Love Notebook #5
This is a love story for the creeps and the stalkers and the freaks; for the people who call you 46 times in a row when you don’t pick up the first time; for the ones who convince you that it’s totally normal that they watch you sleep; for the people who think all your friends want to sleep with you; for the people who don’t know when to let go; for the people who delete all the photos of your exes from your computer when you’re not home; and for the people who will only know how to love in their own fucked up ways.
I loved you, too.
I sat on the edge of my bed and waited. I counted the hangers on the rod in my open closet to try and relax. The clock on my nightstand read 4:37 PM. It had been 53 minutes since I had left my now ex-girlfriend at her job and driven home. She hadn’t let me drop her off at the door, pulling away from my grasp as I tried to keep her in the car. I had broken up with her a few minutes before and we were both red faced with swollen eyes from crying. She slapped my hand away and slammed the door as she stalked away.
I rolled down the window and tried to convince her to get back in the car but she just walked faster, wiping at her eyes. I stopped the car in front of the door and watched her walk in. I put the car into drive and drove home, shutting off the radio angrily at a red light. I parked in my driveway and walked inside my house in a daze. My roommate Karen was sitting on the couch with her laptop and looked up as I walked in. The smile fell off her face as she saw me sniffling and weepy.
“Oh my god, Anaïs, what happened?” she asked, putting aside her MacBook Pro and standing up.
“We broke up.” I put down my keys on the coffee table and stood with my hands awkwardly at my sides.
“Oh honey, I’m sorry. Who did the actual breaking up?” She put her hand on my back.
“Me. I’m fucking suffocating and I got this email from Max yesterday that just made me realize that I can’t be with her anymore.”
“Anaïs, please tell me you did not break up with Alyssa because you want to get back together with Max. Just tell me anything else but don’t tell me that because I will kill you.” Her eyes squinted as she looked at me sharply.
“No, definitely not but there are still feelings there and I can’t be with someone who just gave me an almost engagement ring when I might have feelings for my ex.”
“Well, I’m glad you ended things with her. She’s been living here rent-free for three months and barely even paying for her small portion of the utilities. She’s fucking trash.” She pulled her laptop onto her lap again.
“Don’t say that, she’s just been struggling since her mom cut her off.” I sat back and hugged a cushion to my chest. “It’s not like our situation where our parents find out we’re dating a girl and they just ignore it.”
“Well, that’s because our parents realize that they’d rather have semi-dyke daughters with careers than homeless, penniless ones in the future.”
“You’re such a bitch.” I laughed and relaxed a little bit.
“I know, darling.” Karen turned her attention back to her laptop.
She tapped at her keyboard as I sat still and tried to calm down. My hands were still shaky and my stomach had been a mess since that morning; I was never good at breaking up with anyone and never would be. My phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans and I took it out to check it. I had a text message from her. I swallowed and flipped it open to read it.
Were you going to tell me that he emailed you? Yeah, I read your email, you fucking slut.
“Oh my god.” My mouth hung open as I read the text again in my head.
“What? Is it her?” Karen leaned over and grabbed my phone from me. “Oh shit. I can’t believe she read your email. How did she get your password?”
“I don’t know, she must have copied it to herself some time when she used my laptop, all my passwords are saved on there.” I started to cry again.
“No, calm down. You have to reply. This is creepy shit, Anaïs, get it together.” She held my phone in her hands. “Now. Tell me what you want to say and I’ll type it.”
“What do I say to that? Fuck.” I sniffled. “Okay. Say ‘Why did you read my email? That has nothing to do with us breaking up’. Does that sound okay?”
“Perfect,” she said as she typed the message and hit send. “I would have been meaner though.”
“Whatever. My skin’s crawling, I can’t believe she would do that.”
“I can, girl’s a total possessive creep.” Karen eagerly held onto my phone waiting for the response to come.
“She’s not that bad, Karen.” I bounced my left leg up and down. “She just gets jealous a lot.”
My phone vibrated in Karen’s hand and we both jumped. Karen flipped it open and we read the reply.
I read it cause I knew there was a reason you were leaving me and it’s that dick. I’m coming to your house to get some of my shit now, Jen’s going to pick me up in 30 minutes.
“Oh shit,” Karen said, looking from the phone to my face. “This is going to be bad.”
“No shit, Sherlock. Oh god.” I took deep breaths as I tried to avoid a panic attack. “She’s going to kill me.”
“She’s not going to kill you, she’s just going to cry and scream and be dramatic as all fuck.” She closed her laptop and stood up with it. “I’ll be in my room if you need first aid afterward. Or a drink.”
