her <3

She strikes me across my face.

"Look at you, you worthless sack of sh*t."

I slump further into my chair and feel the sting of her blow. What am I doing? It's Thursday night, my assignment is due tomorrow, and I'm here watching a video of a guy describing different varieties of cheese.

She glares at me and says, "At least get up and shower, you literally haven't for the last four days." After a painful tug on my hair she walks away. I wince as I scratch the area she tugged on. She was having one of her bad days again. I sigh and get up from my chair to head towards the shower.

After an hour of showering I hop out. I look at myself in the mirror. My cheek glows red from her strike. That's going to bruise tomorrow. I divert my attention downwards. My belly visibly protrudes, a stark comparison to the near six-pack I used to have. When did I gain so much weight? It was only last summer I was running with her daily and going to the gym.

Lost in thought, she bursts through the door. "Ah you finally took a shower," she says. She grins and steps over to my side. With one hand she pinches my belly and with her other she playfully shoves me. "Let's see how much fatter you've gotten," she says tightening her grip. It hurts and hurts but she shows no signs of stopping. Just before I have to say something she lets go and disappears as quickly as she came.

If it weren't for the lingering pain in my left side I might've thought she was never there.

After the shower I start work on the assignment. She walks past me and casually glances at the section I'm on. An hour later I am stuck on the same problem. She pops up by my side and looks at my work. "Holy you're dumber than I thought. Even that guy from your class said this part would only take five minutes."

I brush her off and keep working. She leaves, but what she said stays with me.

After some more struggling I finally understand and complete the problem. If I had started this even a day ago maybe I'd be in a much better spot. Sleeping in class doesn't help either, but she occasionally keeps me up at night.

Anyways, that's enough for work for tonight. I need to get some sleep for tomorrow, or at least that's what she says. I crawl into bed to find her out cold already. She's kicked off the blankets in her sleep, so I gently tuck them back around her and slide into bed next to her.

Goodnight.

I'm jostled out of my sleep, and as I come to I make out her figure in the darkness of the room. She's on top of me and my face feels as if she had slapped me throughout the night. "Time to get up for school! Can't wait till you have another horrible day of feeling mediocre and useless!" 

She leans towards my face and her hair falls over me. The sweet scent of the strawberry shampoo I use invades my nose as she pulls up to my ear and whispers, "Or is today finally the day you do the world a favour and off yourself?" I can hear the grin and excitement in her voice.

She intertwines her right hand with my left and places a flashlight - no, a pistol in my right hand. With her hand wrapped around mine she puts the barrel to my temple. To be honest, in this moment, right here, right now, I want nothing more but to pull that trigger, but then she would win, and I can't lose yet. I shrug her off and turn on the light.

I get up and wash my face. The bruise I was expecting on my cheek says good morning to me.

"Hey," her head pokes out from the bathroom doorway, quickly followed by the rest of her body. She comes up to my side and wraps her arms around my side in a side hug. She looks at our reflection and smiles.

"You look good today. Sometimes I forget how attractive you are." She tip toes and gives me a peck on my cheek. "Come on, let's go make some breakfast for us."

I glance at the mirror on the way out and the bruise is gone.

We head to school together, her head dozing off on my shoulder on the bus there. Off the bus we walk to class hand in hand. My friends always talk about how perfect we are together and how envious they are. With the memory of her lips on my skin, I feel pretty lucky to have her in my life.

I get my midterm mark back for one of my classes and she asks about it when we have lunch together. "You barely passed? Jesus dude, how stupid are you?" She grabs her bag and gets up. "I can't be seen with somebody as dumb as you." I eat the rest of my lunch by myself, in silence.

After slogging through the rest of the school day I finally arrive home. I enter the living room and find her sitting in my chair, twiddling her thumbs. She jolts up when she sees me.

"Hi."

A stand of her hair falls in front of her face and she nervously brushes it away.

"Sorry for earlier today. I didn't mean it."

