Monday, February 2, 2004

   Saga of The Girl: Culmination, Part 2 . . . . .
" . . . . . . . . . I . . . was thinking . . . . . that . . . . . I really like you . . . a lot . . . . ."

". . . I'm sure this isn't an especially big surprise to ya, but essentially for all this time I've . . . never really stopped liking you . . . and I know it's kind of insane, I know . . . hell, everyone else is telling me that too . . . if I told them, they'd be all like, 'what?! Still?!' and stuff . . . . . but yeah, I guess that's pretty much it . . . I wanted to say that I like ya . . . and . . . . . . yeah."

I knew I must have had "The Girl" flustered a bit with that one. After I got all of that out, there was a bit of silence as we continued to walk down the riverside, streetlamps around us and light rain above us. Now, I can't exactly remember her words verbatim, so I'll overview her response here:

No matter how you look at it, she is a very busy gal. She's in an incredibly hard program at school and physically has no time to really worry about anything else in her life - this was more or less what she tried to tell me those years back. She's always had the plan of go to school, graduate from school, get a job, move out; there was never really anywhere in that plan for having a relationship. By that same token, she has never really been an especially strong person emotionally - more prone to running from confrontation than anything else. In the end, there's essentially no way she would be able to handle something at this time . . . . .

She asked me if I could understand that, which I did. So that was one main thing out of the way, sort of . . . I needed to check the other . . . . . I needed to ask one more, utterly frightful question . . . . .

"I guess there's just one more thing I wanna know . . . . ." She turned to me. "Do you still like me?"
"Yes..."
"In that way?"
"Yes..."

So that's pretty much my story. She doesn't really think it's in anyone's best interest to get into anything right now, though she still has romantic feelings for me . . . . . what a mess, eh? Well, we continued walking slowly, talking until we hit the other end of the boardwalk. We then continued, walking along the parking lot. We then hit a street, and walked towards the downtown area. We walked towards the train station. Once at the intersection, she asked me if I had said everything I had needed to say; I said I wasn't sure - we kept walking. We hit a dead end; we turned around. We walked back over an overpass, back towards the Quay . . . once over the overpass, we stopped and just stood against a railing, looking towards the river. Though I held no regret over the things I said and did, I still felt bad about how she was perpetually on the verge of tears the whole time . . . I've never liked doing that to her . . . . . at one point I looked at her face, and there was water on her cheek - though it may just as easily have been rain, I still wiped it away with my thumb, telling her I was sorry for getting her all like this and stuff . . .

During that time, many a thing was said . . . more or less, this was it:


"Fact of the matter is, I don't have any intention to stop trying. I mean, I like you, and you apparently also like me, and that should be enough . . . and I know I'm simplifying things . . ."
"I was about to say that, yeah... but don't you see how hard that makes things? Every time we hang out, I always have to watch what I do because I'm afraid I'll give off a bad signal or something, and I don't want to make things weird or anything... 'cause you know, we DO get awkward around each other a lot..."
"I know . . ."

"When we broke up, that was like, the hardest thing ever for me... I don't want to have to go through that again..."
"Who says we'd have to go through it again?"
"Knowing me, I'd do it again..."

"Ya know, sometimes I wished I spoke Mandarin better . . ."
"Oh, that wouldn't have changed anything..."
"Nono, hear me out . . . . . I always had this thought that if I could speak Mandarin better, I could go up to your dad and say to him, 'I would like to date your daughter' . . . . ."
"[laughter of disbelief...]"
"Seriously! I would tell him how I'd like to date her because she's wonderful, because she challenges me . . . . ."

" . . and ya know, you don't have to go at this stuff alone - we're all willing to help you through this stuff . . . if you're getting tired or something, I wanna be able to give you a shoulder to sleep on, or to carry you to your classes if I need to . . . and I was serious, I would totally carry you to your class if I had to!"
"[funny look . . .]"

"Ya know I'm not doing all this just to mess with your head, right?"
"Heh... if you did it would be really mean."
"Heh . . . yeah, I'd have to kick my own ass if that were the case . . . . ."

"Ya know, this probably would've been a whole lot easier if you had just said 'no' earlier . . ."
"Ooh, can I take that back now?"
"Nope. Too late.
"Aw, come on... Butterfly Effect?"
"Heh . . . nice try Ashton . . . . . . . though to be fair, you're much prettier than Ashton Kutcher . . ."

"...and when we hang out I always have a lot of fun... but if things got bad, I don't want us to have to hate each other..."
"Hey, I could never stop hating you . . ."
"But how can you..."
". . and I know that's just me saying that now . . . but come on . . ."

"Like I've said before, I know that if someone has already made up his or her mind, no amount of arguing or debating is gonna change it . . . . . but ya know, I just have to know that I tried everything . . ."


Obviously there's a lot more to this, but what can I say, this was two hours of walking around nowhere in particular. Well, at about 7pm, I walked her back to the train station. By this point we were just talking about silly trivial things again - I guess it was as nice a way to end the night as any. When her train came and the doors opened, she looked to me to say goodbye. As she did, I sorta grabbed for her hand for a second; I told her, "don't be awkward."

And . . . . . . yeah, that was that. It's not like I can be especially happy, since we're still not gonna be getting together any time soon (which I more or less expected). At the same time, I can't be especially sad - I mean, these past two years or so, I seriously did wonder whether she still liked me or not . . . . . so yeah, I don't know what to tell ya. It's a strange feeling to feel extremely happy and extremely sad all at once . . .

Such is my life: I wouldn't necessarily reccommend it to anyone. Hope you enjoyed this novel, everyone, for I know that reading super-long things is not everyone's cup of tea . . . . . so yeah, see ya tomorrow.
Comments (12)