Step

Photo via latimes

The gloves are off, the wisdom teeth are out
What you on about?
I feel it in my bones, I feel it in my bones
I’m stronger now, I’m ready for the house
Such a modest mouse,
I can’t do it alone, I can’t do it alone

– Vampire Weekend, Step

There are many problems that come with dating a writer. The most frustrating is that they always get the last word. People want to believe the guy who has the better story. Literary trumps literal.

He wrote about us but it wasn’t our story. It was his. I was wedged into one of the later paragraphs, likely because the plot needed a female character and a love interest.  He created this character and he gave her my name. I felt so exposed. I watched our lives play out in black and white text that absorbed every shade of grey. The female character left the male character. She left him when he needed her most. I knew the way he wrote, I knew that he plucked words from the ether with the greatest of care. But what about the words that were left suspended? It bothers me that the people who read his story will never understand my motivations but it kills me that obviously he didn’t understand them either.

We used to argue about the ending to Silver Linings Playbook. I didn’t believe that two people that were mentally ill could live happily ever after just because their symptoms presented in opposing manners. Despite everything that had gone wrong in his life, he was always hopeful. He liked to believe that with enough dancing and love and exclamations of excelsior, any problem could be fixed. I’m still not convinced I can be fixed and if there is an antidote, I don’t believe it can be found in another person. My misery needed no company and I didn’t want to drown together.

When you suffer from anxiety your body falsely enters into a fight or flight response, provoked by the mere proceedings of everyday life. For no reason your pulse quickens, your breath shortens and you feel genuine fear. Put simply, I was constantly in survival mode. And while I was always sure that I loved him, I was never sure that I could survive with him.

We used to argue about the book The Fault In Our Stars. I hated that the author spent the whole book convincing you to love his characters and then cruelly took them away in tragic circumstances. It was basically a reimagining of Marley & Me, dripping with teenage sentimentality. You grow to love that damn golden retriever and then it gets hit by a car. I couldn’t stand the emotional manipulation.

One day he explained to me that after comparing the life expectancies of smokers to non-smokers it was found that, on average, a single cigarette shaved eight minutes off your life. I know that on some days it takes courage to get out of bed, to breathe in and out and to function. His courage came in the form of writing, drinking, fistfuls of pills and cigarette after cigarette. Time and time again I watched him inhale nicotine and exhale eight minutes of his life. And then I couldn’t watch any longer. I couldn’t help thinking that in those eight minutes we could listen to our favourite song twice over, we could argue over books, we could kiss and laugh and do anything but slowly expire. Together we were better but we still weren’t okay and I’m sorry that I couldn’t stay.

After all was said and done and written, I checked back on the website where he was published. He had changed her name, my name, to Olivia. There it was, sharply literal, he wished that I could be someone different and sometimes I did, too. Every story needs an ending and he had written ours.

And now when I listen to our favourite song, I play it twice.

Written by Bridget Dominic

_________

If you have a story that you'd like to share, please submit it here.