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How To Stay Alive, chapter 4: Brown Sugar

friends, melancholy |

2011-Mar-28 by Seth |

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prologue: How To Stay Alive (With A Broken Heart)

Chapter 4
Brown Sugar

From now on i cannot write in chronological order, either because i can’t remember the exact point in time when something specific happened, or like in the case of Brown Sugar, it started at an earlier point, but needed hell of a lot of time to develop.

She was a long-term friend who i got to know pretty short after getting together with Sea Rose. And please don’t get me wrong, at that time and the following few years, that’s all she was: a good friend. Actually it was quite obvious that we had a lot in common and people would have had no problem imagining us as a couple, so i totally understand why Sea Rose had to be jealous about us. But on the other hand i was quite capable of not letting it happen to fall in love with someone else, while being in a relationship. And to be honest, i was far away from it all the time. Of course one had to take my word for it, because how could i prove a thing like this. And well, Sea Rose DID NOT trust me all the time, which i not only found to be pretty insulting, but also very sad, because i did not get the trust back, which i deserved for being so honest and attached to this relationship. And there were no romantic feelings for Brown Sugar, not until AFTER i and Sea Rose broke up. Not necessarily because i chose not to give in or something, no, there simply weren’t more feelings for her than for a friend. My word alone should have been the proof to that.

Anyway, i managed to befriend her and we tried to share whatever interested we had, the other had too. We certainly enjoyed the time we had together, every single second of it. She had this strange kind of openness i missed so much with, well, everybody else. You know this no-fear policy when it comes to other people, kinda like punks have (she had a lot of punk friends before she moved in town, maybe that is where she got that from). She had no problem with physical encounters, because it wasn’t a sexual thing for her. Pretty much how i see it, too, but pretty much most of the people cannot. So being all cuddly while watching movies or sleeping in the same bed at night overs was not a big deal, because this was merely a friends way of showing ones nearness to one another. Maybe this innocent behavior reminded me a lot of my childhood. Because this is how people should be: none-hostile to another in every way.

And wow was she cute. And shy. I liked that. All in all a very unique kind of character, that she has developed over the time, and a pity that so less could appreciate this. I for once did and i enjoyed her to be around me.

So after Sea Rose moved out, it started a big time of depression for me. The loss was great again, and in a retrospective it was very much alike 10 years before, when i missed my first love and did not notice why this was why i felt so bad. But this time i knew why. I knew i felt bad for not being loved. Plus, my friends started to move away after school ended and i got more alone with each day. My perspectives for the future weren’t as bright to me. And it was at those times i started to feel more for Brown Sugar, than i did before. Problem was that we saw each other less often with every week (again, pretty much like back when i was a child), and i was so destroyed on the inside that i couldn’t do a thing about it. Things got rushed and i gave up, we saw each other every few weeks, than every few months only, and at some point i even believed we would never see each other again. And after some other shit stuff to have happened, like another devastating romance of mine, we got in touch with each other again. Up to this point i was so detached from my feelings that i did not know what to feel or to think. Yeah, not be able to know what to think was the worst thing, because i did SO many mistakes. But i knew what i wanted. So what was about to come was pretty much inevitable.

Thing is, it’s not that we never spoke about it. I asked her out a few times if dating each other as a couple would be something she’d like to do, but i never expected anything of a positive answer. And since i wasn’t in love with her anyway, it was kinda okay for me. But we talked about it, and that is worth a lot. So when she finally started to get in touch with me again, i felt pretty great about myself. At this time i was in a very, very bad condition and made a few stupid things. So this sudden commitment of her got me into this trap i found myself in. She was obviously missing me and thinking about wanting something else, or even more. I don’t believe that was ONLY in my mind – it was actually there. But she was such an insecure, sad thing – it wasn’t new to me to see her wanting something, but not really wanting it, you know.

One constant mistake i made during all those years was hiding the few parts of myself that would have let her falling in love with me, for obvious reasons. It was part of what i had to do to not cause Sea Rose’s jealousy give any more cause. Certain things i never really told her, things about my past or things about my personality i kept secret or even was ashamed of. I was extremely honest to her, don’t get me wrong. But you know, i kinda had to hide some stuff… but i should better not. I really, really regret this. I did this for Sea Rose, and our relationship was a goner for a long time already, so that latecomer of this relationship still was existent, and ruining my possible relationships to come was something that taught me a lot. I will never again do something like this. I will have to be completely honest in the future, like at a hundred percent. No matter who is in what kind of relationship. That’s simply a stupid thing to do, especially considering that you have to completely trust your partner anyway.

So Brown Sugar and i met again, doing the usual stuff we always liked to do. And i realized my feelings may have been more than just the of a good friendship. If ‘love’ is the right term i cannot say by today’s standards, because back then i was a screwed up kid, not knowing what was actually going on around me. Not like today at least. So what matters is that i was in love. At least that’s what i thought was going on. And when she started to embrace me on a way that i previously only tried to embrace with, that got my attention. She wanted to hang out and sleep over for no apparent reason, which i interpreted by the code of what normal people behave after. Actually, i still think that this was going on, even tho i admit i could have misinterpreted everything.

Then i remember this night, after we had a great day watching movies, going out and such. We both couldn’t sleep very well (which was rare after such a day) and i started to try to get touchy, and she would not resist. And i guess it was kinda very romantic and all, how in the middle of the night in total darkness, only having a few senses left. We touched and kissed, but we both were very nervous and shaky. This went on for quite some time, until she suddenly pushed me away in a digressive way that was pretty straight forward. And we fell asleep.

The next few days we both did not contact each other, i guess because we both didn’t know what to do. But i was torn apart by my feeling and those days were horrible for me. Until i could not resist and called her in the middle of the night, as cliche as in the movies. I needed like forever, but after an awful amount of minutes(?) i finally said that i loved her. And she did not answer, she just acknowledged that she understood and we hung up. And then again, no interaction for days. I don’t remember who then first wrote the other an enormously long email, but what came out of this short exchange of mails was the following: she told me in hell of a lot small points not why she would not choose me, but what the person should be like she wanted to be with. And what i did not understand for at least a week was that why the hell this description was totally a description of ME.

The reason is pretty obvious to me now: the things she described were all things she simply did not know of me. I spend an awful amount of energy into changing myself and acting like i am somebody else in the sheer hope of becoming that person, that SHE did miss out on the few things that were obvious to ME, but sure not for her. And this really hurt me in a lot of ways. Because she did not even know that she wanted me, even though it was obvious for me that she was. But it was already too late. After all those years, how could i possibly change that picture of me that she held treasure for herself, just to protect her from making a possible mistake with me.

I saw her two months later on the street, she was now together with some other guy i did not even know in person. How this could even happened is still beyond me. And this was the last time i had contact with her. Later i heard she grew a lot into a person she never wanted to be back then, with some awful character trades and habits she always hated. I even heard from other friends that at some point she started to hate me, like one year later or so. I don’t really know what was going on there, but judging from what i heard i don’t really wanna know. I like her to stay like this in my mind, how i learned to like her – as the cute, interested, happy and friendly nerd friend i once loved.