"That Girl"

I guess heart to hearts only make you feel better when both hearts are involved...

Friday is finally here. I see The Rocker tonight. I had to work till 10pm, so I made sure I dressed as cute as I could for work. I knew I would be seeing him right after and wasn't sure if I would have time to change. I chose a fitted black and white striped short dress. The back is open so I threw on a hot pink bandeau. A pair of black gladiators and my feathered earring completed the look. The outfit was simple, showed off my curves, and very distinctly me.

The plan was for The Rocker to meet me at The Plex when I got off work. I decided very early on that I would need to change that asap. If our conversation really did result in a breakup, I didn't want to be home for it. Like I said, there's nothing worse than watching someone walk away from you after they've broken your heart. I'd rather be the one to get up and leave. So I packed a bag. Just in case. Just in case everything turned out ok and I decided to stay at his house.

He called at around 5pm at my work. "Hey you! We still on for tonight?"

"Yep, I get off at ten, I'll be over after," I tell him.

"Are you sure?" He asks. "I was planning on heading over to you."

"No, that's ok," I say. "It makes more sense this way. My work is closer to your house. There's no point in both of us driving all the way to The Plex when I can get to your house in ten minutes."

"Ok, I'll see you here later then."

We hang up. I'm immediately filled with anxiety. My lunch time rolls around and I skip it. I'm too nervous! Terrified of what was going to come. I tried to think of what I wanted to say. Then it hits me. I didn't have anything too say. Nothing had changed for me. I was still the same person I was three weeks ago before all this craziness started. I still felt the same way about him. I just wanted to know what his deal was? I needed him to talk to me. I wanted to know what happened in his head. Why things had changed for him when I hadn't.

I look down to see my phone ringing again. It's Glasses.

"What's up Bestie!" I say into the phone.

"I have exciting news," he says to me.

For the last few months Glasses has been working on getting a production company together. He had assembled a team but was still looking for funding.

"I found an investor," he says.

I'm ecstatic! I ask him details and he gives them. Then he tells me that he may be filming a reality show Pilot with a Hollywood socialite who was trying to break into Hollywood. He follows that statement up with two other projects he had been asked to direct and produce.

I'm grinning ear to ear! "That's wonderful Glasses!," I tell him. "I'm so freaking proud of you!"

"I know, I'm excited," he says. "I mean who knows what will happen with all of this, but atleast I have my hands in a lot of different baskets. Something is bound to work out!"

"Exactly," I tell him. "More than anything it's amazing that your being asked to participate in these projects. It says alot about you. It's awesome dude. Seriously. I'm really proud of you boo."

"Thank you," he says again, slightly embarrassed. "So whats up with you? What are you doing tonight?"

"I'm finally meeting up with The Rocker," I tell him.

"Wow, how long has it been?" He asks.

"Three weeks," I say.

"Look, just relax," he says. "Just let things be. Nothing kills a relationship more than expectations. I know I'm a really busy person too. I'm down to date, but the person I'm with needs to understand that my projects take up a lot of my time but have nothing to do with my relationship. I just don't always have the time. If things are meant to be with someone they will happen organically."

"I agree," I say. "That's the thing. I mean he and I haven't been dating long enough for me to have any expectations. I was just really enjoying his company. And I thought he was enjoying mine too. But then he fell off the face of the earth. All I need is for him to tell me, 'I'm busy, I can't see you for a few weeks.' I'd be fine with that. But he won't even talk to me long enough to tell me that much. I mean god, I'm so freaking chill! I can't figure out why he's afraid of me. Why he won't talk to me."

"It'll all work out," Glasses replies. "Just go over there and say whatever you need to and go from there. There's no point in stressing out on the unknown."

"Ok, your right. I'll text you tomorrow and let you know how it goes."

We hang up. I feel a little better. He's right. There's no point in stressing about things. If we broke up then atleast I could start to heal and move on. Anything was better then the way I had been living these last few weeks.

I get busy in my store and am horrified later to see that I missed a phone call from The Rocker. He left a voice mail. I'm afraid to listen. I mean what if he was calling to cancel? Again. I call my voicemail and brace myself for the worst.

"Hey Carrie," I hear his upbeat voice say. Good. This doesn't sound bad. "I know your probably busy, and I'm sorry I'm not texting but when you get a chance could you give me a text back and..."his voice trails off and he begins to laugh," here I am telling you that I know your too busy to text and now I'm asking you to text me. Anyways..."

I smile. He sounds nervous. And excited.

