Rolling in the Deep

Quote: "There is no coming to consciousness without pain." -Carl Jung

I could barely feel the cool, wet cement beneath me. I had gone outside, so a girl could continue telling me a harsh truth. Disbelief, sadness, rage, deja vu. It was all there. I stopped hearing her after a while. I had watched Tina say goodbye to my roommate earlier that day. He’d been kicked out of on campus housing after cops found weed in his desk. She cried and it confused me. Apparently they’d developed a deeper friendship than I’d realized when I wasn’t looking. Apparently it wasn’t only friendship.

Suddenly, I was awake. I was dialing her phone again and again until I realized there was a perk of living in the same building as the girl who’d broken your heart. I burst through the front doors, not stopping at the front desk to show my ID. I didn’t even hear them when they said my name. I had tunnel vision as I charged up the numerous flights of stairs. If my legs burned by the time I’d reached my destination, I didn’t feel it. I was pounding on the door. I needed to see her. Now.

Sure I’d been drinking, but the news had sobered me up considerably. I entered her bedroom after her roommate finally opened the front door. I gently stroked her cheek to get her out of bed.

"Tina…I need to talk to you. Please come outside, I need to talk." I whispered it so sweetly, I almost couldn’t believe it.

She followed me eventually, asking me to talk to her. Tell me what was wrong.

Not yet.

I took a drink from the water fountain. My mouth felt like I’d been chewing cotton for hours. I turned to face her in the hallway. Her eyes were groggy, brown hair tousled, pajama pants hugging the right places. She had looked so much better blonde. 

I refused to speak until we got to the stairs. I asked if she knew why I was upset. She recalled me acting coldly when Mitch had moved out of the dorm. I asked if there was any reason for me to be upset, to which she said no. I took a deep breath. Had to stay steady. Couldn’t lose it yet. Needed to keep the soft voice. Had to make sure she trusted me.

"Are you sure?"

She raked her hands through her hair, sitting on the cool cinder block stairs. It genuinely looked as if she were trying to recall something that might have upset me.

"We kissed…Once."

"You’re a fucking liar!"

My voice wasn’t steady or soft. It came out like a roar. Tina stood, defensively.

"I know everything! You’re a fucking liar!"

She moved to get past me, telling me I knew nothing, that she wouldn’t sit through this. 

"Fucking tell me the truth!"

Tina said she wouldn’t be talked to like this and moved for the door. I grabbed her arm, vision literally blurred by rage. 

"Brian, let me go. I will not sit her for you to talk to me like this."

Her voice, it wasn’t sad or defeated. It was indignant, self righteous. I told her she would stand there and talk to me for as long as I needed. She repeated that she would not take this from me and reached for the stair well door. I slammed it shut, one hand holding it closed, the other gripping her arm.

"Oh why not? Is it only a turn on when Tom does it? Bet if I were Tom this would get you real hot wouldn’t it?"

There it was. The cruelest thing I’d ever said.

"How dare you?!" She screamed, finally shouting back.

I don’t know what obscenities were screamed next but I’m sure there were many. 

"Fuck you! You’re a fucking liar!" I bellowed with rage, from the bottom of the stair case. She looked back at me, disgusted, as if she could no longer be bothered with this argument.

I bounded down the stairs and out the back door of the building. Breathing was heavy, rain beginning to fall. I looked around wildly, needing something to hit. I eventually just broke down in tears, each rain drop pelting me with a new memory.

I saw us in the parking lot a week before, just back from a liquor store run. It had begun to rain like I’d never seen before. We’d run from my car but I’d stopped us. Making a run for it wouldn’t help us at this point. I stood in front of her and laughed. She did too, heartily. The kiss that followed was deep and long, but that wasn’t what was killing me now. It was the few seconds before. She stared up into my eyes and I had been so sure. So sure that she was mine.

The ridiculous thought stopped the tears. I kicked anything I could before resting on the curb.

What was I to do? 4 am, cold, sad and betrayed…

I called my father. We talked for for only 20 minutes, but it felt much longer. He told me stories of his own early twenties. His girl and his best friend. The way he’d felt like a fool. How just like me, it seemed everyone knew before him. How it wasn’t the first time, just the straw that broke the camel’s back. He met my mom soon enough, he assured.

I went to bed after, chest aching less and no longer alone.