For a brief time in my life I was a proud pet owner. It was when I was five and still living in Chicago. There was a stray cat that would walk by every day around four in the evening and I would watch it curiously through the window as I sat inside my house. My five year old self, not realizing what the result of it would be, started to leave food out for the cat every day. Pretty soon it no longer simply walked by, but found a permanent residence on our front step.
I named her Georgia. My parents were extremely reluctant to letting me keep her at first but I managed to convince them with a well thought out argument and my cute five year old voice. Looking back on it I'm shocked that they let me keep her for as long as I did.
I loved Georgia with every ounce of my small body. Unfortunately she didn't feel the same way. She tolerated my love but she stayed for the food. My five year old brain couldn't fully comprehend this but I knew at the time that my love for her wasn't reciprocated. The scratches down my arms and her resistance to being held only proved this.
She stuck around for a few months but then one day she was gone. She disappeared and I remember feeling heartbroken even though she never cared about me the way I cared about her. I could tell she wished she did. I could tell she wanted to love me, but it wasn't possible for her. I have a specific memory of her lying on the end of my bed and her looking up at me, letting out a soft 'meow' and I knew she was trying to say she was sorry for not loving me.
Maybe that's why she left? She didn't want to put me through the pain.
...
"So was it good then?" I ask, licking the fruity popsicle before the sticky juice runs down my hand.
The setting sun is shining in my eyes but the warmth feels nice on my skin, so I can't complain. We walk slowly next to each other down the street, our arms occasionally brushing against one another.
"Was what good?" Harry looks down at me, confused, licking his own popsicle.
Things have been a little off for us since the wedding a few days ago but I think we're both trying our best to get through it. I had dinner with Harry and Matt's family and after offering to help clean the dishes and being denied by Bonnie, Harry and I decided to go for a walk. He may have stolen the popsicles from the freezer before we left. He was very stealthy about it, even though I don't think anyone cared if we took them in the first place.
"The sex," I say like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Harry makes this funny coughing noise, almost choking on the air flowing into his lungs. "You know, with Lauren."
"Why do you ask that?"
I shrug my shoulders, taking another lick of the sweet popsicle. "Because, you obviously stayed with her for some reason... I bet she was killer in bed. I never knew the girl but from what you told me the other night that had to have been it, must have been really good for all the shit she put you through."
Harry starts laughing loudly and it surprises me that he doesn't drop the half eaten popsicle on the ground because of it. I have to stop walking to let Harry laugh to himself, crouching down and holding his knees. I stand in one place, staring at him and try to figure out why it's so funny.
"Oh, Elle," he snorts. "You are just so crude sometimes."
"What?" I smile. "It seems like a perfectly logical theory."
Harry shakes his head at me with his hands on his hips. If he wasn't still laughing a little I would think he looked like a disappointed parent, tapping his toe at me.
"It wasn't all bad," he starts walking forward.
"The sex?" I walk quickly to catch up with him. I can't stop the words from coming out of my mouth. God, why am I being so insistent with this?
"No," he huffs out. "The whole relationship. It wasn't all shit."
I look at him curiously. How is it that I went from not wanting to know any details of people's sad lives to wanting to know everything about Harry's? Months ago I didn't even care enough to ask him why his 'relationship' was complicated and now I'm staring at him, licking a popsicle, impatiently waiting for him to continue.
"There were good times," he talks as though he's trying to convince himself as much as he's trying to convince me. "Especially toward the beginning, we used to be able to spend hours together doing nothing. We grew up together and she always knew how to put a smile on my face. The problem was as we grew up she stopped wanting to do that as often.
"That's what I was talking about, only loving her on the good days. They were becoming less and less frequent leading up to her death but there was still enough to keep me from fully giving up. I wanted her to be that person for me so badly. I had imagined it for years when I was kid... but she just wasn't."
I wish I could have known Harry then and maybe have been able to somehow make it better. It's difficult enough to see him now, still feeling the pain from it all. I don't know how to respond because the closest thing I have to relate to this is my awful cat Georgia when I was five, which isn't even the same at all. I don't think I can even try to claim that I understand what Harry is going through.
"The sex was good too," he quickly adds, laughing quietly to himself.
"You're such a boy."
"You're the one who asked!" he tries to defend himself. Of course I'm only teasing him. If anything I'm the one who is 'such a boy' for assuming sex was the only reason he stayed with Lauren as long as he did.
"Yeah, yeah," I roll my eyes. "I mean I can't blame you, good sex is hard to pass up."
"Can we please not talk about this," he looks embarrassed, which only makes me want to talk about it more.
"Why not, Harold?" I smile deviously. "We're two mature people, friends at that. I think it's perfectly acceptable to talk about the intimacy in relationships."
"Elle," he glares at me as we continue to walk down the street.
