The Boyfriend Chronicles: Glen (cont’d)

The Boyfriend Chronicles: Glen, continued
(Originally posted 9/5/2003)

The sight of me half-naked and dripping wet was like gasoline on a smoldering fire. My father exploded, shoving me back into the bathroom as I screamed at my parents to leave. My father threw a fist and Glen deflected the blow while my mother stood in the background screaming, “Get thee behind me, Satan!” I jumped into the fray, screaming ‘fucks’ and ‘shits’ and ‘bastards’ at my parents for the first and last time in my life. I think I slapped my mother just before my father shoved me into a wall (how the towel stayed on through all this, I’ll never know). I lit out with a fist that just glanced off him and screamed at him to get the fuck out of my fucking house. My mother cornered Glen in the bedroom and I could hear her damning his soul to hell through the closed door. My father threw me a look of utter disgust before picking up a toaster and smashing it into little metal shards against my kitchen wall.

Now, most people, when confronted by the human equivalent of a pissed-off grizzly bear would backtrack to safety, or at the very least keep their mouth shut. Not me. Oh, no. I goaded and needled and swore. I insulted and threatened and drove him to the point that he blew past me into the living room, catching the corner of a six-foot tall cherry bookcase we’d built together and overturning it onto the hardwood floor with a crash, scattering books and smashing cassettes (and, as it turned out, dropping a strip of unopened condoms through a crack to the old lady’s garage below. Hee). We hated each other in that moment.

To my utter astonishment, Glen came out of the bedroom and left, explaining that his presence was making things worse. I felt betrayed, and for the first time, a little afraid. I ran to the bedroom and dialed 911, but my father tore the phone out of the wall and threw it across the room. I screamed and slammed the door, got dressed, reconnected the phone and called the police. It took them an hour to get there with three patrol cars. By that time, my parents had cleaned up the mess, delivered a 40-minute lecture through the door (which I didn’t hear because I was wiggling my fingers in my ears) and left. Glen called from the Turnpike and asked if I wanted him to come back. Yes, I did. Very much.

In the end, I filed a restraining order against my dad, more as a weapon to punish him than because I was afraid. My entire family was lost to me for a year, a year in which I missed my parents’ 25th wedding anniversary, a family reunion, my brother’s graduation from high school and the announcement of the impending birth of my nephew Austin. But that’s another story altogether.

Glen and I lasted about four months. He was finished with his internship and looking for a permanent position. He briefly toyed with the idea of staying, but it was clear that California was the better option, careerwise. He asked me, hypothetically, if I’d consider going along. I answered, hypothetically, that if I found the man I wanted to marry, I’d follow him to the end of the earth. He and I both knew I wasn’t going. I didn’t love him that much and he didn’t really want me to.

I remember that last weekend. It snowed about three feet and we took a drive down the Delaware River to gawk at the icicles. We talked quietly while ‘Kiss From A Rose’ played on the radio. Back at his place, he tucked me into my car, kissed me goodbye one last time, and stood and waved as I pulled away. When I got home, I sat on the floor listening to the Seal CD and crying, waiting for a phone call. We stayed in touch and I wondered if I’d ever stop missing him. I did, but it took about a year.

We’ve stayed friends through the years by phone and mail, commiserating about one another’s bad dates and reminiscing about our past. He seems to think we could still have a future together, but as much as I like him, I really don’t think so. He has a daughter now and I’m a very different person from who I was then. I won’t say never, but I will say probably never.

We met up at his brother’s restaurant about three years ago. I was self-conscious about the fact that I was no longer a size 4 (more like an 8), so I dressed carefully in a clingy fuchsia v-neck and a knee-length grey pencil skirt and very high black heels. He was enthralled. Even his gay brother — who’d never called me anything but “bitch” — told me I was looking sensational. We had a blast catching up, and when he asked me for a kiss at the end, I obliged. When he hinted at my coming home with him, however, that was a different story. Flattered, yes. Tempted, no.

It seemed we were truly over.

back to
The List