"I was calling to see what you wanted to do when you get off," he continues. "I realize that I have not seen you in quite a while and tonight is somewhat eventful for us so I would like to make it special. So I'm not sure if you want to go to dinner, or if you would like me to pick up something? Maybe you would like some dessert...whatever your heart desires please let me know, I would like to fulfill it for you....The reality of tonight is sinking in and I'm really excited to see you. Muah! I'm a little giddy...bye!"

I'm speechless. Here I am stressing my ass off that my heart was going to be torn to pieces tonight, and this guy was blowing me kisses and asking if he should pick us up dessert.  Hilarious.

I call him back and we decide to go out and eat. Ten o'clock rolls around and I bail out of work right on time. The second I turn down Highland to jump onto the 101 freeway I hit a huge wall of traffic. I had forgotten that Hall and Oats were performing at the Hollywood Bowl. I was now stuck in a huge line of cars, all waiting to turn onto the one lane highway that was the detour for the event. I'm in hell.

I text The Rocker, "Traffic. The universe hates me. I think I'm just going to get out of my car and curl up into a ball in the fetal position on the street."

"Oh no! I'm so sorry," he immediately replies. "Just relax, the traffic will let up. Just drive safely and don't worry about the time. I'll be here."

My usual ten minute drive to The Rockers place turned into 45 minutes. Unfuckingbelievable.

I finally pull out front and give him a call. "Come out and check out my new car," I say to him.

I get out of the car with the engine still running. I think part of me thought that he might just end things out on the curb. I wanted to be able to have an escape route planned and ready.

He walks out wearing a pair of white shorts and a light colored t-shirt. I'm careful to avoid looking directly at his face. I don't want to look into his eyes. I wasn't ready yet for what I might see in them. You see, I have a useless super power. Useless because I can't control it. Every now and then I can tell what people are thinking. Not just emotions but actual words. I didn't want to know. Not yet.

He walks over and pulls me to him. He kisses my mouth. He holds me there for a while. I can feel the words, 'I missed you', pouring off of him. I freeze. I'm not sure how to respond. I'm not sure what I expected but it definitely wasn't this. His behavior these last few weeks have expressed nothing but disinterest in me and us. But the guy that was holding me now? He actually felt and acted like he cared.

"So check out my ride," I say, pulling away from him. I wanted to enjoy his embrace. I wanted to be able to kiss him back. But I couldn't. I was hurt. I was still afraid. I didn't know what was going to happen so I wanted to keep my wall up for as long as possible. I needed to protect myself from what may still be coming.

We leave and head over to the restaurant he had picked out for us. It was open till 1am and served a full menu till closing. The hostess sits us on the patio, far from prying eyes and ears. After we order I turn to finally look at him. He looked so tired! Drained, and honestly a little sad. My heart pours out to him.

"So what's been happening?" I ask him. I make my statement as general as possible. I'm not accusing him of anything. Something is up with him and I had already identified that whatever it was had little to do with me.

I was right. The first thing he says to me have to do with himself. With his life. He told me about some of the stresses he'd been going through the last few weeks. He told me about his frustration with his life in general. I get it. The mans a Creative. He was struggling with the same confusion and focus we all do. There is a fine line between making a living and having a life. He had his job but he wanted more. He felt he was more.

"I don't know, maybe its vanity," he says to me. "I just feel like I was meant for so much more. Like I'm meant to really be someone...yeah. It's vanity."

I want to shake him! I want to tell him that it's not vanity! I want to share with him what The Hollywood Guru told me. He wasn't vain. He was a star. The Rocker is so talented. He truly is. And he had it. He had that darkness that HG always talks about. He has that thing that make people want to watch him for hours. He was a Star. That's the difference between performers and regular people.  We have a confidence and drive that others don't. We believe that we have something more to offer. We know that people want to watch and we love to give them something to look at. We love to do and be what they can't.

That's why I stopped dating suits and normies. They didn't get it. Huge Asshole used to call me vain. He used to call me an attention whore. My creativity angered him and made him jealous. He couldn't handle being with someone who belonged to the stage. He couldn't handle the way others would watch me. When I'm up there men want me and women want to be me. I know this. Its part of why I do it. Stars do what others can't. Won't. Because we believe. In ourselves.

The Rockers statement made me sad. He wasn't vain. He had passion and drive. He is a star. He was just lost. Lost in his insecurities and self doubt and in his 'day job'. He needed to take a chance. He needed to jump. He needed to let the darkness take over and be who he was born to be.