"C'mon, we've had plenty of conversations about blow jobs in the past. One more isn't going to kill us." I laugh loudly as his face becomes more mortified by the minute. I've forgotten how wonderful it is to make Harry uncomfortable like this.
"It's not the same."
"And why not?" I question, hoping our encounter a few nights ago didn't ruin our ability of having inappropriate conversations. I've always enjoyed those.
He looks at me annoyed and I don't understand why he is getting so worked about this. I want to think he's joking around and soon enough he'll start laughing hysterically like he normally does. However I don't think that's the case this time as his eyes don't show any sign of easiness.
"I-don't-want-to-talk-about-blowjobs-while-you're-eating-that-popsicle," he says the sentence so quickly that I wouldn't have even thought it was him if I wasn't watching his mouth move. Considering his normal calm and slow speech I find this surprising. It takes everything I have in me not to laugh at him. I really try to hold it in, already sensing the weird sensitivity in the subject.
"Because I'm eating a popsicle," I chuckle slightly, desperately fighting the fit of laughter. "That's why you don't want to talk about it?"
"Yeah," he says quietly, looking down at his feet as we walk.
I so badly want to give him a hard time about this and part of me wants to do something to put him on edge. I don't though for some reason. I'm not sure what the exact reasoning for this is, but I think it has something to do with the fact that Harry isn't smiling about it anymore. In fact he seems to be thinking very hard about something.
"Okay," I shrug. I try to think of something different to talk about that doesn't include Lauren or anything involving sucking and frozen treats. "It sure is nice out tonight," I say quietly, looking around at the neighborhood.
It's a classic awkward small talk move that I've picked up over the years. And it's true, it is nice out tonight. The whole neighborhood is in a sleepy summertime state while the sun warms the ground. But I'm wondering how it came to this? How did it come to awkwardly talking about the weather with Harry?
"Ellison, I don't want to be your friend."
He says the words as though he had to get them out of his mouth as quickly as possible otherwise they would make him sick. I look up at him appalled. Then I drop the half eaten popsicle on the ground, it lands in a sticky splash.
What did he just say?
"What?"
"Shit," he looks down at the popsicle on the ground, which looks like it exploded. "That's not what I mean. I mean I don't want to be just friends with you."
"What?" I repeat the word again, feeling just as shocked at this version as I did with the original.
By this point we're standing on the sidewalk facing each other in front of some random person's house. I haven't moved an inch since he said he didn't want to be friends and my heart is jumping up and down in my chest. I'm not sure what's wrong with me but I feel like if I were to try to move I might throw up.
"Umm," he stutters, hesitant at what he's saying. "The other night after we kissed you asked if we could just be friends and I said yes. I was lying, Elle, I don't want that."
"Harry, stop," I don't want him to continue. I'm afraid if he does we're going to get to a point of no return. He doesn't listen to me though.
"No," he shakes his head quickly. "I need to say this. I know you told me not to and I know I said I wouldn't but I can't help it, Elle. I really tried for it not to happen, I really tried."
I have a feeling I know exactly where this is going and I wish I could walk away before he gets it out. My feet seem to be stuck to the pavement of this suburban sidewalk so instead I stay facing him. It's as though the strongest of superglues are keeping them here and I can't physically move.
"I don't want to keep doing this, pretending that I don't feel this way. I can't stop thinking about the wedding and kissing you, and if I don't say this now I'm not sure I'll ever manage to do it."
Please Harry, please stop.
"Harry-."
I'm not quick enough.
"I love you," he says at the same time as I say his name. He's completely ignoring the fact that I've been trying to keep him from saying anything this whole time. "I love you, Ellison."
Fuck. This wasn't supposed to happen. This really, really, really wasn't supposed to happen. I stand here staring at Harry surely with my mouth wide open, although I'm not positive on that one, trying to figure out what to say but that's nearly impossible because I'm not even sure how to feel.
Harry takes my silence as his cue to go on but honestly I just wish he would shut his mouth so I could think. So I could think of a way to go back in time and stop us before this moment happened.
This really wasn't supposed to happen.
"I love you so much it makes me crazy," he breathes out, pulling on his hair slightly. "I know I said I wasn't sure what love is, and honestly I still don't, but whatever it is I feel it for you."
The only thing that keeps repeating in my head are those words 'I love you, Ellison' and even though I can see the sincerity in Harry's eyes, I know that the words cannot be true. They just can't. He can't love me.
"I didn't think this would happen because I haven't known you long and my mind wasn't in a great place when I got here but God, Elle, that isn't the case. I feel like I've never known someone as well as I know you and even though you can be a complete grump at times you can also be the happiest, most carefree person I've ever met. And that smile you make every time I walk into Annie's, that really gets me, I don't think I've ever felt happier than in those moments with that smile.
