And it Will Feel Like Truth — Day Four

In elementary school, I desperately wanted to belong. So much so that when the group of girls would come around and ask me if I had heard of the latest and greatest thing, I would automatically pretend I knew exactly what they were taking about…even though I had no idea.

Because to not know would be social annihilation.

However, they had tricks up their sleeve. Every once in a while, when they asked if I knew about something, that something actually didn’t exist. So then I was shamed for trying to be cool.

I was called big boned. White dog. Ugly. Fat. Weird. Stupid.

It only got worse in middle school. Multiple times, my mom came and picked me up because the pack mentality had gone feral and I was the target.

Once high school came around, I couldn’t rely on the easy way out anymore. My mom had a job and escaping an argument just didn’t work as well at 16 as it did when I was 11. Plus, by that point I learned the art of instigation rather than being on the receiving end of an insult. I hardened. Better to know the punch line, and deliver it, then be the punch line.

Not all of my friendships were like this. There are a few friends who I was able to hang on to — friends who remain constant even now. But even in these friendships I held back, not because of them but because I had no idea how to really develop healthy boundaries and expectations in relationships. I craved the safety of sharing secrets, but always resisted — not knowing if I could truly trust the other person. There was always a new best friend waiting around the corner. There was always rumors and gossip and he said, she said.

College changed this for me. As hazy as those years were, I remember so clearly the laughter and the movie nights and the scavenger hunts. After the break-up, my world slowly started to open up around me. Conversations with friends in the dorm went from brief 10 minute catch up sessions to late night runs to the local truck stop for cinnamon rolls the size of the plate. We’d sit there talking, the melted butter dripping over our fingers, as we processed through who was the best poet: Dickinson or Dante.

We called ourselves Precious Happy Baby Girls, because our first year in the hallway designated for transfers, we found each other and fit like velcro. Daree, the RA, had an irresistible grace to her and became the irrevocable link between us all. She was the one who named us. She’d walk down the hall, peeking into our rooms.

“How’s my precious-happy-baby-girl?”

They were the ones who held me together after everything fell apart. I joined Daree as an RA late fall semester, and moved out of our hallway and into my own room on the first floor. During staff meetings, we would pile onto the couch in the RD’s office and fight over the M&M man always stocked with our favorite candy. We called it therapy hour because that couch held magical healing properties for any of our ailments. Broken hearts, stuffy noses, test anxiety — we would crash into the office at a moment’s notice, collapse into that leather that swallowed you, and just start talking. And our RD, being the amazing person she is, would stop whatever she was doing and swivel her chair around to face us so she could listen.

On nights where Shawnee’s small-town vibe felt suffocating, we would travel into the city and frequent a karaoke bar. I would sing Ready to Run and the guy running the show would flirt, not even paying attention to the fact we were underage. One night, he pulled me out of my chair and twirled me around the bar singing Brown Eyed Girl. I didn’t have the heart to tell him my eyes were blue, and I was emboldened by the cat-calls and cheers from the table full of my friends. I danced and laughed and curtsied for the audience when he was done, enjoying this new found thing called freedom I was feeling in my bones.

We formed our own inner circle, a tight-knit family that spent nearly every waking moment together.

We screamed and hollered when Daree got engaged, her and her fiancé beaming from excitement when they walked into the lobby. We threatened bodily harm to anyone who dared come close enough to break our hearts, buoyed by Justin Timberlake’s Cry Me a River and the ice picks all of us carried in the backseat of our cars.

We watched Dirty Dancing until we knew every line, and unabashedly swooned over any and all Paul Walker movies — bonus points for Vin Deisel.

It was simple: we supported each other. In a season of life where we had no idea what we were doing and the world around us was changing at a breakneck speed, together we felt whole. Sometimes, this wholeness represented itself in dance parties and midnight campus walks. Other times it looked like curling up under the covers and watching movies together or running outside to throw snowballs at each other. Most times it was just being intentional about listening to the story of the other, and realizing that we’re all doing the best we can.

It was this group who rallied around me when the ex-boyfriend and I got back together.

It’s junior year. I’m confident again. Over the summer, I cut all of my hair off into a trendy bob that doesn’t even reach my shoulders. I do it on purpose: he never let me cut my hair.

I hadn’t thought about him for weeks. And when I do think about him, I’m not left spinning anymore. The memories have dulled the edges of pain.

