"You met and fell in love by chance, but you are here today because you are making a choice."
Being a man, I'm naturally more accustomed to being flawed, but somehow you have still chosen to give me your love.
Your love has given me hope, and that hope became a reality when I proposed to you and you said yes. I can't believe how lucky I am to have you in my life.
Before I met you I felt lost and unsure about my place in this world. But from the first moment we talked you began to bring a light into my life that I wasn't sure I was ever going to have.
The first moment I saw you I was floored by your beauty and confidence...and your vast knowledge of Star Trek. You put my Star Trek knowledge to shame.
Carrie, you have captured my heart. You inspire me to better myself. To be the best possible man that I can be. Today, surrounded by people who love us I choose you Carrie, to be my wife.
I take you as you are, loving who you are now, and who you have yet to become. I will stand beside you and share with you all of life's challenges and all of it's joy's from this day forward.
I will provide for you, care for you, and love you always. It's the least I can do for you for the light and love that you bring to my heart.
With this ring, I am both freed and bound by our love.
~Mr. WCC
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Written Rants
I'm in love! 1 year strong and do you know what the best part about it is?
None of your business.
No way in hell I'm going to wreck this relationship with written rants from my alter ego.
At least not yet....
Carrie
None of your business.
No way in hell I'm going to wreck this relationship with written rants from my alter ego.
At least not yet....
Carrie
Monday, April 8, 2013
Real Tears
"I have scars from wars that nobody won..."
Such a lovely quote.
I mean it. I'm not sure why but when I heard it I thought it was very pretty. It reminded me of love lost, pain and tears. What does that mean? Does that mean that I think that pain is beautiful?
Yes. I think a part of me does. I think that hurting, crying and allowing oneself to be vulnerable, is lovely....
I remember once when I was young, second grade or so, I saw another young girl cry. She was the same age as I was, but unlike myself was constantly bullied. She had several learning disabilities, she was unattractive and always came to school in mix matched clothing. Most of my classmates were cruel to her.
One day she couldn't take it anymore, and she began to cry.
It ripped my heart out.
I went to her immediately. I hugged her and told her it was ok. I spent the entire recess with her. I remember how her tears made her seem more real to me. She wasn't this funny looking girl anymore. She was human. She had feelings. I also remember thinking what a beautiful person she was. I remember feeling shocked that I had never noticed it before.
Maybe that's why I like to cry. I rarely indulge but when I do it feels good in a way. I spend so much time trying to show the world that I have everything together. That I am strong and independent. That you can try to hurt me all you want but in the end all I need is me so you can't get me down...
But all that's make believe. Most of the time I feel just like that girl did. I feel unattractive, I feel lost, I feel like I'm not real.
Except for when I cry. I never feel more real than when I let go and allow myself to be vulnerable enough to express the pain that others make me feel. Crying is me at my best. Crying is when I feel the most lovely.
I remember the first time I cried in front of The Plex. Hippie Chick said it best in the blog Intervention.
"You know what's crazy," Hippie Chick says. "I've known you for like 3 years but I think this is the first time that I've ever seen you cry."
She was right. I never cry in front of others. But I'm glad I did that night. That was one of many moments with The Plex that I felt truly close to them. I loved them for being there with me and I felt loved in return. I was completely vulnerable and I trusted them with my tears. I trusted them enough to show them the real part of me.
Maybe that's how you know that you love someone. Maybe that's how you can tell if someone loves you back. When you are comfortable enough to shed tears in front of the person who you know matters the most, and when they trust you enough to allow you to see their tears in return.
Guess that would explain why I spend so much time crying alone.
WCC
Such a lovely quote.
I mean it. I'm not sure why but when I heard it I thought it was very pretty. It reminded me of love lost, pain and tears. What does that mean? Does that mean that I think that pain is beautiful?
Yes. I think a part of me does. I think that hurting, crying and allowing oneself to be vulnerable, is lovely....
I remember once when I was young, second grade or so, I saw another young girl cry. She was the same age as I was, but unlike myself was constantly bullied. She had several learning disabilities, she was unattractive and always came to school in mix matched clothing. Most of my classmates were cruel to her.
One day she couldn't take it anymore, and she began to cry.
It ripped my heart out.
I went to her immediately. I hugged her and told her it was ok. I spent the entire recess with her. I remember how her tears made her seem more real to me. She wasn't this funny looking girl anymore. She was human. She had feelings. I also remember thinking what a beautiful person she was. I remember feeling shocked that I had never noticed it before.
Maybe that's why I like to cry. I rarely indulge but when I do it feels good in a way. I spend so much time trying to show the world that I have everything together. That I am strong and independent. That you can try to hurt me all you want but in the end all I need is me so you can't get me down...
But all that's make believe. Most of the time I feel just like that girl did. I feel unattractive, I feel lost, I feel like I'm not real.
Except for when I cry. I never feel more real than when I let go and allow myself to be vulnerable enough to express the pain that others make me feel. Crying is me at my best. Crying is when I feel the most lovely.
I remember the first time I cried in front of The Plex. Hippie Chick said it best in the blog Intervention.
