilis and that she never really loved me and looking back on it now I think it all makes a lot more sense in the context of this story she told me one time about how her uncle used to look at her and it gave her the shivers I mean he was effed up but he effed her up and then she effed me and that effed me up. The whole thing wasn't very fair. And I was very afraid of this happening again and so it took time. It took ages. I mean a whole six months and she and I never so much as made out really and we just took our time and really got to know each other and you know I'm about to turn seventeen and she's about to turn fourteen and we finally got to this point that we were able to say forever and it meant so much to me to know she wouldn't ever leave.
She knew my whole story, you know, all about the hurt and the pain from the last girl, and she was still able to look past it and see me inside it and it was all so unshakably right. That was when school started and she said she would still see me around, but my job and her school and time, you know? Time was so short. So I told her she wasn't mine and she could do whatever she wanted and so she did.
Time got apart from us being away and it was a whole year later and she was about to turn fifteen and I was about to turn eighteen, and I had a better job and I wanted to find out if for all time for her was the same forever for me and I found her at school and asked, low and soft in her ear, but she didn't really respond right away and she looked weird at this kid across the hall, so I grabbed her waist like I used to like we did when forever and she just stared at this kid and I looked at him and he looked at me and I didn't know what was going on I just wanted to yell forever at this kid and at her and at the paint on the walls and the florescent lights that hummed just at the same frequency as my brain as I just wanted her to say "for all time" just like she used to, but she didn't. All she said was "I'll explain it later" and I left just as scared as before.
She never did say for all time but she said it with her eyes and that was enough for me, you know. She said it with her eyes and she never really did say anything else but I knew she knew the story about the girl from before and she didn't want me to hurt and she had promised for all time. She didn't have for all time to offer anymore, but she had that night and if it was all I she had, it was all she could give me. I felt so horrible afterward I left her house and I cried for the first time since that girl had left me years before and I cried so hard my face hurt because if forever didn't mean for all time I guess there wasn't anything left for me.
I didn't kill myself after that because I'm here talking to you today, but if my father kept his shells in the same place as the gun I don't suppose I would be. I would be gone forever, and let me tell you, forever is a long time.
Forever is a very long time.
Some things I did on purpose, which you probably didn't care about even if you noticed:
ReplyDeleteThe males are the characters with names, and she doesn't have a name. (They're the main characters, not her)
She's the only one who ever says anything outside of narration, though I suppose you could read Tom's mother as doing so once. I don't. (She's the only one the men place any value in).
She stops calling him Thomas when she knows she won't love him any more.
She didn't say anything to stop Sam. (It makes things far more complicated for me because it shifts the blame even further onto her, making it even more impossibly stupid that the dual protagonists seem to want her to be the protagonist in their own story so very very badly even though she's so clearly the antagonist.)
Sam will never know about Thomas and Thomas will never know about Sam. I'm not sure why she didn't really let them know.
If I actually knew her, I would pray for her.
Anyway, there are other things I did on purpose but Curtis is falling asleep. See ya later, alligator.
Wow, Robby. Thank you for this. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
ReplyDeleteMore things I did on purpose:
ReplyDeleteAfter Thomas cried at the beginning of his relationship with her, I had him cry at the end of it. Sam follows roughly the same pattern, but Sam isn't ever happy he cried.
Both of them are incredibly attracted to her but I get the feeling in my head like she really isn't all that beautiful. Instead, they found the things they could really appreciate about her (i.e. Sam likes that she's tall).
Tom was hurt by her who was hurt by Sam who was hurt by that girl he dated who was hurt by her uncle, who, I assume, was hurt by somebody else. It goes back a ways.
Anyway, that's about it, I think.
I think you've done wonderful things with this.
ReplyDeleteI still don't like Sam. Primarily because A: when he looked at the 'weird kid', he would have known what was going on already simply from going to the same school. i've gone to public school. It's just like Sunnydale. Everyone knows who's dating who. It's highly improbable that Sam didn't know she had started dating Tom.
ReplyDeleteTherefore I don't believe his story about how things happpened.
Secondly, now I know I was RIGHT about what happened during her night with sam, so I dislike her even more.
I realize that there is the abuse cycle in there, but it isn't quite relavent to sam's behavior. I'm glad he felt bad after that night, it makes me hate him slightly less, but I still don't forgive him for doing it. As I said before, he would have already known she had a boyfriend. That should have stopped him from doing anything then and there. even if she told him she was GOING to break up with Tom, she hadn't yet, so it was still just as wrong as if they were still "in love" with each other.
I'm glad you wrote it, but it doesn't change much for me. sorry.
I didn't write it as if Sam went to school with them. I think Tom thought he went to school with them--"he's too big to be in our grade"--but Sam had a job and had dropped out of school.
ReplyDeleteIf that makes it any more clear.
It's just a mess of a situation, and you're certainly allowed to say it stinks. It does. Sam's a stinker. She's dishonest. Tom's naive. But they're not . . . bad people. Just broken.
Yeah. Broken.
ReplyDeleteThis.
@Robby. Ok. thanks for clearing that up. His viewpoint makes more sense now. I hate him much less now, but I still hate him. Now I just hate him for what he did, as opposed to before when I hated him also just for who he was as a person.
ReplyDeleteStill, Even if you can excuse tom as naive. the very phrase "She's dishonest" makes her a 'bad person'. dishonest person=bad person. (technically we are all 'bad' but you get the point.)