“You’re leaving me to get my ass kicked by my ex-girlfriend?” I was terrified of what Alyssa would do if she encountered me alone. That should have been a sign that she was someone to never, ever be with.
“You’ll be fine, I promise.” She looked down at me thoughtfully. “You need to do this on your own, you’re twenty.”
“Fine but if I die, you’ll be sorry.”
I stood up and followed her down the hallway to our bedrooms. She gave me a little wave as she walked into her room and closed the door. I was alone now and terror set in. I walked into our bedroom, my bedroom now, and looked around. Framed photos of Alyssa and I were all over. Post-its covered my desk with little hearts and “love you”s and seemed to be a pox over every surface. I was overwhelmed by her things everywhere: her gym bag, her shoes lined up on her side of the closet, her psychology textbooks piled on her nightstand. I sat down on the edge of the bed and this is where I was waiting when I heard her open and then slam the front door closed.
Alyssa was probably the most petite girl I had ever known but her footsteps made her presence known even on carpet. I heard her make her way down the hallway to our room. She opened the door forcefully and looked at me sitting on the bed. She was sweaty from walking to my house in the sun and her face was swollen from crying. Closing the door behind her, she stared at me, her jaw set.
“Stand up,” she said. I was too overwhelmed to move and started crying again. “I told you to stand up, you slut.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not a slut.” My voice was shaky as I spoke.
“Yes, you are. Your ex-boyfriend emails you and you break up with your girlfriend? What do you call that?” Her arms were at her sides and seemed to twitch.
“That’s not why I broke up with you, I don’t want to be with you because I’m not happy with you and I can’t lie to you about it anymore.” I shifted from one foot to another.
“You were happy last week, you were happy the month before that and all the months before that. Why now? Oh, right, Max.” Her voice was angry but her eyes were full of tears.
“I don’t know if I love you anymore. I don’t feel how I used to.” I gulped as she looked hard at me. “It wasn’t fair to you, I’m sorry.”
Alyssa looked at me without moving for a few moments before letting out the most pained cry I’d ever heard in my life. She sobbed and I moved towards her, taking her into my arms. She pushed me away and backed against the wall.
“I never want you to touch me again, you’re disgusting,” she spat out, tears running down her face onto her collarbones.
“I just want to hug you, I’m sorry.” I was crying as well and still tried to move closer to her. “I feel terrible.”
“You should feel terrible. You’ve ruined my fucking life. I have nowhere to go now and that doesn’t even really matter because I hope I fucking die.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Is that all you have to say? Is that really all you have to fucking say right now?” She was shouting, a rare thing for her to do.
“I don’t know what to say, Al,” I whispered.
“Don’t call me that, don’t even say my name. I never want to hear my name on your lips ever again.”
She pushed away from the wall and walked towards the closet. She began pulling her shirts and pants and shorts off the hangers and holding them in a huge pile in her arms. Throwing them on the floor, she grabbed her duffel bag from the top shelf of the closet and began shoving clothing inside the bag.
“Let me help,” I said, hovering around her.
“I don’t want your help, you’ve done enough.”
She half zipped the overflowing bag and left it on the floor as she walked into the bathroom. I followed her and stood in the doorway as she grabbed an armful of her shampoo and body wash and deodorant and toothpaste and everything else she could carry. She dropped all of it into her backpack and closed it.
Walking over to the wall, she pulled a framed photo of the two of us off and smashed it over her knee. She let the debris fall to the ground before tucking the photo in her back pocket. I looked at her, horrified.
“You don’t deserve to keep these,” she said, as she took another photo off the wall and did the same thing.
Soon the floor was covered in glass and cardboard and wood, and brightly colored images of our ski trip and Halloween and days at the beach were sticking out of her back pocket. I stood in front of my desk on one side of the bed as she stood on the opposite side of the bed. She suddenly remembered and looked directly at me.
“Give me the ring,” she said.
“Here,” I said, as I tried to walk around to hand it to her.
“I told you to not come any closer,” she almost shouted. “I don’t want you to hand it to me, I don’t want to touch your fucking hand.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” I seethed at being treated like a leper by someone who had just had their hands all over me not two days before.
“I don’t give a shit what I’m being, I just don’t want you near me,” she said. “Now throw it on the bed.”
“Fine.”
