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orchidwilt · 1 year

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what a time, what a time

(a song-inspired diary entry)

i feel a little nauseous and my hands are shaking

i see hundreds of cars every day working in the drive thru, and sure, every once in a while i’ll see the occasional dark red jeep that reminds me of yours. but i know it’s not your car, because it just never is. i thought you’d know better than to visit the store i worked at, but i guess you probably thought i wouldn’t be there, apparently we were both wrong.

but even though i know it’s not your car, my heart still flips at the sight. the idea of you coming through secretly excited me, i think some romantic part of me hoped you would try to remedy what you did while ordering some chicken.

i remember feeling scared too, like if you would pull through with a girl in your passenger seat or one of your friends that probably wouldn’t even know we knew each other. that’s how i would react realistically, i’d say, like a professional because i’m not getting paid to fulfill my personal vendetta i’m paid to take chicken orders.

i guess that means you’re close by

i saw the jeep roll around the corner far before you saw me i’m sure, and tried to will it to go into another lane so i wouldn’t have to think of it again. but of course, only two cars away was the owner of a crimson red jeep that was sincerely regretting his lane choice with every passing moment.

summer wind ripped through my hair and i straightened up, blinking surprise out of my eyes and tending to the car in front of me. but i knew what was happening, and ready or not you were going to have to talk to me.

my throat is getting dry and my heart is racing

the half second of eye contact we shared was enough to confirm my greatest fear as you stared straight at me. i wish your laser stare had disintegrated me, i really do.

i tried to stall the cars before you as i scrambled to think of how to handle this, but within minutes your tires rolled in front of my feet.

i haven’t been by your side in a minute

i remember coming out of the dorm hallway through those double doors and down the steps to your tinted windows. but as soon as i tried the door i was met with your smiling face fucking with the locks, every single time. in the nights where i hadn’t smiled in hours and called you to cheer myself up, that stupid prank was usually the first thing to break my mood.

that feels so far away, i suppose now it has been 8 months. but when you came through 6 months ago, you showed me the pain of strangers, to lovers, to strangers again.

i hate thinking about the way you looked at me. a icy blue wall of waiting for me to speak, lips pursed and eyebrows drawn. you were waiting for me to set the tone, but something in your eyes told me you already knew i wouldn’t pass this opportunity up. i had you trapped. i remember your eyes felt like you were monitoring my response to your presence. that pissed me off, how you ghosted me up until the very moment i had to make the first move.

but i think about it sometimes

“if you don’t have anything to say for yourself then go ahead and order.” my voice sounded strong, fueling to my anger above every other emotion. i pushed my panic down and took his order, a twinge of annoyance present in his tired voice. it made me angrier. i remember flicking his card from his hand, and firing some last remark before walking to my next car.

each step sent me further into the sky, walking away from someone i used to value but no longer know. details flooded back to me, the freckles on your face and what hung from your rearview mirror. my brain rushed to update my now painful memories of you with more accurate descriptions of your voice and your eyes, and suddenly i was the one that felt trapped.

even though i know it’s not so distant

the panic demanded to be felt. icy blue memory broke my mental dam and i was a flood in a paper cup at the weeks of heartache and confusion i experienced a month before this horrible day. i got through three cars before my hands shook too much to take orders and my breathing in the summer heat was beginning to concern the guest. “take a minute,” she said, and i snapped my head up as i realized she was a real person and i needed to stop interacting with guests before i started crying.

i shoved my shit to my coworker and sped into the restaurant, past your car waiting for your food but i didn’t look back at you, i knew my face was heating up and my efforts were focused on walking tall in case you noticed. i doubt you did.

oh no i still want to reminisce it

i was especially grateful for storage closets for the first time in my life, but hating how my sister in law had to rub my sweaty, shaking back as i blubbered to her about having to take the order of someone from the list of people i never wanted to see again. despite her efforts i was done working for the day and wanted to go take a shower and pack a bowl to take my mind off of it. i’m grateful i was able to leave, less grateful for feeling like taking care of my mental state gave you power.

but i felt like it did. because i went home and told a friend, and just like tonight the memories of our friendship felt visceral in my mind. it bubbles up and i distract myself, but like that day i decided to embrace it tonight and write this clusterfuck of a tumblr post.

i think of the night in the park it was getting dark and we stayed up for hours

we were in your new car then, the brand new crimson jeep you prided yourself on, one hand at 12:00 wrapped loosely around your steering wheel. that was the night we came up with our handshake and i showed you photos of how pretty i could be--but we were just friends, it was just mindless flirting, right? that’s what i thought when we pulled into a neighborhood you dared not to visit since your ex from so many years ago lived here. but we pulled up anyway because i gave you the confidence to show me this ethereal lake you hyped up so much. “the perfect date spot” i thought mainly you showed it to me to brag about being a local.

it was the spot of some magical date with her, and i could soon see why. clamoring out of the car and into the midnight cool air, immediately regretting my thin leggings and letting you get a blanket from your trunk for me. it was rancid, but i was cold and something about the classic florida brush and trees walling off the forest intrigued me.

so we ducked into a seemingly random area of trees near the car and stumbled down some wooden “path”, flashlights dashing wildly to the woods as i freaked you out about animals to ease my own fears. when we finally broke into a clearing that felt straight out of the hunger games, pure moonlight shone in pearlescent blues to the grass below. and the stars, god, you would have never guessed we were standing in the middle of a suburbia in florida. I remember stopping to take it all in when you continued to walk, even before the dock I knew this night would have any girl of yours swooning.

