How I Met The Man I Didn't Marry - Updated

After I graduated from high school, there was about a two week period there where I didn't hear from my senior year boyfriend. He left for school fairly early, and in person, we hadn't really discussed our plans. Honestly, I just thought things would be the same, only with me there and him somewhere else. Talking about it seemed like opening a can of worms I didn't want to open. I was going to go to community college and work, and see him sometimes, but I didn't really have big plans for us. Turns out he didn't either.

Eventually I received a letter from him: perhaps his first communication since leaving? I don't remember. This was in the days before email, and neither one of us had a lot of money for long-distance phone calls. I didn't know how simple it could've been for me to hop on a bus and go visit him, or get a ride. I was still a kid, living at home, and I thought separation was the way it was going to be for awhile.

Anyway, so he wrote me this letter. I have to tell you: this guy, my boyfriend at the time, he was a special guy. He never wanted to hurt me. But he did want to grow up, and I think somehow my lack of forward motion (which I've lacked in many key moments of my life) scared him. So he broke up with me in the nicest way he could: in a letter. This is another letter I sort of wish I'd kept - imagine the lessons that could be learned from that letter!

So I went through all the typical emotions: disbelief, crying, and then straight to anger. My feelings were hurt, but secretly? I wasn't surprised. I felt like I should've been pissed off and I had a right to be pissed off: so I was. I managed to contact his best friend, who was still in town somewhere (it took a series of phone calls, I seem to remember calling people I had never spoken to in my life, getting numbers from people I wasn't really friends with, just to track down his friend), and I somehow talked him and his girlfriend into driving me all the way up to my now ex-boyfriend's school.

His friend (look, I think the parties have all been identified before. My ex? Adam. His friend? Sean. I don't remember Sean's girlfriend's name. Laura? I remember she had a reputation for being a little bit out of control) needed new tires, so we all headed to FedCo for him to purchase some new ones, and then? We hit the road.

Hopefully I was silent all the way up there, but chances are I wasn't. Sorry, Sean; sorry, Laura or whatever your name was: deep in my heart I am a drama queen. I don't think Sean had been up to visit Adam yet, so finding his dorm and everything was a bit of an adventure, and once we did, well, the shit hit the fan.

Adam, Mr. Nice Guy, was just that: a gentleman, and apologetic, and probably way embarrassed by my performance. Eventually I calmed down, the spoken issue being "why didn't you just tell me in person," which really wasn't the issue at all - but still, we worked it out, and me, Sean, and Laura headed back down home. I really do owe Sean something for that trip: I probably didn't have any money for gas or anything: he did a nice thing, there, and for nothing.

The summer marched on. I had my job at the bookstore, and I was all registered to go to West LA College (no car, and SMC was way too far for me. I was never brave about riding the bus), so I worked, hung out with Rachel and Amber, and Kim, Becky and Laura (another Laura) at the store, and prepared for school. Wait, no, did I prepare for school? I didn't give a shit about school - I thought it would be interesting to be in college, but I had no idea what "college" was supposed to be.

Once school started, I was pretty disappointed. West LA might be a good school, but I took all the dud classes that first semester. I wanted to learn something, maybe, but I was totally unmotivated. That's nobody's fault but mine, but still: I felt like an overgrown high schooler, and I wasn't learning anything. There I was, riding my ten-speed to school, not doing my homework, not getting up in time for my early classes, and it felt just like the twelfth grade, minus my friends.

Then one day, I was leaving campus on my bike, and I ran into this guy Mark, who I had known in high school. He was a few years older than me, but had played the trumpet in the marching band. I remembered him, because he was sort of a kook. With him that day? Drew, The Man I Didn't Marry.

Against my better judgement, I gave one of them my phone number (Mark really was a total nutball in high school; he was from another planet. Turned out he was from a great planet, and he was a good friend, but I didn't know that right from the beginning), and one of them called me.

We were all from the same town, and I'd grown up knowing about Drew (his younger brother was in my class) and knowing who he was (his friends, the year he was a senior and I was a freshman, possessed something special - I was a bit obsessed with all of them*), but never really speaking to him. He was a bad-ass in high school, walking around with his punk rock attitude, his hair dyed black, his gorgeous scary girlfriend, and the rumors about being kicked out of his house and kicked out of private school, and sleeping on the floor at his friend's house, and being drunk all the time. When we met after high school, he smoked, he had long hair, he had sweet, pretty eyes and he was nice. He was nice, but he seemed dangerous. There is the key, I think, to everything.

We didn't get together right away. Mark had a party and I went to that, where I was awkward, dressed strangely, shy, didn't know what I was doing or what kind of person I was, and there could've been a spark there, between me and Drew, or maybe I just hoped there was. I sort of wanted him, but at that point, I didn't really know why. It was a test, maybe. It was me wanting to want somebody. And he was a good choice. Also, being friends with him gave me an instant group of friends to hang out with, and I loved that. We studied together, hung out at each other's houses, even mine (something my friends rarely did), went places and did stuff: these were fun times.