I pulled off the diamond and white gold ring she had given me a few weeks before for an anniversary and placed it in the middle of the bed. It had been an engagement ring of sorts, she had given it to me as a token of her commitment to me and I put it on my left ring finger; things had gone downhill from the moment I received it. I didn’t want it. I was happy to give it back to her. The ring lay between us for half a minute before Alyssa reached out and scooped it into her pocket. We stared at each other.
“I should never have given you this ring,” she muttered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying you’re fucking sorry. It doesn’t even mean anything, you just feel bad because this is uncomfortable for you.”
Her phone rang and she answered it. From her end of the conversation, it seemed to be Jen, her sorority sister, on her way to pick her up. Alyssa hung up the phone and slid it into her pocket. She looked at me for a second before going to gather her packed things up in her arms.
“I don’t want help, so don’t even ask,” she said, reading my guilty mind.
“Okay.” I watched her put on her backpack and throw her duffel bag over her shoulder. “What about the rest of your stuff?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll come back for it in a few days when you’re not here and I’ll leave my key.” She opened the bedroom door and began walking down the hallway.
I followed her as she walked towards the front door. I knew I could stop her at any time. I could apologize, say that I had been temporarily deranged, but I didn’t want to. As guilty as I felt, this was right. She looked back at me at the door.
“Have fun with your boyfriend,” she said, holding the door open. She walked through it and closed it behind her.
It was over. I stood in the living room for a while staring at the door. Soon I walked down the hallway towards my room only to find Karen peeking her head out of her room and looking at me eagerly.
“That sounded bad. Are you okay?” she asked, as she opened the door and stepped out of her room.
“Yeah, I’m okay.” I felt exhausted. “Can you make me a drink?”
“On it, you read my mind.”
She passed me on her way to the kitchen and walked directly to the fridge. I followed and sat down at the glass kitchen table. Karen pulled a bottle of Absolut purchased by older friends out of the freezer and a carton of orange juice out of the fridge. She filled two tall glasses with ice and sat down across from me as she poured us each a screwdriver. I drank mine down in a few gulps and Karen sipped faster to keep up. She poured two more and we drank them quickly. We didn’t talk much just sat together getting increasingly intoxicated as the sun set outside the kitchen window.
Soon we moved to drinking the vodka by itself and finished off the bottle. Looking around the kitchen made me dizzy so I put my head down on the table. The glass was cool against my cheek. Karen put her head down as well and we marveled at how much we had had to drink in such a short time. We giggled incoherently until Karen began snoring softly. I lifted my heavy head and stumbled down the hallway towards my room, falling against the walls as my jelly-boned legs seemed to collapse with every step.
I walked inside my room and looked at the hazy mess on the floor. Broken glass was everywhere and I had no idea what to do with it. I started to cry as I realized what had happened a few hours before. I wiped my face as I took off all my clothes and got into bed. The sheets smelled like both of us, our fluids from the last time we had sex just a few days before. I rolled onto my side and my pillow became wet as I cried. At some point, I blacked out; the day was over, it was all done.
I woke up the next morning hungover and remained hungover for the next few days. I skipped classes and got a haircut and a manicure. I reread Lolita and avoided calls and texts from our mutual friends telling me that I was being a bitch. It’s not until a breakup occurs that you find out who your real friends are; I didn’t have many left in that town.
Alyssa came with her friends a few days later to get the rest of her things. She didn’t want me to be there so I drove around the block 87 times, making sure that she didn’t burn down my house. I watched her as she got into her friend’s car and left, her face drawn and tired. I pulled back into my driveway and went inside to inspect the expected damage and found the room pristine. I noticed she had taken a photo of herself from my bulletin board and walked over to sit at my desk. I opened my laptop and waited as it woke up from sleep. She had taken all the Post-its she had written me but I noticed a new one still on the pad written with a blue marker that sat next to it.
Who’s to say?
I looked at it and recognized the lyric from our song, a Vanessa Carlton one. I felt awkward reading it. She had obviously left it for me to find but I couldn’t figure out why. Did she have hope for getting back together? That seemed an unlikely possibility after the things that had been said. Not to mention, I had indeed begun talking to my ex-boyfriend Max again and we seemed to be moving towards a long distance reunion. I wondered what was going through her head. I folded the Post-it in half and stuck it in my desk drawer; I didn’t want to think about it anymore that day. I signed into my email and put it out of my mind. She and I were done.
Three weeks later, Alyssa and I had both moved on. She was dating a bright eyed freshman girl she met at the local gay club and I was sharing late night phone sessions with Max. She put her new relationship status on Facebook and it was official. I was slightly miffed; Max was excited.