not me, though. because we were just friends, and we were just driving somewhere to clear our heads from our own busy little worlds like we had so many times before. so i walked after you, closing the distance in fear of the neighbors up the hill behind us. and we walked onto the lone dock, overlooking a perfectly secluded lake, a thick tree line separating the tranquil scene from the interstate. it felt straight out of a john green book, and i thought you were going to try to kiss me. the stars over the water were rooting for us, i’m sure of it.

it’s what i thought would happen when we leaned against the wooden railing, and i told you how i felt like i failed as a daughter and a sister, but never as a friend. and how you know, and how much you cared for me and valued our unlikely friendship. we sat on the bench and i pulled my knees into my chest, the smelly blanket draped over me, and i wanted to rest my head on your shoulder. i wish you had tried to kiss me that night, something tells me i would have let you. and looking at it now, i wonder if it would’ve prevented or accelerated our fall from ethereal nights.

what a time, what a time, what a time,

i have the moment on stream clipped where you called and told me to meet you out, mainly to watch the conflict in my eyes and faint hurt from you ignoring me on my birthday thus far. i quickly end stream after that and sprinted a few blocks to the line you were in, and thus began our last night.

i didn’t think i would let it get that far when we were walking to your friend’s car after getting pissed off in the club and you asked if you looked good in your shirt, and i said yes without thinking. you got me good for admitting that one, you little shit. i sat in the drivers seat because it was the same make and model as my car, and we cranked the ac and pulled out a handle of pink whitney. that isn’t what i thought you meant by getting a drink from the car, by the way.

i wasn’t going to indulge you after being distant on my birthday, but i got bored of being sober and gulped it down like the best of them. i’m pretty glad i did, i think it added fuel to the fires.

you asked to kiss me before i was drunk, and i said no. i said it was too soon, that i wanted to wait a little bit. i was echoing what i had said to my mom and my therapist about you, even though i didn’t really want to wait once i realized i liked you that night. and then we watched college kids stumble from club to club in college town, a typical friday night in the spring but watching it from a parked car somehow made it more glorious. it was helpful to watch something when you made me blush with sudden compliments, the streetlights and neon store fronts making it easier to talk somehow.

you asked to kiss me again, and i told you on june 18th i’d kiss you but not before then, thinking that hopefully by then your friend will be away and we can pile memories to distance ourselves from how we met. it was almost a plan in my head i thought of for a while, this hope that by the summer everything would work out for us but i didn’t want a relationship before then. maybe that was trivial, but you almost agreed to it too. then pink whitney woke up something within me, and i realized you were right in front of me, looking at me like that and talking in that lower voice about how i was all you could think about.

i can’t believe that even worked. i think i just wanted it to, wanted it to mean you thought about me even when i wasn’t drunk on my birthday wearing that in a locked car with my hot best friend. you wanted me there and then, so why resist someone i’ve gotten so close with?

our slowburn friendship finally got the better of us that night, no doubt aided with that adult pink lemonade we passed back and forth.

you clinged to my body like you wanted it forever

you had asked to kiss me again, this time i caught your smile with my lips, pulling on that shirt you did look good in and letting low flames flicker in my stomach. you brought your hand up to hold my head into yours, and only then did i realize my hands hadn’t appreciated their perfect compliment enough. our lips danced and pink whitney fizzed on our lips, a taste so delicious i couldn’t believe it took me this long to kiss you. my hands on the side of your neck then in your hair, pulling you in but matching your rhythm, every pressure and touch melting my judgement.

and then your phone went off, because i really am in a john green novel. it was your friend, marching back to his car with some random women i didn’t really want to meet. i think they were fates, shooing me off before i could make more memories that would come back to haunt me.

i remember stepping out of the car to leave and you hugged me, and i think part of my intoxicated brain knew this would be the last good night in a long time. i looked at you in the dark parking lot, the streetlights and storefronts painting the last mental picture i’d have of you smiling at me.

i ran home. with every step i began to lose my breathing, and by the time i got to the dorm i realized what i’d done and how irreparable it could be.

this thought haunts me. that when i got home, part of me knew everything would change for the worse. i cried because if you were like all the others you’d probably walk away at this point.

you said you wouldn’t but you did. and part of me knew you would. for one, you told me about girls for months and i knew you wanted to run or lie when things got complicated. for two, you were never one for keeping secrets from your friend, and i’m sure as soon as you told him what happened the two words for our terrible conclusion were spoken.

what a time, what a time, what a time,

i refused to believe i was right. i called you dozens of time, texted you more, tried to pull together the perfect words to get you to respond. it didn’t work, you never did. i don’t need to tell you that.

i cursed every color into my pillow, face beat red with disappointment and rage and desperation. i cried until my ribs folded up and bled, until i cried dust and my big heart couldn’t ache any more.

every bone in me wants to spit at how i reacted to you leaving me, but in kinder moments i know you were just the perfect trigger to a manic episode waiting to happen. i was manic because you said you cared but apparently not that much, you said you wouldn’t leave like how i’ve been left before but you did. you were just a trigger, the exact way to unravel me again until i sunk through the floor and into the dirt.

every day that passed, every missed call and unanswered text sent another pang into my heart, another reminder that you really didn’t care. that i was the last to figure it out, and it showed with every embarrassing fail to talk to you. i wish you had just blocked me. it would have been kinder. i wish you had just sent those two words even, i feel like my dumbass would have realized much sooner.

for you and i

but hey that’s bro code ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

#diary #songfic #what a time it was #diary entry #short poem #trauma dumping on the internet #letter to burn #short story #prose #short prose

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