Bartenders’ Friends (The Sequel)

You’d think they’d learn, but they really don’t. You’d think these girls must talk amongst themselves, but, apparently, they just don’t believe each other. Nice guys do not exist. No one is interested in your personality.

I watch another pale, underfed body crawl out of my bed and scramble for clothes, and it really shouldn’t be this easy. Not the getting them in it part, the kicking them the fuck out part.

I wasn’t always so vacuous.

I sent out a prayer I knew stood no chance of being answered; they’re the only type I like (and I’m a little sorry, Serena; I know you don’t have the answers, but I don’t really want them, truth be told).

So, she told me I’m fucked up, really fucked up. And she’s right. I try to play a game, assume a role, but it’s so untenable, you know? And I want to get back to a time I never knew. I want to be someone I never was. I was better then. It was better then.

We talk about attachment issues and the way I’ll let you in only to grow afraid and shut you out, but what I’m really doing is shutting down, locking myself in my room, drinking myself under the table, ignoring the knocking at the door because, while it might just be my roommate checking in on me, it might also be that god damn demon coming to collect. Only a matter of time. I hope I have a dramatic end. Years later, I’m still wondering how that 27th birthday is going to go down. I hope it keeps you tittering for years.

On that note, Summer, I was dead serious. I need you to finish anything I was writing; you’re the only one who can, the only one I trust to do it justice. You know I’d do the same for you. Blood and sex and guts and hate and bewildered love and all that. There’s not a girl I’ve loved more. All the other relationships get fucked up so badly. You, you’re constant–one of my closest friends. Thanks for everything.

But, on the note of the end, I hope you’re there.

So, to switch gears, these toxic people, I let them in. I keep them close to my heart because I don’t know what else to do with them–as if my heart were a filtration system. I’ve got this “fix-it” mentality, but with so much anger (and you’re right, Regan, it’s mostly directed at myself), how are you supposed to “fix” much of anything?

She slides on her bra, and I start comparing her boobs to every other pair I’ve ever seen. They’re not so bad, but they’re not perfect. She’s got a great ass. Her legs reach from here to November. And I realize exactly what I’m doing. She’s an object I owned for a time. She’s not a person. She was attached to something that fed me drinks. Then she was attached to me. Now, she’s nothing.

Am I going to find fulfillment in all of this?
Do I want to?

Three beers in, I’m feeling pretty good. A couple flirts in, I’m still doing alright. After she’s gone, it’s all empty, isn’t it?

But not me. I’m as full as can be.
Right?

So pick and choose, fight away. I don’t need you, I don’t need friends, I don’t need me. Deliver everything in quietly-wrapped, softly-packaged, appropriate emotions.

I abandoned him in his time of need. Sure, his dad just died, but do I really give a fuck when there are blondes about? I move in for the kill, and I take her back to his house, and we chill for a while. And then…

Well, I don’t know what happens after. I never do.

Please, someone make sense of it all for me.
I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your fucking solutions. I’d rather you just let me figure it out myself, and if I die and rot in the mean time, well, trust me, it’s the only way you’d want me. Trust me. I don’t cope well with other people solving problems for me. Too arrogant, too stubborn, too distrusting, too torn up. Just let me figure it out my-fucking-self.

I tell myself I want to be good, for a change. I tried it recently. I think I pick the wrong targets. Impossible ones. That should sound familiar.
She texted me back today. She said the move went well. Still unpacking, of course. There’s so much of me left in the residue, it’s easy to get confused.

Why did I try? Trying to be the nice guy. I tell myself, “Not this time,” but will I ever mean it?
I really hope so, but I just don’t know.

How does good happen? And is it possible to not hurt the ones you love? I might have walked her home, safe and sound, but if she ever let me in…

Well, souls have a lot of seams, and any of them can be pulled apart.
I can’t always be this way. I want to leave it all behind.