He tests the waters first. Calling me at 4am, drunk and confused. I know it’s him based on the familiar drawl, but pretend to not recognize him. I hang up, but the memory haunts me.

Could it really be him?

Why would he be calling?

He calls again.

And again.

We slowly start talking, late night conversations that cover everything from why he broke up with me and how much he misses me to the pedestal of comparison he’s placed me on since we ended things.

“Every other girl I date is compared to you, Elora. Every one of them fall short.”

It draws me like a flame. My friends hesitate, like any good friends would, but at my persistence they begin to welcome the possibility again. He’s different, I say. And in a lot of ways, it’s true. But not in the best ways. Not in the ways that count.

About a month into us talking again, he surprises me in my dorm. I walk down the steps and once I see him, freeze. I even turn around and walk back up the stairs to hide my face because I know I look scared and excited and hurt. My heart beats too fast to function. Grabbing the rail, I close my eyes, take a breath, and then manage a smile.

I’m ecstatic he’s there — but what I’m not expecting is the grief I feel when I catch his eyes. Memory is a funny thing. I haven’t seen him since he whispered cowgirl up to me and told me he didn’t love me anymore. So the dichotomy of remembered hurt and absolute bliss is something I’m not prepared to experience, like the newness of my shaky hands in his presence.

Normally I feel at rest.

Normally I feel safe.

I shake off my misgivings and smile wide for the camera as my friends giggle and wave us off on our date. I find out that night he still loves me, he never really stopped, he just doesn't want anything serious. I brush off the words and nod like I agree.

He’ll come back, I think. If he loves me, this will be forever.

A month later, on a bright November morning, my friends help me plan my own surprise. I show up at the high school where he’s visiting his favorite teacher, the one who told me over the phone after we started dating that “there are two seasons in his life. The one before you and the one after y’all met.”

When he sees me, he wraps me in his arms.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” he whispers in my ear.

Later, after we eat our traditional meal of Sonic chili dogs and tator-tots, we start wrestling. He starts tickling me. I laugh and bite at him. He leads me to his bed.

“Stay the night,” he murmurs against my forehead. “I just want to know what it’s like to wake up to you.”

I almost cave. His arms tighten around me. For a moment I literally can’t move. He has me in his grip — and he knows it — but my morals win out in the end.

“One day.” I reply, my hand on his cheek. “One day we’ll wake up to each other.”

He grunts an agreement.

I get back late that night, drunk off of the potential life of living with him. My friends curl up next to me on my bed as I process the feeling of wanting to stay.

“He told me he loved me before I left.” I say.

They smile and squeeze my hand.

And when the inevitable happens, when he sleeps with a mutual friend a week later over Thanksgiving break and then tells me I’m acting childish because I’m okay with it, they pull up a big red trashcan in front of my door and help me get rid of every last memento while I cry.

“I’m so sick of crying over him.” I say.

“I know baby girl. And if we could, you know we’d cut him for you.” Daree picks up a charm he gave me and tosses it in the trash, already full with sweatshirts and stuffed animals and cards and everything that built the story of us.

Everything but the pictures.

“What about these?” Heather asks. It’s a stack of at least 100 pictures, all spanning the years spent with him.

I glance up and wave my hand. I’m too tired and emotionally exhausted to make any decisions. I want to throw them away, but at the same time, I wonder if I will ever regret not having them. I’m determined to get rid of everything, so I let them decide.

“Oh. Those? Do whatever. You guys get to choose. Burn them for all I care.”

She smiles and places them in her bag, catching Daree’s eye. “I think we can manage something.”

We work until the early morning hours and when we’re done, I collapse into my chair at my desk and check my email. There’s one from my sister.

I just wanted you to know I wrote him today. I’m so angry. I told him to never contact you again — not by phone, not by email, not be carrier pigeon. Hopefully he got the hint. If not, I’m sure mom will have a few words for him. I love you.

I laugh and wipe a tear from my cheek. My mom loved him. Mostly because he knew how to turn on the charm.

There are so many things my parents don’t know about him — so many things I keep hidden for fear of their approval. Like how I knew in my gut Thanksgiving wasn’t the first time he cheated on me. Or how there were times where he looked at me and I would be afraid. The way he controlled me, the way he insulted me — it would take years for me to label it for what it was: verbal and emotional abuse — but in that moment, I was just thankful to be free.