“Now that she’s with some girl, we can put our relationship status up, baby,” he said as we chatted on the phone.
“No, you don’t know how she is. She’ll freak out.” I chewed on my nails as I considered her reaction.
“We can’t hide forever. Besides she probably thinks we’re together anyways so what does it matter?”
“I guess you’re right.” I clicked on the open Facebook tab and sent Max a relationship request. “There.”
He confirmed it and there it was on Facebook, making it official in all social circles. I expected Alyssa to burst through my window at any second to strangle me. I was nervous. I said good night to Max and hung up the phone. I went back to Facebook to continue my ex stalking and looked at photos of Alyssa and her new girlfriend. I was way cuter than this girl. She was obviously some sort of rebound thing. I clicked on picture after picture of the two of them and realized that they looked sort of happy. Jealous, I closed my computer and went to sleep.
I was late to class the next morning and stumbled over my own feet as I made my way from my illegally parked car to class. I spilled hot soy latte over my hand and stopped to lick it off before it got all over my clothes. Out of the corner of my eye, I felt like someone was watching me and I turned in that direction. Nothing. I finished cleaning off my hand and walked towards my classroom building for what was left of Latin American history. I tried to look busy as I took notes and avoided my professor’s cold looks.
Class ended and I walked back out into the cool March day, lighting a cigarette as I strolled underneath the trees. I enjoyed the weather as I walked, hoping I wouldn’t get a parking ticket for being parked in the wrong area. Nearing my car, I saw the familiar paper under the windshield and stomped my foot. I walked up to my car and grabbed it angrily when I realized it was just a folded piece of notebook paper. My relief at not receiving a ticket faded as I unfolded it and read it.
I miss the way your cunt tastes.
My eyes widened and I looked around me quickly. It was Alyssa’s handwriting and I wondered if she was watching me from some corner to see my reaction. I folded it until it was small and put it in my pocket. I got in my car and sat there for a while. I was disturbed and anxious but aroused. Even if she wasn’t around at that moment, I knew she was watching me in her mind’s eye. I shook the thought from my mind and drove around town for a while.
I aimlessly drove around campus for thirty minutes looking at all the students bustling about. I reached the edge of campus and turned right on 441 as I rolled my windows down. I pressed on the gas as I drove towards Paynes Prairie with the stereo all the way up. Wind made my hair fly around my face as I drove and I let one arm hang out the window. I needed to let my mind be, just for a minute; it had been full from the minute I told Alyssa it was over. I hadn’t stopped going and going. I wanted to stare at brush and animals and let my head empty.
I sang along to Ryan Adams until I noticed that a white car had been following me for a bit. I had seen the car on campus but didn’t think anything of it. Now it had been tailing me for a good while. I couldn’t believe what I was thinking. I picked up my phone off the passenger seat and texted Alyssa.
I know this is ridiculous because you don’t have a car and I’m on 441 right now but are you following me?
I hit send and waited a second before closing it. It vibrated almost instantly. I opened it again to read the reply.
I got a new car a few days ago and I wouldn’t call it following. I’m not sure what I’m doing. Pull over at the observation deck.
I was going to argue with her but it was where I was going anyways so I accelerated and spent the next ten minutes of driving seething. I made the left hand turn to the gravel parking area and sat in the car until Alyssa pulled in and parked next to me. I watched her get out of her car before I opened the door and stepped out. We met in between our cars. She looked spent. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail and her shoulders were hunched in her loose t-shirt. She stared at me.
“So now that we’re here, are you going to tell me why you’re following me?’ I asked her, sounding braver than I felt.
“I don’t know.” She shrugged at me. “I haven’t been right since we broke up.”
“You have a girlfriend, you seem happy enough in all your photos.” Even I thought I sounded bitter.
“Fuck, Anaïs. Do you really think I can really feel anything like I felt for you for someone I’ve been dating for less than a month?”
“I don’t know, you moved on fast enough, what am I supposed to think?” I could feel a headache coming behind my eyes.
“You left me, you fucking crazy girl!” She yelled at me. Her hands were in front of her, probably ready to strangle me. “You broke up with me after I told you I wanted to spend my fucking life with you!”
“I know, I’m sorry.” I backed closer to my car. “I know I have no right but I’m still fucking upset that you moved on so fast after giving me such shit about me being the one.”
“I haven’t moved on, I’m going through the fucking motions with this girl.” She looked on the verge of tears. “All I do is think about you and compare everything about her to you. The things she says, how she eats her cereal, the way she feels when we’re fucking. I spend every waking hour and even the ones where I’m not awake thinking about you. I’m a fucking mess.”
