They Gave

I recall a time where we sat here, in the same spots, on the nice blue floor, covered in sweat, snot, blood, chalk, and toenails. We laughed about body builders following us on Instagram, and how we pulled a cruel prank on Deshawn.

            He received a photo of me, or her, we, I’m not sure which, crying. We were saying that we needed to talk to him when he got home. So in the pouring rain, with his heart racing, he dodged cops, and sped home. He walked into the house, and there we were at the kitchen counter, sobbing. Our cheeks were red, our eyes were swollen, there were actual salty tears welling up in our eyes, and Michaela mouthed, “her and Evan broke up,” keep in mind this was about two weeks into us being together. When we looked at him, we probably looked like we had just watched our dog get hit by a car, because that is what we were thinking about to get ourselves to cry, but seeing the look on his face, we couldn’t keep it together anymore, and we just started laughing. Our dog was still in our mind, his shocked face, not knowing what to do, was still staring at us, and we laughed. After the incident, when we were all laughing, he settled down, but he was ticked, that’s not the kind of prank you pull on someone he said and left with his hood up. Evan knew about the prank, but once he watched the video, he voiced that he wasn’t happy about it either, that was like watching a depiction of my worst fears coming true he told us, and now we were laughing on this DNA covered floor.

            But that was someone else, someone whose hair was lighter because the new growth hadn’t grown in as much, and was slightly shorter from the chop that happened this last summer. She chopped it because of Ethan, and only because of Ethan. She was someone who sat in a circle with people she called friends and pretended that she trusted them, pretended that she wanted to hang out with them, and wanted to enjoy their company. I care about them, I do, but there was something missing in all of those friendships. It was like the loose wire that stopped my van from starting last year, on our way back from Miami, but now I am now in the effects of the loose wire. The van sat there for a month, in the cold winter, and me being a broke college student, she didn’t wash our van afterwards. So on the way to North Carolina, she looked for the plane that was landing when she came to stops, but we quickly realized that it was our breaks. Completely rusted, all rotors, all pads, and everything in between for the whole break system needs to be replaced. All because of a loose wire, and that is the club house, all rotors and pads need replaced, ASAP.

            We started out with late homework nights, such as tonight, sitting out in the living room, leaning on Evan, wondering what we were, laughing with people she lived with, but could not do life with. But slowly, as the semester dragged on, the essays of books that she did not, and could never care about piled up, the creative writing assignments got more confusing – I, you, anaphora, interpellation, politicization – I was keeping up creatively, but the reflections were failing, and she was suddenly behind. She, I, was cuddled up in my room with my MacBook Screen split between Netflix, for half, a reflection for a fourth, and electronic copies of the readings on the last fourth. The dark circles had grown under our eyes as we were up till all hours of the morning writing, just to hear our alarm go off at eight in the morning.

            They gave me crap too, about my flight money. It’s coming, I told them. But they kept nagging, pulling me aside during practices, no wonder I don’t have routines; they kept asking me if I understood. Yes, I understand, I’m not in kindergarten. But then I would ask them; do you understand that once I am twenty-one I get all of the money I need to myself, without needing recites or reasons as to why I need the money. After that, you can have five hundred and thirty of it. But the flight wasn’t the last of it; it was shirt money, electric money, wifi money, threatening to change the wifi password if I didn’t pay Rachel the last six dollars of what I owed her for the wifi by January second, when nobody is even home to give the money to. The glares that I got when I bought snow shoes, with money given to me, at request from my trust fund. The excuses about rules and following rules, that left me in my bed, whining to Evan, talking him to tears, as he just stared at me, and heard me, not listened, which was what we needed because we wanted him to listen, not to solve our problems for me.

            That is when I realized that all they gave me was the nagging, the “yeah, but…” phrases, that never seemed to end, the quoting of the handbook, the questions, the swallowing my pride, knowing that I made a mistake using the flight money for Madagascar. I don’t regret it; they wouldn’t have let me on the plane if I hadn’t used the money. They gave me this semester, of walking to campus, holding my eyes open with toothpicks, scraping containers for the last few drops of left overs because wifi for homework was more important than food. They gave me a living hell, hating to walk in the door every afternoon, leaving passive aggressive notes on the refrigerator, bickering in whispers to each other over shared food, and backing down when I am mad to stop Rachel from sobbing like a baby.

            They gave,

            And they gave

            And they gave, and I took.

            At the cost of her.