equal parts depressing and delicious
My boyfriend has a girlfriend. I am devastated.
To be fair, he doesn’t know me, despite that, undoubtedly, our souls have known each other for lifetimes. Also he is a celebrity. I learned of this betrayal on a routine Google search for new information on him and there he was, “CELEBRITY BOYFRIEND SPOTTED STEPPING OUT WITH NEW GIRLFRIEND, ACTRESS X.”
Still, I am devastated.
It wasn’t that I thought he and I would ever actually be together, it was just that the fantasy of being with him, the slim but existent chance of knowing him, the ubiquitous wish of our cells being stirred together as if cream into coffee, was the only thing keeping me alive. But whatever.
My daydreams of him are elaborate: equal parts depressing and delicious. It is my favorite game to play. Sometimes I find myself rushing home to play it. Sometimes I just look up and he’s there: begging me to put down whatever I’m working on and join him. Go for a walk with him. He tucks my hair behind my ear, and I lean my cheek into his hand and relent, because it is so nice to be so busy and important and yet wanted so badly. Sometimes when I wake up, before I pick up my phone, I lay in bed and imagine it’s his weight under me, as if I’m resting against his chest, feeling him breathe and wondering what we’ll do that day. Sometimes I come home from grabbing coffee, and I pretend it is he who has done this, who has brought me coffee and a chocolate croissant—my favorite—and all I have to do is open my eyes. Open my eyes and receive.
In these daydreams I’m thinner. My hair is longer. My clothes are cooler. We’re out at dinner with friends, and he complains to the table that I won’t marry him, “not YET!” I’ll correct. “Too soon!” I’ll protest. And he’ll say to someone in the group “So and so, tell her to marry me already. I ask her every week!” In my fantasies it is always them that is doing the begging.
We slip into French when we’re trying to tell secrets in front of other people. We carry on for a little bit before I tell him to stop.
Him: Pour quoi?
Moi: Parçeque.
H: Pour quoi?
M: Parçeque!
H: Parçeque pour quoi?!
M: Parçeque tu es… tu es… tu es…
I’ve forgotten the word for “rude.”
H: Je suis…?
M: Tu es RUDE!
He bursts into peals of laughter; his guffaw is a song. He laughs at me; we laugh at me. Everyone is jealous: of our intimacy, of our intelligence, of how romantic we are with our French fucking inside jokes.
He pulls me into him and says “grossier” into my shoulder before pressing his lips against it.
He’s so smart.
M: Tu es grossier.
H: Je suis grossier.
I even saw him once, in real life. He appeared as if he were a dream, the way he always appears I guess, but he was there. An apparition. On the subway.
We were both on the Q. I got off on my stop. I was trying to put my book back in my bag and find the stairs when I saw him, standing inside the train, his hand on the pole thing, looking at his phone. He was in the car behind me the whole time. I thought, “Am I having a stroke?” so I said the word “the” out loud to make sure I could still speak because one of the warning signs of strokes is that you can’t speak, you try to speak and just gibberish comes out but yes, I can speak, or at least say the word “the.” I don’t move, I’m just staring. He looks up and out and straight at me.
We are maybe four feet apart? The door is open, people are shuffling all around me, and his hand is still on the pole thing. I think to say something but we don’t know each other, really, so there is nothing to say. I’m staring, but he’s staring too now back at me. He takes out an Airpod, as if he’s going to say something, because he recognizes me too, from somewhere he can’t and won’t place because he doesn’t know me. I just have one of those faces. This happens all the time. Once I saw Cuba Gooding Jr. at a bar and I smiled at him one of those smiles you give celebrities to say, “I see you and I like your work and I won’t bother you, I’m cool,” but this smile convinced him he knew me, and he stopped me to ask how my mom was doing. It’s just something about me. Celebrity Boyfriend is doing this now, I can see in his eyes he’s searching to place me, and I think, “I’m here. Place me here.” And as his mouth goes to form words I think, “Is this happening?” But the doors shut. The train whirs by.
I turn and say, “Did that really just happen?” aloud to no one.
The five warning signs of a stroke are:
- Sudden NUMBNESS or weakness of face, arm, or leg, especially on one side of the body.
- Sudden CONFUSION, trouble speaking or understanding speech.
- Sudden TROUBLE SEEING in one or both eyes.
- Sudden TROUBLE WALKING, dizziness, loss of balance, or coordination.
- Sudden SEVERE HEADACHE with no known cause.
For weeks to come I’ll reimagine this moment. Instead of the train whirring by, he steps outside: we were both on our way home—my home, our home—and didn’t even realize we were on the same train. How funny. We laugh. We walk together, his arm around my waist, our bodies jostling beside one another as we head up the block. He takes the dog out for a walk while I start dinner: a perfect pasta pomodoro (maybe even focaccia?) and an old world red wine. For dessert we make banana bread, and I smack his hand away from the loaf pan and chide him to let it cool, but he disobeys. He pulls a chunk from the corner of the loaf and feeds it to me—I feed it to me. It’s sweet. Warm and sticky off my fingers.
I stop myself half a thought before I think, “Is this sad?” I know the moment right before I will think this and wake myself up and pretend like he wasn’t there at all.
And he wasn’t. He has a girlfriend.