I didn’t know what to say as she started to cry in front of me. I just watched her and didn’t move. A group of girls that looked to be our age pulled up and parked. They looked at us curiously as they made their way onto the observation deck. I could hear them whispering as they walked away. I looked at Alyssa thoughtfully.
“I’m a mess, too, you know,” I said.
“No, you’re not.” She sniffled. “You’re with that fucker and now your life is perfect. You got your dyke phase out of the way and now you can go back to that dick. Remember how you spent months when we first met telling me how he made you feel so fucking small, so fucking bad about yourself?”
“Things are different with him now, they’re good.” I was telling myself this as much as I was telling her. “Besides you made me feel just as bad about myself so who gives a shit.”
Her eyes flared in a way I had never seen, not even on the day I broke up with her, and she lunged at me with one arm up ready to hit me. I was quick and grabbed her arm and held it above our heads, my fingers gripped around her slim forearm. She looked me in the eye for a full minute before pressing her mouth against mine. Her breath was stale but my lips parted for her tongue out of habit as well as desire. I held onto her arm but she pushed me against my car as her free hand roamed down the front of my pants. She kissed my neck as she slid a finger inside me.
“You’re wet,” she murmured into my ear. “I must have not made you feel so bad then.”
“No, don’t turn it around like that.” I barely managed to get the words out as she moved her fingers inside my panties.
“I missed your cunt. Apparently, it missed me, too.” She took her hand out of my pants and licked her fingers.
“No, it fucking didn’t,” I said as I pushed her off me. She stumbled against her own car. “This is what I mean. You don’t fucking own me, you sick bitch. I don’t want to be with you because you’re controlling and manipulative, not to mention, ragingly insecure. You can’t scare me into wanting you anymore, you’re not that powerful.”
Alyssa stared at me for a long time before wiping her hand on her jeans. I swallowed and looked back. I’d never been that honest with her before.
“It’s not that simple, Anaïs.” She took her keys out of her pocket and began to walk around to the driver’s side of the car. “None of it is and you know it.”
She unlocked the door and got in the car. I heard the engine turn over and she reversed out of her space before speeding onto the road, not looking at me. Her car became tiny in the distance. It would be a long time before I saw her again. I leaned against my car for a while. I heard the group of girls chattering as they walked back to the parking lot. I got back inside my car and turned onto 441, my windows up this time. I screamed by myself and I didn’t feel any better. I called Max when I got home and acted entirely normal for that phone call and for the next three months; he and I didn’t last any longer than that spring.
The early summer sun beat down on me as I walked into my summer session Introduction to Women’s Studies class. I took a seat in the middle of the room and opened my notebook. I wrote the date in the top right hand corner and underlined it like I always did. Looking up, I saw Alyssa walk in the room, followed closely by her girlfriend. She smirked at me and took a seat in the row in front of me as her girlfriend sat next to her. They chatted until the professor came in and began calling names for attendance. Alyssa took out her phone and began to fiddle with it; soon my bag began to vibrate. She couldn’t be more obvious if she tried. I opened my phone.
I like your hair. Lunch?
I closed my phone and exhaled. I couldn’t believe she was this insane. I answered when the teacher called my name and focused on taking notes. Whenever I looked up, she was peeking back at me, turning her head to the front when I caught her. I was livid watching her look at me while her oblivious girlfriend stared at the syllabus in front of her. To this day, I don’t know what I saw in Alyssa. We had little in common, she hated anything new or different, and she didn’t understand me at all. We dated for the better part of a year and I can honestly say she had no idea who I was at all. She wasn’t even that attractive. I couldn’t explain my attraction to her, to the downward spiral that constituted our relationship, but I knew that I wanted her more than she annoyed me or pissed me off time and again.
Everyone has someone like that. As soon as said person is out of the room, you realize that he or she is a grade-A moron but as soon as you see them, it’s hard to not fall into the same trap. There’s an inexplicable draw to the people who are wrong for you, bad for you; it’s for those of us who yell that there’s trouble when nothing’s wrong. You need to destroy things especially yourself. You find those people who will help you destroy yourself faster, the really fucked up weirdos who know how to hit the spots that will sting every single time. You tell yourself again and again that it doesn’t make sense and you’re not happy yet there you are, not falling, but jumping back in.
I opened my phone halfway through class and replied to her text.
Meet me at my car at one.
©Anaïs Escobar