There was another girl in the picture. I'm not sure if he liked us both or if I just thought he was into her more than he was: she was pretty and also a little dangerous, and I'd known her since she was a little kindergartner and I was a big second grader and her mom used to come to school to play the guitar and sing with us: there was no way I was going to let this chick win him over. But I was scared, because she was confident, and I wasn't.

One night we went somewhere: I don't know whose party it was. I do recall that it was in east Culver City, on Clarington Ave., in one of those really big apartment complexes. I'd never been there before, but Culver City is a small place - wherever you are, you're only six minutes from someplace else on the other side of town (well now the traffic makes that about 20 minutes, but in those days...). I was pretty new to partying: aside from a couple of silly drunken nights with Amber and Rachel, and the stories previously told with Rick, and a few others not told about with Adam, you could probably count all the times I'd been drunk on one hand, or maybe one hand plus a couple of fingers of the other; getting drunk on a regular basis was a whole new world to me. And I was what? Eighteen? Nineteen?

So we were at that party, and Drew was doing his whole social butterfly act - he could be very charming and nice to talk to, and people liked him because he was a great guy and a lot of fun at parties. He liked to "philosophize" (later this habit of bullshitting would drive me insane, but it was harmless). I was probably sitting in a corner drinking beers and getting drunk and not really noticing.

One of the people he was chatting up was that girl - the one I wasn't sure about, the pretty, confident girl. Did I mention she was petite? She had a sense of style (it was the 90s: her style was "nuevo hippy chick")? She was blond? Seriously, me versus her? and I thought I had a chance? At that point I knew I couldn't compete, and knowing that, I, in a wild moment, took off. I just left. (Before I left? I chipped my tooth on my beer bottle. My dentist was able to grind down the other one but my two front teeth are now fucked up because of this night. This night permanently affected my facial features.)

I chose to leave that party because everything just felt so hopeless. Don't you ever just want to run? I chose to run because it was hot in there and outside the air was cool and the night was dark, and moving fast seemed to keep the sidewalk from rushing up and knocking me in the face. I took off towards Venice Blvd., not really thinking anything, no plan, no route home mapped out, just a vague idea, a word in my head: run.

I got about halfway down the street before Marshall, one of Drew's friends, another guy I've known since the 9th grade, caught up with me (I probably wasn't hard to spot or catch: even sober my idea of running is just a brisk walk). He was probably laughing. I really hope I wasn't crying. I don't know what he told me; he wanted me to go back to the party, and I wanted to get the fuck out of there. I don't remember if I told him what thoughts were in my messed up head? I wonder if he knew? We used to talk on the phone all the time; he was a strange, funny, interesting guy, but I'm not sure if he was a very good listener. Anyway, this night he was in the right place, at the right time: he picked me up in his arms and carried me back to the car. Being carried down the street by him was a crazy feeling - I was flying. I don't remember going into the party. After that, we all climbed back in the car and either went home (I was a mess, though, so I'm sure my home was not stop no. 1) or went somewhere else. I don't know. I just know that my trip down Clarington Ave. was the turning point. That other girl was forgotten, and soon after, me and Drew were a couple.

*In the ninth grade I had a brief, two week "relationship" with one of them. It was short and sweet and totally, one hundred per cent innocent. This was one year before things started up with Rick, and if you remember, I didn't know anything then: at this time, I knew absolutely nothing about boys or how to act around them (still don't!). I mean, the closest to anything me and that guy got was sitting very, very close to each other in the back of Marshall's tiny CRX. What year was that? 1987? Goddamn I got old all of a sudden. I think we went out on two dates: one of them involved a stop at Jack in the Box. (At the other, Drew, who I didn't really know yet, showed up while we were hanging out at this guy's house: for some reason I've never forgotten the clothes these guys were wearing: Drew had a pale pink button-down shirt on with faded black Levis and his big black boots; I think the guy I was with was wearing a gray shirt with a red pattern - I liked that shirt, that's why I remember it - and faded Levis. And probably, checkerboard Vans. Hopefully I was not dressed like a clown.) It was an exciting time, though, and the unbelievable thing is, it was one of those rare times when being obsessed and a little crazy paid off. Well, sort of. It didn't work out, and I was sad; but then time passed, as time does, and there I was with his friend, hanging out together, at this guy's house, and at the very beginning, me and Drew were very demonstrative with each other, if you know what I mean - maybe it was a tiny bit awkward. I don't know how much Drew knew about how I had felt about his friend: at the time it had been a serious, big-time crush that took a long time to get over, and I don't know how they worked it out, that history, there. If I'd been paying attention, I might've learned something about boys. But I didn't.