I didn't say any of this to him. These are things that all of us need to figure out on our on. Besides, I didn't think he would listen. Not to me. He was too lost in his guilt over how he had treated me these last few weeks. The conversation finally switches to us.

Things get foggy here. We talked for like over an hour. Long story short he was busy. He felt guilty. His guilt turned into frustration at times. Frustrated over allowing himself to fall into a relationship when he had so much going on in his life. He didn't have to time to try to cater to someone else's emotional well being.

"See, there's the thing," I say to him. " I don't need anything from you. Why can't you just let this be your time? Your time to be stressed and allow me to be there for you."

"I can't do that," he says, shaking is head repeatedly in the negative. "I can't take from you what I'm not giving."

That's when it hits me. I think about his voicemail earlier that evening. About how he wanted to cater to my every need. How he wanted to make tonight special. I think about every time we go out together. It's seldom a simple date. Hippie Chick once joked that our dates reminded her of the Bachelor. We always needed an activity. He always wanted to treat me.

The funny thing was, I wasn't 'That Girl.' I mean the nice dinners and amusement parks and concerts and such were all great. I had fun with him. But like I've said before. I crave simplicity. I don't need all of that. I just needed  the both of us to be together with good conversation in a warm comfortable spot.

"Dude, just let me be your Muse," I tell him. " Let me be there for you. I'm so mellow man! I don't know one other girl that would have put up with whats been going on these last few weeks. But I was ok. All I needed and wanted was for you to talk to me, but you totally shut the door on me. I wanted to be there for you but you wouldn't let me."

"See, now that's a conflict for me," he says. "One of the things that I loved about you when we met was that you were so independent. That you..."

I interrupt him. Now the guy was pissing me off. There's nothing I hate more then being misunderstood! There is nothing I hate more then a man thinking that I am less than who I am. I am independent. I'd be damned if he was going to imagine that I was some love sick puppy following him around sniffing his ass. I may be in love but I'm still West Coast Carrie. I care about others, but I love me the most. I'm not vain. I know I'm a star.

"Hold on a second," I say to him, ignoring his obvious annoyance at being interrupted. "I have an amazing life. I have a ton of friends. I'm not sitting around waiting for you to call me. I mean do you know what a Muse is?"

In case you would like to know, Dear Reader, Muses come from Greek Mythology. They are goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered a source of knowledge. They support, they inspire. They do not sniff ass's.

"Think of a Muse like a freaking Fairy," I say to him. "Someone created specifically for you. To inspire you. I didn't say that I want to coddle you and wipe the snot off your nose. I want to be what you need me to be in order to make you feel better. When you got sick a few weeks ago I left you alone remember? Because that's what you wanted. You like to rest and get better on your own so I gave you that space. These last few weeks you've been busy. Did I ever get mad at you? No. Not once. I gave you your space. Yet as understanding as I've been, you've still treated me like I was 'That Girl'. Everytime you spoke to me I could hear the anxiety in your voice. You and I would be having a perfectly good conversation and then at the end you would blow smoke up my ass about seeing me later that week. Even though we both knew you wouldn't have the time. I didn't want that. I didn't ask for that. This whole time there were only two genuine texts that you sent me. The first was when you told me that you felt overwhelmed and stressed out. Remember that?"

The Rocker shakes his head up and down in agreement.

"That made me feel awful," I continue. "I didn't want to be the source of that. And I most definitely didn't want to add to your stress, so I stepped back again. The second, was after I told you how stressed you sounded and that I hoped it wasn't over me? When I told you 'I loved you to pieces'? Your response to me was real. I felt your appreciation to my statement and I believed you when you said you loved me back."

"Your right," he says. "That text you sent me was perfect. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time."

"That's my point," I say. "You say that one of the things that you loved about me was how independent I was? Well one of the things I loved the most about you was your honesty. I loved that you had no filter. I loved that you were blunt. You telling me that you were overwhelmed and didn't have time to think about us? That hurt for a second. But that pain was immediately followed by relief. I appreciated you telling me. I appreciated knowing what was going on. That's the problem. You stopped talking to me. You've been treating me like I've been angry or nagging you or something. Every conversation we've had has been phony. You stopped seeing me and who I am and instead been projecting who you think a 'girlfriend' would be in this situation."

I take a moment to gather my thoughts. He sits and waits patiently.

