Zeke: Hey Vi, just making sure you got your backpack and laptop? Barbara from the library was worried and knew we hung out, so she asked me to bring it to you.
Violet: Yes, she texted me. Thank you for bringing it home.
Zeke: Your roommate Mel threatened to chop my nuts off when she came to the door.
Violet: Yes, she told me the whole story.
Zeke: Um, did she give you the message that I stopped by hoping to talk?
Violet: Yes.
Zeke: Well can we? Yes or no.
Zeke: Sorry. That came our harsher than I wanted it to. What I meant was, can we please talk?
Violet: I realize you’re trying, and that’s a big step for you on a personal level, but I’m not ready to sit down and listen to excuses. Not even close.
Violet: And the only reason I’m texting you back is because I felt it would be rude to ignore your messages. That is the only reason I’m replying.
Zeke: Please, Violet, I fucked up—I know that. There’s some shit I need to say and I don’t want to do it in a text.
Zeke: Please.
Zeke: Over the past few days, I was tempted a few times to come into the library, but didn’t want to come off as a fucking stalker.
Violet: Thanks for the texts, really. I’ll think about it and let you know.
Zeke: All right. Let me know—I can wait.
Zeke: How long do you think you’ll need?
Violet: I don’t know, Zeke. I guess when I decide what I want for myself and how I’ll allow myself to be treated by you. That’s how long I think I’ll need.
Zeke: Violet…
Don’t do this, I want to beg. Don’t make me wait.
I can’t. It’s going to fucking kill me, this uncertainty, the doubt I already have about myself and my ability to be in a relationship with anyone other than myself.
I’ve never been a patient person, not even when I was younger. Add to that my competitive nature, and taking no for an answer just isn’t in my vocabulary, even though technically that’s not what Violet is saying.
She wants me to give her time, wants me to wait. She wants more for herself than a selfish, contemptuous asshole…but there’s so damn much I have to say. If I don’t get this shit off my chest, eventually I’ll say fuck it and I’ll bottle it up inside like I do with everything else in my life.
The rejection will be unbearable.
So I go to my desk, pull out the chair, and root around for a pen. Paper.
Bow my head and do something I’ve never done in my entire fucking life:
Write a letter.
Dear Violet
I know you didn’t want to talk, but
I’m an idiot
Fuck
If it were anyone but you ignoring me I wouldn’t give a fuck I cannot handle the silence.
Please talk to me.
Violet.
By now we all know I’m a fuck up an idiot when it comes to basically every single relationship I’ve ever had with anyone. My friends can’t stand me, my parents think I’m a handful, my teachers tolerate me.
I won’t admit outright to being a shitty human being, but I come close. I know what they say about me. That I’m unfeeling. Cold. A dick. Insensitive. All these words have been used to describe me by those I’ve pissed off in the past, including women I’ve slept with. Sorry, but it’s true.
I’m wasn’t sure how to start this letter—I’ve started it at least seven times, and nothing about it is right. I realize that if I wasn’t such a callous dick had stepped up and been the guy said what I was feeling when you walked up to our table in the library, I wouldn’t be groveling right now.
I’ve stared at this fucking sheet of paper for the past fifteen minutes knowing that nothing I write is going to undo the damage I’ve done to us.
I’ve never handwritten a letter before in my entire fucking life, and here I am writing one for all the wrong fucking reasons, pardon my French.
There is no excuse for how I behave.
No excuse for how I acted in the library, except the truth: I spooked when you came over. I’m such a dumbass, I get that now, and my immature sophomoric response to the situation is as embarrassing for me as it was for you. It even embarrassed my friends, and that’s saying a lot, because they’re mostly imbiciles imbeciles, too.
I am an asshole.
I am a prick.
I am a douchebag.
These are not badges of honor and I’m a dick for having ever worn these labels. A total and complete dick.
If you would have told me two months ago that I’d be hanging out with kids every week and having fun, I would have laughed in your face and called you a liar. The only person I thought about was myself, because growing up I had no one to tell me not to be a selfish prick. When you called me self-deprecating, you were right.
I am.
I had to google what it meant, but you were right. There are no other words for it. I don’t know what to fucking say to you right now other than I’m sorry. So fucking sorry.
I am a soulless asshole who doesn’t deserve to have you as a friend. Jesus Christ Violet, I wasn’t thinking of you at all when you walked up and I just sat there. Fuck! I know you’re hurting and upset but I was too worried about myself to see what was right in front of me. When even YOU won’t talk to me—one of the nicest people I KNOW won’t talk to me—that’s how I know I’ve got a fucking problem. Pardon my French.
I’ll be gone this week—we have a wrestling meet in Indiana at Purdue, and won’t be back until late on Friday—but if it’s okay, I’m going to try texting you from the bus. I miss you. I really freaking miss you.
Even if you aren’t ready to see me, I had to try.
I might be a douchebag, but I’m not a quitter.
Yours
Sincerely
Fuck
Talk soon,
Zeke.
Violet
On Friday night, I’ve sequestered myself in my bedroom. Mel and Winnie are both getting ready to hit the bars since it’s the weekend, but I’ve been in no mood to socialize.
With them, or anyone else.
My door is ajar, so I can hear them both laughing, and occasionally they stick their heads in to make sure I haven’t changed my mind about going out. Getting dressed up. Getting drunk.
Or, Zeke Wasted as Winnie so eloquently put it.
I know waiting around for a guy to text you is a dumb thing to do—sadistic, really, and a little pathetic—but unlike a lot of guys, he isn’t playing games. He said he’s going to text me and I believe him.
I think.
I showed his letter to my roommates—a huge mistake, because obviously they’re both outraged on my behalf, having found me crying in the living room the night I blindly walked myself home from the library, too upset and blinded by tears and mascara to drive.
The letter sits on my desk.
I’ve read it at least fifty times, fingers running over the hurried lines. The messy, hurried scrawl. Black ink. Black mood.
For him to write that?
My stomach flutters thinking about it, thinking about those words. All the words, spewed onto that abused sheet of paper, ineloquent and unplanned.
The least I can do is be present when he texts, and I can’t do that unless I’m home.