not a total bitch

and yeah I know this has to end 'cause you're just in it for the win
I feel it every time I see you walk through the door
– the reputation, “for the win”


"I'm not a total bitch, you know," I whisper into the phone, feeling all the more stealthy by the muffled words. It’s 9:30, maybe, on a phone that rings for me maybe once a week. I’m caught off guard but I quickly go into full attention-paying mode. I don't have time to ponder the surreal nature of that sentence that time, so caught up in the drama, the need to prove that it’s true and, well, an understatement. Funny in that anyone possibly overhearing it would wonder at my need to clarify. Yet I do, to make sure he knows, somehow, to make sure I know. I’m not, right? And yet I don’t doubt myself for a second. My whole body softens, as does my hurt. It doesn’t go away, but it becomes less solid, liquefies enough to move around, maybe away from my heart, spread out, thin a little.

Any friend would tell me I shouldn't care; I see it on their faces, whether they say it outright or not, this look of disbelief that I might even deign to need that approval, even a smidgen. I can’t be quite as blase. “You’re better than him,” I can hear them thinking. I hear that a lot, there are a lot of “him”s, and I start to hate that phrase. I don’t want to be better than anyone, don’t want to be so off-kilter that there I am, my heart not just on my sleeve but falling out of my body, on a diamond-plated tray. It’s like I can’t even pay someone to take it, but that’s okay. I stop thrusting it out there, shoving it, training it like a child on a leash, tugging it back in in in until it’s safely locked away—until next time. It’s so abrupt though, and in a second, whether it’s the voice on the phone or a name haunting me, I’m there, again, before things fell apart. Before I had to clarify whether I’m a total bitch or not. I’m naked with the hot water running over my hands. There are only a few dishes but they’re mine, my suds, my hands, my smile, and I’m only half-joking when I later ask if I can come back again to wash more. If I really thought the answer would be no, I never would’ve asked.

But there’s another Reputation line from the most dead-on song of them all, “this town,” that goes “same stupid mistake I always make,” and again, that’s me, to a T. I alter the mistakes only slightly, convincing myself it’s different because of x, y, or z. Oh, he does Habitat for Humanity, surely he won’t push the tray back or knock it to the ground. Or just turn around and walk away. We’re fuck buddies, nothing more, nothing less, so of course we can maintain that. We live thousands of miles away. I think I’m low maintenance but apparently not. I’m too much, too too too, always.
By that point, when I’m in the “overwhelming” stage, too ready, too eager, too many cards and thoughts and dreams.

I wonder if they're disappointed in me, in how strong I can be in some areas and how weak in others. And I admit it, I am weak. I want him to know that I'm a good person, even though that plea should really be going in reverse. Because for me no matter what comes after, there's always part of me that's the girl in the bed, in the middle of saying yes, stuck there like a time warp. I can write it down or not but it’s there in slow motion, the good, the bad and the utterly stupid. Even one night can haunt me and it's not that I have any what-if-could've-should've regrets, it's more that in that stand-alone moment in time, I felt like I wasn't sludging through my thirties, taking plodding step after plodding step into middle (old) age. I was leaping, dancing, prancing even. It was the beginning, not the end, and it has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day. It was the subway in the morning, packed on the 6 even worse than my loser train, which I thought was impossible. But it was okay because I could hold on, get a kiss on the forehead, be a few minutes late for some walk of shame shopping. Not even really a hangover. I go back to that happy place because , well, in part, I have no choice. My brain calls it up, and I'm there on the train, tired, but in a good way, not caring about anything else beyond our little bubble.

And the saddest part is even now, much as I know I’m better off, there’s still that bit of jealousy. I think I’m okay and I feel it and have to say, “Let’s move over here” or “I have to leave now.” I have to walk those tricky lines of friendship vs. not, and I wish I could just be a total bitch, not for the sake of being one, but because then I wouldn’t care. But I do. I say the one most incongruous word because it’s what I would say to anyone else. It’s funny, but also not. Will anyone ever be congratulating me? Will I ever be the one picked over someone else? It’s pathetic, this wanting something simply because you can’t have it. It’s not real, because were that choice offered to me, I would turn it down cold. Or at least I tell myself that to try to feel all 30 years old mature, not teenager lovesick. I go back to the scene(s) of the crime(s), sometimes literally, and if I turn my back a certain way, I can look at a different view, can erase those random nights, random cabs, random beds, at least enough to get through whatever I need to get through. But there’s still a part of me that thinks “working on myself” means trying to fix whatever flaws they saw, even though I know it doesn’t work that way.

It’s not rational, I’m aware. I don’t know which would be better in some utopian world, not to care at all, or to keep striving, to want that approval for my own twisted reasons. But better or not, I do. Something like serenity, that most elusive of states, washes over me. I like phone call 2 way better than number 1. I’m not shaking, I’m even laughing a little. It’s in jokes and silliness and knowing that it’ll be okay, not just for me but for him too. And that I care. I can’t not, and I guess, when it comes down to it, I’d rather be the girl who’s sometimes crying or angry, with all the drama and ups and downs and whirlwind of emotions, than to be still and silent and cold. It would be easier on many levels, certainly, to just meet the madness of those feelings with a blank stare, a wall, a sealed barrier that doesn’t let anything in. But I’ve met those people, or, worse, ones who offer one face but have a different one just under the surface. They scare me, or just confuse me; I have no idea how to react because it’s all right there with me. Sometimes I try to hide it, I wait til after the phone call ends to cry into my pillow, but even so, I can’t tuck my heart back in. It’s there, there, always. It’s Dorothy Parker waiting for the phone to ring, it’s Elizabeth Elmore singing “almost blue.” It’s the way it is and I’m just stuck with it. But it could be worse; at least I’m not a total bitch.