Knowing that I lost the girl I was going to marry.
The first week back after Christmas break my junior year, I had the freshman (it was a small degree program) over for a back to school party. The evening took its corse and everyone left. She and I were the only ones awake in the house (my roommates had long gone to sleep) and so I offered to drive her home.
We decided to stop at Whataburger on the way home and on the way out afterward I said, "Why don't you just come back to my place to night?
She did and we ended up having sex. When the morning came I was mortified. I had only had sex with one girlfriend before, who I had just broken up with, and I couldn't deal with it.
But she stayed with me. We continued to hook up for the next two years, through my bad emotional melt downs and through hers, through being in Romeo and Juliet together--through anything.
Being inside of her was like being in a memory of grass and Florida citrus or of north eastern pine and fresh mulch.
It was falling and scraping my toddler knee in hard gravel and realizing that no matter what, the world was still out there for me. Every promise was true.
And then I graduated and moved to NYC and straight up failed. I gained weight (30 lbs.) and worked a shit job trying to become a writer and director. But really, I wasn't trying. I gave up--quick.
But she didn't. She stayed up to talk to me at all hours of the night, she gave me great advice, she was the person that you imagine standing next to you right before the credits.
She was there for me when she came to New York and when we lay naked in bed and when she told me she loved me and when I was so overwhelmed I had to go into my stairwell and smoke to calm down.
She loved me when I said I loved her too.
She loved me when I got laid off a year later, at 23. She loved me when I decided to move back to Texas. She loved me when I was sleeping on my friend's couch. She loved me when she let me drive her car to Austin for a show I was in.
She loved me when I used her for her apartment: for a place to sleep. She loved me when I stopped having sex with her. She loved me when I didn't comfort her crying in the night. She loved me when we fought. She loved me when I had to keep my hands in my pockets when we fought. She loved me when I forced her to break up with me.
I think she loves me now--in some way that I don't deserve.
She and I even have the same name. I wish I clumsy change mine so hers would be some kind of untainted.