You can learn a lot at the bottom.
In my early assistant days of working at a big company, a woman in her sixties who had been there for decades said to me, “It is of the utmost importance that you pick the right man.” I was sitting in her office after another failed situationship, “You can’t end up like me,” she said. She buys lottery tickets and doesn’t check the winning numbers for months; just so she can carry out hope that maybe…she’s won.
Ever since I was extremely young I have been absolutely fascinated by love. I loved playing house, I had my first boyfriend in kindergarten—I was convinced fate brought us together because we share the same birthday. When I was 15 I fell in love via Google Docs with a boy I met at summer camp. We were on opposite sides of the world when it happened, but I seriously contemplated moving to a small town and having a baby at 19. However, dating in my 20s has been something else entirely, and I have often found myself questioning if love exists at all, at least in the way I had imagined it.
I ran into an ex of mine recently while I was thrifting with a guy friend (I’ll call him Blake). Blake turned to me and said, “Man, you really do know how to pick ‘em.” I’ll never be sure if Blake feels the need to tell me that because he truly believes I always pick the wrong guys, or if it’s because I keep not picking him.
Needless to say, for better or for worse, that ex—the guy I met at a house in the middle of nowhere, during a summer night on a small island near my hometown— changed me. It was mid-pandemic, I was 20, and spending my summer on the island. He was only visiting for the weekend. A baggy pants wearing, spliff smoking, Arc’teryx fiend, skater, almost decade older than me (we are going to call him Jerry). The night I met Jerry was also the first time I saw a gun and cocaine in real life. Man, I do really know how to pick ‘em.
When I met Jerry, my friends and I were hanging out at the same house we had been hanging out at all summer, a house I wouldn’t let myself walk into now. I was sitting on the toilet drinking a glass of red wine, debating with my friends whether I should stay or call it a night. Earlier that day I cleaned puke off the patio of the restaurant we were working at. One of my friends was going to stay and one of them was going to leave—I decided to go with her, wave goodbye to Jerry and any possibility of something happening. I got in my friend’s car, put my seatbelt on, and watched Jerry from afar under the warm porch light. Something was propelling me back to the house, the need to know what would happen. I unbuckled my seatbelt and got out of the car, I stayed.
Before I knew it, Jerry and I were onto our second bottle of cheap Cabernet Sauvignon, and I tried cocaine for the first time. Jerry held me on the crumbling porch as the sun rose, then he led me into the guest room. I handed him a condom that his brother had given me, but he threw it in the corner of the room. That morning in July, he was inside me for the first time. He held me while we slept and said that our bodies fit perfectly together. He asked for my number and my Instagram.
The rest of summer passed and we both got back to the city. He took me to a park with a secret view of a glowing neon sign. We drank more Cab Sav, he introduced me to Alex G, and we ventured into what would become years of something I am not even sure how to name. He told me he couldn’t date me because of our age difference, but his actions showed me that he wouldn’t stop coming back, and it definitely wouldn’t stop him from sleeping with me for years.
Jerry asked me out for Valentine’s Day on the 13th of February. In the same text, he said, “Don’t read into it too much,” preparing me for his avoidance, and yet I hoped for more. He picked me up in his car, playing Brian Jonestown Massacre and Elliot Smith. We were just supposed to go for lunch but our date lasted into the night. I gave him a bracelet I had made out of rave girl kandi beads that spelled out his Instagram handle. He pissed in the shape of a heart in the snow for me. That night we sat in a cozy booth in a small dive bar, he told me he’d cheated on all of his exes. He said he didn’t want to do that to me, but knew it would happen if we were together for real. They say when you love someone, let them go, and I think I hoped he kept letting me go because he loved me.
