Posts tagged with "love"

A Bitter Belief

Jack: What kind of movies do you pre­fer, the ones with the sad end­ings or the hap­py ones?

Claire: The sad ones def­i­nite­ly. I like movies that make me cry.

Jack: Then you’re with the right guy.

Jack is the lead­ing man. Such screen time is only reserved for pro­tag­o­nists, though anti-hero’s fit this mould too. You want to root for him, to dis­cov­er that in the end he’s smart enough to give up the crim­i­nal life, to stay out of trou­ble, to tru­ly appre­ci­ate the one who loves him. That’s what Claire is bank­ing on too.

She wants to ful­fill the dream that she’ll get the bad boy, and she’ll be the one for whom he gives up his crim­i­nal life. A sto­ry that’s been told time and time again, in life and on the screen. But he won’t, and that makes her want him even more.

Through their rela­tion­ship, you have a hard time believ­ing that any­one would be so self-destruc­tive to fall for a guy like this, the way you don’t believe a pro­fes­sion­al assas­sin would sud­den­ly devel­op a con­science when dis­cov­er­ing that his mark is a 12-year-old girl. But this is Hollywood, and we’re lead to believe that any­thing is pos­si­ble.

And as he cleans Claire’s blood off his bed­room floor, you real­ize that it’s hard­er to believe he was able to fill a buck­et of water from the faucet when he just got out on parole and his util­i­ty bills have been unpaid for over a year, than a girl falling in love with some­one so bad for her. After all, life has not proven oth­er­wise.

This qui­et­ly fills you with bit­ter­ness.

Goodbye, Love

Tulip carnation bouquet

On our last day togeth­er she brought me a bou­quet of tulips and car­na­tions, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a child­hood mem­o­ry of mine she ordered from Japan. I had men­tioned it in pass­ing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for down­load or pur­chase, and there it was, in my hands.

We watched Before Sunrise, and after­ward, we laid next to each oth­er on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no com­fort to be had. Soon, I was kiss­ing the tears from her face, over and over again.

She asked what she was going to do with­out me. How long it was going to be before we saw each oth­er again. Whether a sim­ple phone call was allowed. I could say noth­ing, because I under­stood the neces­si­ty of it all.

So she said she was being reduced to an observ­er, and I grew cold and dis­tant. It was the first time I had con­sid­ered my own feel­ings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she was­n’t mak­ing it any eas­i­er. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she com­fort­ed me in turn, and our pas­sion took hold of us one last time.

Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoul­der, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.

My heart has been filled with a calm sad­ness ever since. A strug­gle between the pain of being away from her, and know­ing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more sta­ble when it was all over.

In the days since, I’ve remem­bered the things I want­ed to say to her before she left my back porch, run­ning to car with­out look­ing back before the emo­tion could over­whelm her. Things that did­n’t come to my head because I was too focused on keep­ing myself togeth­er.

Don’t stop cre­at­ing. Take care of your­self. I love you.