“Cross the street so he doesn’t see us together. I don’t want to deal with that…”
Ironically, at this point, I wouldn’t have known what he looked like anyways. She lived with her ex. She lived in fear, or at least that’s what she suggested. I don’t know what she thought or felt, but when you say “I sometimes go to bed with a knife in my hand under the pillow in case he comes home drunk”… well, I make some assumptions here and there.
I had met him once, weeks earlier. Although I would only use “met” very loosely. I was out on a date of my own actually. Nothing serious, more like a fling, but she showed up, having recognized me from where she had worked and stopped by to say hi. Her then-boyfriend causally and quietly tagged along, and we all sat together in what turned into an awkward double-date-type thing.
I’m not going to say it was deliberate, because it wasn’t, but we talked and laughed and chatted and passed little notes to each other while our respective “dates” just kind of sat there and made small talk with each other or tried to keep up with our shenanigans.
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t “love” her then. I barely knew her in reality. I didn’t really love anyone I was “seeing” or “dating” or whatever the “-ing” phrase was hot that week. I was wanting, subconsciously, to make a connection, to find someone that listened and understood, who wasn’t going to be condescending or pretentious, who was very comfortable in their skin and wasn’t looking for someone to somehow validate them or reassure them every waking moment. Believe it or not, that was pretty hard to find.
But I did find it. I found that connection that night. She wrote me a note, describing what she thought about me in the little time we knew each other and spoke to each other. She told me that I exist in two worlds, in two planes of existing, with “one foot in and one foot out” of each.
It turns out she was right, and she was also right. As much as I hadn’t found a way to let go of certain things, she also was talking about herself. She later actually admitted to “projecting” pretty much everything she prescribed to me as something she had meant for herself.
She still loved him, to some extent, her ex. As afraid as she was of him at times, she cared for his life. They had been friends, lovers, then friends, then lovers, then whatever they were at the end for a decade or more.
When she finally moved out of his apartment, I don’t think it was “for me” – not from a relationship point of view. I do think I had a very strong influence on her understanding the downsides of staying. Quite frankly, the stories she told me about his aggression and her fear for her own safety are the kinds of stories that you hear just before a much more tragic story gets printed in the newspaper. To this day, I believe that she mourns the loss of that years-long friendship. To this day I believe she holds me responsible in some ways for it ending. Most of the time though, I don’t think she considers that a negative.
All "Airline Love Story" posts: http://thestoriesofbradk.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Airline%20Love%20Story
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