Yeah, it's okay, I know you didn't.

She beams at my forgiveness and runs over to hug me. Her arms wrap around my back and I can feel the warmth of her breath as she speaks.

"You'll do better next time, I know you will."

She snuggles her head into my chest and my heart thaws once more. Maybe this time. Maybe this time things will change.

"We need each other. You need me. I need you."

We need each other. You need me. I need you.

I need you.

I raise my hand up to stroke her hair and she strikes me across the face.

"Look at you, you worthless sack of sh*t."

I need her <3

read this

moments

I'm sitting by myself since the seats are in pairs and I look over to see two of them knocked out cold and the other two just doing their own thing and in that moment and all other moments I spend with them I realize that I love them and I'm genuinely grateful that they are a part of my life. I sat by myself because I didn't want to break up their group but I think I am happiest to see them just living and doing their best.

=====

After getting off the bus one night from work, I thought about how tiring of a day it was and I thought about how tired my parents must be working each day. I realized I've been terrible at giving them a warm welcome home when that's all they want from a long day at work. Then I thought about how happy I was to just get home and I ran the short distance from the bus stop to home. I walked in and my parents and brother were in the kitchen, and my dad says to me, "Good work today." In the afternoon I had a dental checkup and I had to head straight to work. My head was pounding half the time I was working and I got home late. Thanks dad. Thanks mom. And thank you too Raymond, it'd be lonely without you brother.


some other things

I've thought a little bit more about my loneliness and I think the thing I miss most about being in a relationship is physical contact.I make a good amount of physical contact with my male and female friends, but I don't think I've ever been nor will I ever be the type of person to show platonic affection through excessive contact. However there is a special language in touch and over the past year since the breakup I've forgotten how to speak in it, at least in the romantic context. I feel a profound sadness in this. It seems like forever since I last held hands with somebody and felt the warm and gentle grip of somebody who loves me.

To be honest, I'm scared that I have forgotten how to show affection and love. I think the breakup had a severe effect on my understanding and beliefs of what constitutes a relationship - the aftermath was not pretty (especially from my side) and I felt as though everything I had done was wrong. It's taken me a long time to dig myself out of that mindset and I am still in this process of working on that.

The breakup left me feeling as if I was completely undesirable and worthless, however my time with playing with the SBL team in the Vancouver Ultimate League helped me so much. The large majority of the team was Caucasian, and I used to hold the notion that I would be treated differently due to my background. It felt that way throughout high school and I was expecting to just be tolerated at most. I behaved with that expectation for the first couple of weeks, but I soon saw that my teammates not only genuinely cared for me, but also liked me for who I was.

It sounds somewhat sad, however I forgot that people could actually like me for my personality. At an ultimate (heh) low in my life, my teammates really did wonders for my self image. From changing dinner locations so that I could attend as a minor to late night drives while pouring our hearts out, they really made me feel special. Just a few days ago I was talking to one of the players from the team and he commented on how after I left the post-season party everybody on the team had good things to say about me. I am reminded of how special the team and those people are to me.

Looking back at it, I think the breakup had to happen. As much as it pains me to say so, I have grown a lot as a person since, in ways not possible if I had stayed comfortable. I know I would go back in a heartbeat because the relationship is still comfortable and familiar to me, even after a year, but I don't regret it happening. I regret the way it happened and I wish that I had behaved more maturely during that time. However I am fortunate for the different pathways it has opened for me. I have met tons of new people who have helped me develop as a person, and I think I have changed a lot since last year.

In the same vein, she has also changed as a person. From my limited exposure, I don't think I could or would love this new person. However it still hurts a tremendous amount, so much that I think my heart is going to self-destruct and splatter over the bus that we coincidentally are both on.

I am still scared that I will not be able to love.

However I look toward the future and I am getting closer to leaving the past.

I genuinely like who I am as of now. There are plenty of rough edges and places where a lot of improvement can be made, but I like me.

With love,
Kevin