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It Is What It Is "...this guy is huge! You wouldn't know it if you see him but when he takes off his shirt, this guy is just...obscene!" Derek's arms gesticulated almost wildly as he tried to get across exactly how obscenely huge he found his friend's build to be. I wouldn't have guessed it myself as the guy in question was shorter than me and didn't look particularly built at all. And with Derek being the most...fit guy that I knew, I found it sort of hard to believe that he was going nuts over how much bigger his friend was. He was looking past me and waved with a smile and a, "hey!" Even before I turn, I hear a yet disturbingly familiar voice respond with a "hey!" in return with a familiar lifted lilt at the end. I could feel my heart sinking even as I turned, hoping that it would somehow not be who I thought it was. Tough luck. Would it have really been too much to ask to NOT see her since the split for even one semester? Apparently so. While I turned inside in a small attempt to harden myself to it I heard with a random bit of my attention that she has a five hour break that encompasses the 3 hour break that I have with Derek and LJ on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Joy. We talked about how our winter holidays went and heard that she had spent it in the Caribbean. She talks about how things still seemed wobbly to her as she'd just gotten back to town the night before. Sounds neat...I wondered who she had gone with knowing at least that it wasn't Monnie as she had never struck me as the Caribbean cruise type girl, and plus, I'd seen her online a time or two over the holidays. "Ummm, are you guys going to be here for a while? Cause I'm REALLY hungry and need to buy some food." Derek looked around at the fairly crowded student center food court and stretched. "Yeah, we're not going anywhere." She flashes him a quick smile and grabs her purse/bag. "Thanks, I'll be right back." She walks off towards A&W and I slowly turn to Derek to find him already looking at me with an almost expectant look on his face. "So, a cruise huh?" My voice sounds almost normal, even to me. "Yeah, she went on it over the holiday with her 'boyfriend.'" He actually made the quotation marks in the air with his fingers as he said it. Was I curious? Yes...I can't deny it but yes I was curious. Whether he knew it or not, I'm glad for his indulgence of my interest without making a big deal of it. "Why'd you make those quotations man?" Could you easily imagine the effort it took me to ask that in a way that could possibly be taken as casual? "Well...she's dating this firefighter. And she's been getting really frustrated and aggravated with him lately." "And...then she went on a Caribbean cruise with him?" I was slightly confused. "Have you met him? What do you think?" "From what I can see, she's getting frustrated because he's not nearly as into the whole thing as she was and she was getting pretty pissed off but then this winter, he just sort of showed up and invited her on the cruise with his family and she went." "Ah...I see." What more could I say? Really? "Are you okay with this man? I mean, we can just go somewhere else if you want; I mean, we wouldn't even have seen her today if we hadn't passed by Zach on the way here." I waved him off without even having to think about it. "Naw man...that's always been a problem and I've talked to Uriel about this last year too but like...it's not like you guys are JUST my friends you know? You're all her friends too and it would be pretty bad of me to kinda steal you guys away from her just cause I'm a bit uncomfortable." I sighed...what else could I do? I can see her in the corner of my eye, moving back towards the table with her food and let out my breath abruptly, leaning back in to the table. "It is what it is man...can't hide forever." Derek nods at this and the conversation ends as she nears hearing range again. There was a bit of an incident when Derek said he was cold (he was just wearing a t-shirt) so I offered him my coat, which he took. Lauren proffered him her scarf and gloves, neither of which were the ones I had gotten her the Christmas before. Now I'm not gonna sit here and say that I expected her to be using them at all...but honestly, what the fuck? The wasted effort almost kills me, do you know what I mean? What's the point in having a great idea only to have it go to waste and come to no use so bloody quickly? If anything I wish I could turn back time and undo even half of the things I'd done for her that...like......... Fuck. I feel like lashing out at something. To vent what I feel in some twisted form of catharsis. Punching a pillow or anything like that wouldn't work as I want to feel impact, to feel my fists striking something that doesn't just give way. I'd punch at my walls but they're made of dry wall and I'd like as not put my fist right through it. It brings to mind something I read once, about how when you're little and you feel a pain, you bawl and let your pain out to the world. But as you grow, those cries become whimpers and moans and soon after that, you clam up and stay silent, eating the bitter apples that grow on the tree of pain within you, keeping it to yourself as much as possible...keeping it hidden. I'll end it here. There's no use going over anymore as it just ends up with me feeling bitter. Helen said to me a bit earlier, "I thought it was all okay now?" I thought it was too...but her and a boyfriend....a fireman no less...like......how can I ever match up to shit like that you know? It's like for a girl, the guy who had just broken up with you starts dating a model. And like....what the fuck is that about how she's all 'aggravated' with hiim and he throws a cruise at her and suddenly it's all peaches and cream again? Maybe it's the love that I've believed in all this time is what's fake...and in real world, it all comes down to money, sex and power? I never thought she'd be the kind of person to...like...it's like...I feel... ... I'm stopping. It is what it is. That's all I have left to say. |