Dishonesty is never a good idea. even to protect someones feelings, you should avoid lying to them at all costs. If they ask you whether the dress makes them look fat, and it does, TELL THEM. Just make sure you point out that it is the dress and that they aren't actually that fat. that's far better than just saying "no."
Even if she knew somehow for a fact that telling Tom about her night with Sam would make him kill himself, she STILL should have told him.
She cheated on Tom, that isn't even debateable. That much is fact. That makes me auto-dusgusted with her. Apologies if I appear harsh, but its the truth. Even God said that if your wife cheats you can divorce her with a clear concience. you owe her nothing.
As a person who struggled with dishonesty for many, many years, your comment . . . hurts.
ReplyDeleteI was dishonest with people as a child, and I struggled with it almost all the way through high school, and even now, even as crucial as I know honesty is, I find myself wanting to lie sometimes. It's a constant struggle.
Let me tell you why.
My parents expected a lot from me when I was little. They yelled at me if I got anything less than perfect on report cards and the like; they yelled at me if I ever did anything that might embarrass our family. I was expected to perform perfectly in music, in sports, in school, and in everything I undertook in public.
I was, and still am, desperate to please, and I absolutely hate being yelled at. I also happen to be super-sensitive to the way people feel, and part of my personality states that I usually interpret negative emotions as being directed at me, even when they aren't.
So whenever I realized that I had messed up on something-- intentionally or unintentionally-- I was terrified of admitting it. I wanted my parents to be pleased with everything I did, and even though they said they'd rather me be honest with them than lie about something I did or did not do, I usually told them what they wanted to hear because I really believed that nothing worse could happen in the world than me not living up to their standards.
I'm not proud of any of this, and I had to work very hard to overcome it-- I still have to work at it now. I still desperately want people to like me, I still desperately don't want to disappoint anyone. I care more than I probably should about what people think (I can still feel how they think like burning, after all).
I'm not excusing it either, just so we're clear. Dishonesty has caused me and many of the people I know/have known a great deal of pain, and all of it is completely deserved. I should have known better.
I just . . . don't want you to think that I'm horrible, even though I am.
Well. Your dumb story made me cry. CURSE YOU! *sigh* It isn't a dumb story. It is very good. You know, the part that made me cry was not the sad stuff at the end. It wasn't the way their relationship fell apart or the stuff with Sam or the truth about all the abuse. It was the very happy parts where Thomas described how very happy and good he felt with her. That made me cry, knowing it was going to end and not knowing how.
ReplyDeleteAs for the characters and the debate that appears to be raging in the comments, I think the girl and Sam are both lying about things and Thomas tells the truth but he idealizes his memories. I think Sam must be lying about something because his story is just too perfect; it really takes the blame off of him, like everything was a misunderstanding and like she was going along with it the whole way. I think she does still have feelings for Sam and that is how she lies. I think she knew that Sam would come back around but she wanted to play an escapist game with Thomas. Maybe she did fall in love with Thomas--I think she did, at least some form of love--but she never stopped liking Sam. My guess is that she may have fallen in love/like with Sam because he was her first real boyfriend and he was so much older and conventionally good looking, so she did what she thought she was supposed to do. I don't know what to do with the allegation that she led Sam on to sleep with her. Did she feel bad about his history and his old girlfriend? Look, either she was a terrible person who played games with Thomas and then LET Sam sleep with her or Sam has some serious emotional and boundary issues and he raped her. There can't be a middle ground. I find it difficult to believe that she is that bad at being a girlfriend and a decent human being. Sam should show more remorse or at least acknowledge some doubt about what he did at her house that night. He says he feels bad about it but he also feels unequivocally that her eyes said "go for it," and it can't be both. What is the lie? Arg.
And let me just say as a person who is many years out of high school at Thomas needs to get a grip. He may have loved that girl, but how old is he now? Has he matured at all? Yes, she was great and it was a good relationship, but he was a kid. What were the chances that he really would have married that girl, like he claims? I feel like, assuming Thomas is significantly older now (like in his twenties) that maybe Thomas is emotionally and developmentally stunted. There is something wrong. Is he not maturing and growing and dating other women? Sure, your first love always burns a little bit. That's why they say you carry a torch for your first flame. That's why the cliches exist. But to let your entire life devolve because a girl in high school drifts away? Does Thomas have no bills to pay? No research papers to write? Has he refused to go on ANY dates at all since this girl? It just frustrates me.
As for her, I think she comes across as pretty despicable but I also believe her story isn't being fully told. And that is the way it should be. This is the story of her as seen through the lens of Thomas or Sam, whichever narrator fate gives us. She is an unknown quantity. Who is she really? We only see her through the eyes of these men looking back on good times through memories of bad times. Everything is tainted. Is she a liar? Did she play games? We don't know. We can't know. I don't think you should change that, but it does leave room for some pretty bad interpretations of the girl.
And thus ends my stream-of-consciousness response to Thomas.
I feel like Sam was the one lying. I feel like he did, in fact, go further than she wanted. HOWEVER she was ambiguous about it and she could have helped herself greatly by just . . . being decisive. Which is difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteBeing distanced from the writing of this now, I like even better that we never get her story. It's Thomas and Sam's stories, not hers. That's not to say she didn't experience pain and she didn't have a story too, but rather that it doesn't matter at this point, because we have the whole story I can give you.
She doesn't even have a name, and that's on purpose.
I know the guys' stories. I don't know hers.
P.S. Apparently, Rashomon (a film) was the first story to really go whole hog on the flashbacks from multiple perspectives thing.
I'm glad I went back through and saw this.
ReplyDeleteOh, I had forgotten this. This knife.
ReplyDelete