"I tried not to fall in love with you, I really did. I tried to convince myself all of the reasons why it wouldn't work, all of the reasons you would be bad for me. I might have been able to do it if you were the girl I thought you were at the beginning of the summer. But you're so much more than that."
I don't think I've blinked once since Harry started talking. I'm not sure I can move my body at all. All I can do is stand here like an idiot as Harry spills his heart out to me. I wish I could say something but I wouldn't even know what to say.
"And fuck," he sighs, pacing quickly back and forth. "Now I'm babbling and this isn't exactly how I wanted to say this but," he stops moving and looks at me again. "I love you," he says the words quietly and I try so hard to believe him.
"Harry," I'm surprised I can get his name out, let alone actually speak.
"Lauren might have a small section of my heart that those heart warriors won't give up on, but you. You have most of it and they like you a lot more," he smile slightly.
My heart sinks even deeper. Why does he have to do this? Why does he have to stand there looking at me with big eyes just waiting for me to say the words back? Why does he have to be so god damn cute?
Why do I have to do this? Why do I have to ruin it all?
All of these questions are running through my mind but the one that seems to be the hardest for me to answer is, why do I care? Before I met Harry I wouldn't have given much thought to this situation and I think I would have easily walked away, maybe even laughed about it. But I can't do that.
"Harry," I repeat his name again. He still looks at me hopeful that whatever I say will be some sort of a good sign, which only makes it harder to speak my next words. "I can't-,"
I can't even finish the sentence. I want to be able to do it quickly. Just rip it off like a band aid in hopes that it will somehow make it easier for the both of us. It's so difficult to finish this sentence though. Every moment I don't say something the smile that was on Harry's face fades more and more.
"I can't," I say it again. "I can't do that."
I can't even manage to say that I can't love him and this is the closest thing I get to it. I care about Harry a lot more than I'd like to admit but I can't tell him I love him. It wouldn't be right to lead us both on when I know in the end it wouldn't work.
"Ellison," he mutters my name, barely making a sound. "Don't do this," he whispers, knowing exactly what I'm thinking but dreading it very much.
"I'm sorry," I say about just as quiet as him, looking down at the ground. I can't bring myself to look at him, it would hurt too much.
"Elle," I feel him grab my shoulder. "Ellison," his hand is on my chin gently pushing it up so I will look at him. Normally I would feel the need to push it away but I can't stand to think of doing anything else to Harry with my already disappointing words.
I look at him but it's possibly the hardest thing I've ever done. His eyes are watery and clearly sad but I can still see some sort of hope behind them. I really wish I could stop myself from crushing that hope.
The truth is I really am sorry. I wish I could love Harry. I wish I could love him as much as he claims to love me, but I can't. It scares me so much, that word love. It scares me so much that it forces me to push away someone who might actually mean it.
"Don't try to push me away right now," he says calmly, despite the tears pooling in his eyes. "I know you don't want to do this. I know it. You love me too, you have to."
This is when I allow anger to take over. I might blame it on Harry's words but I'm sure it has more to do with the anger with myself.
"Harry I don't have to do anything. I don't have to love you."
"Please," he's pacing again. Only this time it isn't because he's nervous from the words rambling out of his mouth. He's pacing with a far more distressed look on his face and it's as though he's just begging me to say something he actually wants to hear.
"I told you this would happen," I say coldly.
"It doesn't have to be this way though, Elle," he looks at me desperately. "You don't have to do this."
"I do."
My feet figure out they can function again and I use this moment to get away as quickly as I possibly can. I can't stand here and listen to Harry try to beg me to be anything different than I am. I feel terrible for hurting him in ways I was so angry that other people had done to him in the past. I don't want it to be this way, but it has to be. So I leave the boy, who is the only best friend I've ever had, on the street. I leave the boy who just professed his love to me.
I'm running at this point. Running to get away from Harry and his words that make my own heart ache. I look back once to see him still standing on the sidewalk, completely still. I'm sure he's in shock. I'm sure he's feeling so hurt that he can't even move. Seeing him like this, even with the distance, makes me feel like even more of an awful person. He doesn't chase me this time though and while I'm glad he doesn't, part of me wishes he would.
I leave the boy who's so sweet and kind to me, the boy who has made my life better from the moment he first shoved his hand in my face to greet me. I still can't figure out all of the reasons why I have done this as I'm running away, but I know I have to.
I warned him. I told him that I would break his heart. I told him that first night on the porch. And as I'm running away from him I know I'm doing just that, I just didn't realize that I would be breaking my own along with it.
....
Wooaahhhhh. Don't hate me.
What do you think? Pretty crazy stuff. Anyways, what do you guys think of FOUR? Personally, I love it. I think Clouds and Stockholm Syndrome are my favorite songs.
Thanks for reading! I'll try not to keep you hanging for tooooo long.