"I want you to understand something," I continue. "When I told you I loved you? I meant it. But that doesn't mean that I now need something from you. I said it because it was a truth. It's how I feel, but nothing was attached to that. I was never the type of little girl who used to picture what her wedding dress would look like growing up. The other day Hippie Chick made a joke about you moving into The Plex and I almost joked on my juice. I had, and have no thoughts outside of the fact that I care for you right now, exactly the way things are."

I finish my rant and finally look at him. I finally look into his eyes. And I'm surprised by what I see staring back at me. It's love. His eyes are soft. I allow him to see my pain. I want to be real. He leans over and he kisses me a few times on my cheek.

"I'm so sorry," he says to me. "Your right. I've been treating you like 'that girl'. And because of that I've probably made you into that person. But one thing I've known this whole time, with out a doubt, is that I love you. I mean you send me messages sometimes, or even now when I look at you, and my heart just...melts. You make me melt. I wish I had a better word that I could use but I'll have to settle for this. I'm really really sorry for doing this to you. I'm so sorry for shutting the door on you. I don't think I can promise that I won't be busy for a while, but I will try not to lock you out again."
He grabs my hand and kisses me again.

"I should have known that this was all I had to do," he says to me.

"What do you mean," I ask.

"I mean I should have learned after that whole blog incident. After I spoke to you about your blog I had felt so much better. And now it happened again. Now that I've spoken to you, things are good. I'm so sorry. I should have just called you."

"I know," I say. " Dude this was our first problem. I didn't want to fail at our first issue."

"We never had a problem," he replies. "I did, and I'm sorry."

He kisses me again. I finally reach over and take a bite of my food, grateful that I had ordered a salad. It had been sitting in front of me for atleast forty minutes.

We leave the restaurant and head back to his place. We made love. It was wonderful as usual. I sleep over, enjoying the first good night sleep I had had in weeks. The next day we make love again in the morning and shower together before he leaves. I linger behind and hang out with his sister for a while.

We lay a blanket out on the lawn and I smoke a joint with her as she lays out in the sun.

"Oh that Rocker," I say to her, probing. "What am I going to do with that guy?"

"Is everything ok with you guys?" She asks.

"Yeah, it was just frustrating having him believe that I was angry instead of just talking to me."

"So you were never mad," she asks.

"No," I tell her.

"Yeah, my brother is just having a hard time right now. I mean he is so compassionate and giving. He really cares about people. But he is trying to figure things out. I mean they have really been jerking him around at work. He is just frustrated and a little lost at the moment."

We're both quiet, lost in thought.   I finally get up to leave. As I drive away my mind begins to race.

I hated that The Rocker was in pain. I hated that he was tired. I hated that he was frustrated with his life. But I was also bothered that I hadn't known. He never told me how he felt. He never shared with me before tonight what he had been going through.

Another thing that bothers me was his statement about us having a conflict. About how me wanting to be his Muse bothered him. I know he had misunderstood me at first. I know I explained and he got it. But what bothers me is the fact that he had said it at all. I thought he and I were past the point of judging each other like that? I thought that when we said that we loved each other it meant that we accepted all the other person was? I hadn't realized that we were still looking for conflicts of interest in each other.

I mean up to this point I was just letting things be, just like Glasses said.  I was enjoying the moment. I cared about him. I loved kicking it in his space. That's it.

I know we talked. I know I should feel better, but I don't.

My faith in us, in him, have been shaken.

He hurt me. He pressed on a sore spot.

My mind thinks back to a conversation we had on our first date...

Me: "...I mean just a few months ago I was this big open wound. I'm a lot better now but I can still feel the sore spots. I'm not eager to put myself into a position where someone can push on the parts that hurt. I don't want to feel that tug. I just want to be me. Do me. Not worry about that potential pain."

The Rocker: "...Well, I think that's why the pain is there, so that when we get into those situations again we know that we need to get out. If someone pushes on a sore spot, that's our experience telling us to get out and move on."

Is that what I'm supposed to do here? He pressed, I hurt, now do I leave?

I shake the negative thoughts out of my head.  See, that's why I hate having to have 'talks' with people. I mean my god we had only been dating a few months! None of this should be happening. Why can't everything just be easy and loving? Why not just be honest and communicate and get past all the bullshit!

I learned a long time ago not to waste time in petty arguments and fear with the ones you love. You need to enjoy the time you had together. There was no point in thinking about the future. After all, can you really have a future if there was no present?

So that's what I'm going to do. That's what I want to do. I'm going to go back to loving him and letting things just be.

I hope he does the same.

WCC