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The Stories...
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Love Stinks. Sometimes we get dumped.
: submit your own
Rhapsody in Black and Blue
by ChrisBug
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So this goes back to the Summer of '99. (insert Bryan Adams song here, with lyrics appropriately altered) I had just graduated from college, and my girlfriend at the time finished her sophomore year. We were living in New York City... and man, I had it BAD for this girl. She was buxom and bold, with the face of an angel that had just woken up with a bad hangover. She had sugar on her tongue and green chile peppers in her... well, you get the picture.
Yeah, well, summer came around as it always does, which meant that she had to go her way and I had to go mine -- for the time being. She was off to do some Equity Shakespeare gig out in New Mexico (we were both drama students) and I was off to stay with my parents in Connecticut for the summer -- you know, get a summer job, save up some money -- and we'd move back to the city in August.
Everything's going fine for a while. Yeah, we're quite a ways apart, but we're talking almost every day and we miss each other, "It's so painful to be so far away" blah blah blah blah friggin' blah... And I get a job working at a regional theater near me. Everything's all good in the hood, and we make plans for me to come visit her in New Mexico for the 4th of July.
So we're about 3 weeks away from the 4th, and I've got a plane ticket to go visit her... and then, suddenly, I can't get a hold of her. She's not home. Ever. Ever ever ever. Doesn't matter what time of the day, day of the week, position of the moon in the lunar cycle, what have you. I leave a messge here and there. No calls are bein' returned, and I'm startin' to get a baaaad feeling about this.
So it's the 2nd of July. I'm supposed to fly down there to visit her that weekend, and I have no idea what's up. So I call her at 8:00 in the morning -- at work, at my brand new job -- thinking I'd at least be able to get a hold of her and find out what the hell is going on. Well, whaddya know, I finally get a hold of her... and the conversation goes something like this: (okay, it's distilled down a bit, but this story's long enough already.)
ME: Hi.
HER: Hi.
ME: Um, I'm supposed to come down and visit you... but I havent heard... where have you been, anyway?
HER: Well, I, um, was avoiding you 'cuz I didn't know how to tell you, but, um.. you know that play I'm doing? Well, I kinda moved in with this guy who's in the show...
ME: (shock)
HER: Yeah, well, I don't know what's gonna happen. I don't know if I wanna break up... who knows what's gonna happen when I move back to New York...
That was enough for me. I immediately left work (thankfully, theater people tend to be very understanding with these sorts of things), got my hair cut, and proceeded to get drunk at some dance club in Springfield, Mass. (Not exactly the best of times, seeing as Springfield is, well, just like it sounds. And I don't like dance clubs.)
So, of course, it was the 4th of July. All my friends had made their plans, and I was left all alone. I climbed up to the top of Pinnacle Rock (this mountain in my hometown) to watch the fireworks go off in all the towns surrounding me. I didn't smoke, but I went up there with a pack of Luckys in one pocket and a pack of Marlboro reds in the other. I didn't come down 'til both packs were empty and the fireworks had quit blowing up around me.
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