Laksa noodle soup, spring rolls, and a few too many sour cocktails turned in my tummy as he led me into the house he shared with other skaters—a place I had been many times before, but only ever breezed through as I moved from the back door to his bedroom in the late hours of the night. We were sitting at a table covered in tobacco, weed, lighters, and skateboard wheels. He sparked up a spliff. I took one hit and sat up fast, something came up in my throat and I ran to his bathroom. He chased after me, closing the bathroom door behind him. In this fluorescent light he looked different, but still down at me, my head in the toilet, holding my own hair back. I looked up at him, teary eyed, saliva coming out of the sides of my mouth, just like he liked me—naive and vulnerable, but I guess not in this light. I knew that it would all be over soon, all over again.
Months and months later I lay there again, in his bed. A wilted pillow and pilling sheets beneath me, the only light aglow from an outdated computer open to a Spotify playlist he probably used a lot. Overflowing, my belly button was filled with liquid as I waited for him, staring at my worn black boots on the floor of his bedroom in the dark. If I wasn’t telling you, you wouldn’t have even known I was there. I looked at my belly button again, the liquid was rolling down the side of me and I felt sick. Sick like sitting in the backseat of the car playing Nintendo DS when I was 7. I played until I physically needed to stop because I would vomit. I just wanted to play on my DS, other kids did it without getting car sick, why couldn’t I?
His bedroom door opened, he was back. I sat up fast, the rest of the liquid spilling out of my belly button. I looked down in fear of his potential annoyance for making a mess but he didn’t notice, it was too dark. He had never asked me to bring my shoes into his bedroom before. Why couldn’t I leave my boots at the front door? He told me I couldn’t sleep over. I stood in the cold winter night, waiting for an Uber to take me home, it was almost 4:00 AM. I looked down at my boots, now in the snow, and felt sick again. Sick like you’re so hungry you get nauseous, and feel like you might fall over but don’t want to eat.
A week later he posted a photo dump of a trip with his girlfriend and the sickness returned. I cried and I felt betrayed. I felt like I was in the dark, in the dark was where he always left me. But I felt guilt, I feel guilt. Instead of cheating on me, he made me the woman that he cheated with. It was over, all over again, again.
Two years later, I stood foolishly in his empty apartment. His ex-girlfriend had just moved out. There I was, still years younger than he was when he met me. He told me how proud he was of me, of all I’ve accomplished, of all I’ve been through. He told me he still had the bracelet I made him, he told me how often he thought of me during our time apart. He was right, I had accomplished a lot, I had been through a lot—but all the years we had known each other, he had never once been there for me through any of it. All I had was a video of him pissing a heart in the snow from that Valentine’s Day 3 years before, and drunk texts or horny DMs. Yet, I stood there, in front of his refrigerator staring at a photo booth film strip of him and his ex-girlfriend; the only remains. The apartment was so empty and bare, a reflection of how he made me feel, and I felt more alone than I ever had. I hated that I had even gone there, but just like the first night we met, something propelled me towards him. I was never going to be the girl in the photo booth film strip.
I put so much pressure on myself, I forced myself to do so many things to be good enough, cool enough for him. I kept evolving, hoping he would want me. I kept the warm safe space I created for him open to return to whenever he pleased, without realizing that I was keeping space for something that wasn’t safe for me. I envied what he embodied and didn’t realize how much I played into it. This carefree, careless, cool guy facade that somehow allowed him to get what he wanted with no effort. I allowed him to continue for years no matter what it cost me. In the first year I knew him he texted me once saying, “U shine so bright and I just take it for granted.” He told me the truth from the beginning and I just chose to hope that one day he would treat me the way I deserved to be treated.
Months and months and months and months later I walked into a nail salon and I saw her, the woman from the photo booth film strip on the fridge in Jerry’s empty apartment. I saw his ex-girlfriend and she smiled at me. She looked beautiful and kind. I smiled back at her and started looking through the nail polish colours. She had no idea who I was. You can learn a lot at the bottom.
I used to think that the fact that he kept coming back was some sort of sign, a sign that we were meant to be in each other’s lives. It was as though I bought a lottery ticket and let years pass without checking the winning numbers, just to carry out the hope that maybe…I’d won.
He texted me out of the blue last Saturday. 4 years and 4 months since we met, I blocked his number for the first time.