One Foot Out The Door & Choking On The Other

There’s something to be said about making the right decision, even if it is extremely painful and hard to bear.
After a year and a half of flip-flopping between wanting to date and refusing to, I felt it was finally time to put it to an end. It’s better for me, and I’m sure in the long run, it will do wonders for him. And it’s hard to bear–the pain is already crushing me and bruising my heart a bit–but the path of least resistance is no longer working. I may’ve been happier floating right now, but in time, it would’ve crushed me. And he forced me into an ultimatum.
It started with a rainy day that made me reluctant to leave my warm blankets. Fog had moved in overnight and settled almost blissfully on the remnants of snow left in our small city. A city that has accompanied me through several relationships and a few heartbreaks. Coffee brightened my sleepy form, if only a bit. Day to day coffee drinking becomes merely pleasurable opposed to awakening. I slid comfortably through the first few hours of my day by conversing with my mother, and attempting to help her tackle a few levels of Super Mario Bros. My eagerness mostly awaited Brandon’s presence, as we had made it all the way through the last level, and were quite ready to face the last, terrifyingly large castle in Super Mario.
The fog was content to blanket the city even nearing two o’clock in the afternoon, and Brandon arrived to find me applying the last of my make-up. We managed to tackle the last castle with relative ease, and by the time my sister stomped through the door, I was quite ready to journey to McDonalds for a desired McChicken.
After stopping there, smoking a post-food cigarette, and acquiring a couple of Mountain Dews, we drove to his apartment. He managed to get in his Stairway Ass Smack, which still managed to mildly irritate me even as I chuckled good-naturedly. We spoke briefly with his mother, and I traveled down the hallway to his bedroom. The hallway itself holds many memories; one of the most recent of me hiding out in the dark bathroom, waiting for him to walk by so I could jump out and scare him, seeing as how I’m naturally ferocious. I walked into his room and beheld a mound of clothes on the floor, and I promptly chided him about it (since I helped him clean the cyclone not more than 2 weeks ago). I reclined on his bed as he started throwing his copious amount of socks into the hall, missing the dirty clothes bin by nearly a foot.
Before long we settled into our ritual including Super Smash Bros., me propped against three pillows and him begrudgingly crumpling up a blanket as a backrest against the solid shelf acting as the headboard of his bed. He kept attempting to smother me with kisses, a usual game between us where I avoid him at all costs as he tries his best to get me. I became increasingly annoyed as he reached for my feet, an enormous ticklish spot of mine that usually results in my anger when touched. The final straw was when he got in my face, as dear as his boyish charm is. I pinched his triceps, a notorious spot of pain for any human alive. He became upset and murmured, "That fucking hurts!" He moved his body, his knee caught on a cord of one of his Gamecube controllers, and the console itself came tumbling off its DVD-player.
While he continued carrying on about his triceps-which weren’t even pinched that hard-I remarked, "I think your ‘cube is broken."
"I don’t fucking care right now," he retorted.
This ludicrous attitude got me all in a snit, and I curled away from him. He tossed me a controller and said, "Let’s play."
"I don’t want to anymore," I replied childishly.
I watched the fog roll outside his window as he tried to soothe my wounded feelings. After a few minutes, he became increasingly irritated that I was upset. He kept asking me why I was so upset, and I kept retorting that it didn’t matter. His mother poked in her head and told us she was going to the store, and to behave. I snorted inwardly. As if Brandon and I were going to ‘get it on’. I was more ready to rip out his throat.
After a bit, we got to talking, or arguing, or the mix it was. I started playing Bubble Breaker in order to give my hands something to do, because in my irritation, my fingers were itching for a cigarette. The conversation itself was inane, really, but I made a comment about how he knows I hate being touched, but keeps at it anyway. After about three or four games of Bubble Breaker, Brandon whipped off of his bed like a bullet and angrily said, "Fine, I’ll go into the living room and give you all the fucking space you want," before stomping towards said destination.
"How mature," I called after his retreating body.
"Yeah, so is playing a fucking game while someone is trying to talk to you," he shouted back.
After I finished my game of Bubble Breaker (in which I plotted what my next move was), I grabbed my purse and stuffed my phone in my pocket. I made my way through the infamous hallway, and walked purposefully to the kitchen. I started to pull on my white "snow" boots, thankfully with some grace and dignity. He asked where I was going. I told him pointedly not to worry about it. I shrugged my coat on, and slung my purse over my shoulder. I closed the door with care and strode down the hallway, and out the back of the apartment complex into the dense fog.
