Page 127 of Bad at Love
But it’s not okay.
And I don’t think I ever will be.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
LAZ
“COME BACK”
“I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Scooby raises his brows, his forehead crinkling as he has a swig of beer. “You don’t say.”
I run my hands down my face, feeling absolutely exhausted. It’s the kind of exhaustion that comes from your soul, when you’re emotionally spent and don’t have anything left to give.
I have been grappling with my stupidity for over a week now and it’s not getting any easier. If anything, it’s getting harder because the longer I go without talking to Marina, without touching her, seeing her, the more irreversible I feel the damage is. Like everything we had, everything we were to each other, is being erased. Her love was once so clearly imprinted on my heart and now it’s fading, dissolving, day by day, until one day I won’t remember what that felt like. To have her, body and soul.
Which is why I want to reach out. I want to say something.
I need todosomething.
I can’t lose her.
And I know I already have.
“What do I do?” I ask him.
Scooby and I are sitting in a very dark and empty bar in Sherman Oaks, drinking beer at one in the afternoon. It’s a beautiful day outside, sunny and warm, the smog has cleared and there are blue skies. But I can only observe it like I’m looking down from a satellite. That’s how I’ve been observing most things these days, with distance, like I’m not even here. Just a ghost trying to escape another ghost.
The only thing I’ve been doing is writing. Pages after pages of poems. Poems I won’t post, I won’t share. My self-loathing over what I did to Marina has opened up old wounds, wounds I’d rather ignore, that I usually ignore.
But I’m not ignoring them this time. I’ve spent my life doing that. I’ve tackled my father, growing up with him. Boarding school. Feelings of worthlessness. Of being unlovable. I’ve tackled my relationship with my mother, then my relationships with every girl that crossed my path.
I’m dealing with all of it, head on, in words that are just for me. They aren’t even beautiful. They don’t make much sense. They’re words that no one else will ever see. But I’m feeling it. I’m ripping open my heart and dipping in the pen and writing it down in blood.
And it all comes back to Marina.
The hardest thing to write.
That wound is still too fresh.
It still hurts too much.
And the worst part of it all is that it’s my fault.
I can clearly see the pattern, now that I’m letting myself look at it. I probably should have started seeing a shrink years ago because the pattern is so obvious, I would have been able to work on it right away.
If you don’t believe you’re worthy of love you’ll never know what to do with love when you get it.
And I had Marina’s love. I had it. I had all of it. Right in my hands. She gave me her love expecting me to hold it and keep it safe, the same way I felt safe in her arms, how I felt she was my sanctuary.
I never wanted to hurt.
I never wanted to bail.
I wanted to love her. I swear I did.
And now it’s too late. I broke her trust when I broke her heart and then I destroyed my own heart in the process. It never even had a chance to know what it was capable of.