I felt like I had made a decent enough exit to prove my point, but proceeded on foot towards my house. I had every intention of walking and thinking the up-teen blocks to my house in the dismal weather, which damn near matched my mood perfectly. Only a thunderstorm would have been more fitting, and appealing. Damn Winter.
Before I had even made it to the end of the block, I heard the slap of shoes on the pavement behind me. I braced myself for the confrontation, in which I was fully prepared to toss out a "fuck off" or a "leave me the fuck alone".
"Will you just come back?" he asked, as calm as possible.
"No," I replied stonily.
"Where are you going?" he asked, not deterred.
I was several strides ahead of him, "Home."
"Can you at least let me drive you home?"
"No."
"Why?"
"I’m fucking pissed. I’m removing myself from the situation."
"Fine. Call me when you cool down, I guess!" he shouted at me, now more than several paces behind me. I kept walking and didn’t even turn, and shouted back, "Tell your mom I’m sorry." I was obviously not coming to dinner tonight.
I lit the long-coveted cigarette and felt my boiling blood calm a bit. I reached into my purse for my phone and dialed my best friend’s number. She put me on with Steve, and I related the story to Steve. I asked them to stop by in, oh, about ten minutes. He agreed and we hung up.
The fog became quite cold but I didn’t feel it, not really. The cigarette helped to calm my nerves. I heard the smack of shoes on pavement again. I sighed and braced myself for more determination. Really, it seemed like one of those movie moments. How often does a guy, in real life, go after a girl after she’s stomped away, quite determined and everything? Rarely, I’d say.<br />
Ruefully, I said, "You don’t know when to quit, do you?"
"Apparently not," he said, gasping for breath.
"I’m all wrong for you, you know. And you don’t really love me. And even if you did, this is all it is. It’s fights and the differing of opinions and general crap and anger."
"I do love you," he said, still out of breath. "Why else would I have chased you down from here?"
And on the conversation went as we walked on the cold March afternoon, laced in fog and a resentful, awkward air. As we made our way closer to my street, I more animatedly discussed all of the reasons why he shouldn’t be with me, my confusion over why he even stuck around anymore, and my general unhappiness in the past months. By the time we made it into my large blacktop driveway, his hair was endearingly tousled with all the extra moisture in the air. His facial expression bespoke of remnants of anger, thought, and decisiveness.
Suddenly, he said, "So does that mean you’re done?"
"Done with what?" I asked with a half-laugh.
"Done with this, with us."
"I don’t know," I said truthfully.
"No, it’s not an ‘i don’t know’," he replied. "It’s a yes or a no. Do you want to be together or not?"
And thus, the ultimatum was served on a platter… a rather disgusting, unwanted platter. Amidst fog and the half-melted, dingy-looking snow, the world as I’ve known it for the past year and a half started to crumble beneath me. I stared at the sky (what could be seen of it) as I kept lamenting over the decision. He watched me thoughtfully, looking every inch the decisive male.
"If I say ‘no’, does that mean it’s ‘no’ forever?" I asked him.
"Most likely," he replied, all seriousness. It was quite a shock to see him being so committed to a decision.
"If I said ‘yes’, would you even believe me?" I followed up.
"Probably not," he answered.
"See? A relationship without trust, what a great start," I muttered.
He shrugged and looked expectantly at me, waiting for an answer.
I told him to get in the car (my car), and we drove. We drove until the fog was nearly overwhelming, surrounded by the quick darkening of the sky. The darker the sky got, the darker my mood got, and the more difficult the decision became…or so it seemed. I pulled up by the front of his apartment building, after playing things such as "Colors", "It’s Been Awhile", and "Heartbreak World" on my iPod during our drive.
I turned down the music and let the warm air in the car flow over me. My heart was beating sickeningly in my chest, and the suddenness of the truth fell over me in an icy fashion.
I turned toward him and said, after some preamble, "You know I can’t say yes, Brandon."
He laughed in a manner that suggested disbelief and incredulity.
"I can’t. Because if I say yes, this same decision will have to be made again and again. And it’s not that I don’t care about you, I do. I just can’t keep putting you through this, putting me through this. The constant fighting, the game of being apart and getting back together, the restless anger of it all. I just can’t anymore."
And after a short bout of humorous things like, "Don’t take this out on your mom. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me" and "Who knows, maybe your next girlfriend will be liked less than you by your mother, and you won’t have to worry about it", he gave me an awkward half-hug and went inside.

And really, I can’t say I’m sorry, because I’m not.
But, oh hell, I hate change.
That’s all my back can manage for right now.

Let it be.
Amanda.