"You know what's crazy," Hippie Chick says. "I've known you for like 3 years but I think this is the first time that I've ever seen you cry."
She was right. I never cry in front of others. But I'm glad I did that night. That was one of many moments with The Plex that I felt truly close to them. I loved them for being there with me and I felt loved in return. I was completely vulnerable and I trusted them with my tears. I trusted them enough to show them the real part of me.
Maybe that's how you know that you love someone. Maybe that's how you can tell if someone loves you back. When you are comfortable enough to shed tears in front of the person who you know matters the most, and when they trust you enough to allow you to see their tears in return.
Guess that would explain why I spend so much time crying alone.
WCC
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Broken Doors
I heard a quote on T.V. today:
"I am the trafficker of broken hearts."
The words felt like a strike across my face... just like that the light in the bat cave turned on...and she was back...
I was hoping I would never return to this. I was hoping that I would never return to you, Dear Reader. Oh I've heard your calls. I've received your emails. I've felt the yearning looks from my friends.
But I hoped, oh how I hoped, that I would find happiness and wouldn't need this place. That I wouldn't need you.
But I do. Life is hard. Dating is harder. It hurts, all the time. Even more now since I haven't had you. This world was a way for me to make each heartbreak, each failed relationship, mean something.
Writing made it all worth the pain it required to create something worthy of reading. Sharing the ups and downs of my life with you helped. Helped me to not feel used. Helped me to get through it all. Helped me to keep going.
It's been a year since I last wrote you. Oh and what a year it has been! Instead of getting better my dating life became even more ridiculous. There have been far too many men for me to back track and share with you, but trust me, you would have loved them all...
I've dated models and actors...a movie Super Hero body double...a Gay Alcoholic comedian (long story) Hell I even dated the Ringmaster for a major circus.
I know what you're thinking. The same thing I am tonight. That I was supposed to be getting serious about my relationships. That the purpose of not writing was so that I could focus on the men in my life. So that I could stop creating caricatures of who they are...or better yet, stop making a caricature of who I am.
I guess I just couldn't help myself. I had formed a habit. I no longer knew how to date only one man. I no longer knew how to take anyone seriously. Hell, I no longer knew how to date someone who was serious.
So 7 months ago I made a decision to try something new. I decided to choose a friend. I decided to date someone who I had already loved as a person hoping to be able to love him as...well something more.
For a while it worked, until I noticed that the closer I got to him the more he pulled away. I thought it was me. I thought that I was the one who was damaged. I thought that I was imagining things. The two of us were close. We spoke all day everyday. He texted before bed each night. I went to all his friends parities and events. We were even reading the same books together. Everything was blissfully simple and sweet. The only thing that bothered me was that he didn't want the titles. He didn't want to call me his girlfriend.
I understood why. He had just broke up with his girlfriend a few months before us. I knew all about it. He was one of my best friends afterall. I had helped him through the breakup. I could understand that he was scared. I could understand that he felt less than. I could understand that he wasn't ready.
I stopped pushing. I mean what did I care? We were happy. I hated titles afterall so I don't know why I was so concerned about not having one.
Then it happened.
One day while leaving his apartment a girl was waiting for us at his gate. I kept walking not thinking anything of it. That is until I noticed that he wasn't following.
I turned around to see where he was, and saw the two of them staring at each other. It was so surreal. It was as if I wasn't there anymore. The only two people who existed were the two of them. I was confused.
"Hey," I said to him, trying to penetrate the bubble that surrounded them.
"So, um, you ok?" He asked in a forced nonchalant voice. I think the asshole even gestured my way for me to keep walking.
"I was up until a few seconds ago," I replied. "What's going on?"
He said nothing. I remember him seeing him gulp. I had thought only cartoon characters did that. Guess I was wrong. Apparently so did piece of shit assholes.
The three of us stood there for what must have only been about three seconds. It seemed like an eternity. She finally broke the silence.
With a flick of her hair she turned to me and said, "I'm his girlfriend."
That's when I heard it. I heard a crack. A breaking noise. It wasn't my heart. I was too numb to register anything that felt like pain. I think what I heard was the sound of the wall that I had helped build around his lies crack in my head.
You see, I think a part of me knew. I did know. Not that he had got back with his girlfriend. And he did get back with her. I know they broke up because we were friends before. He told me everything. What I didn't know was that he had decided to get back with her and keep me too...
What I knew was that he was cheating on me. Emotionally, and physically. I knew because as close as we were, he never loved me. Six months together. Six months of sex, and secretes and sharing of our lives. He knew things about me I had never told anyone. He spoke with me more than he did anyone else in his life. We laughed, and text sweet nothings to each other regularly. Things were simple and easy. Yet as close as we were, I knew that he didn't love me.
We should have been in love. He should have been my boyfriend. But he wasn't because he had decided to use me to make himself feel better about the way She made him feel.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I knew he was seeing other people. I assumed that would be the only reason why he wouldn't want to call me his one and only. I assumed that was why he seldom saw me on the weekends. I assumed that was why I didn't see him on a few of the holidays. What I never assumed was that he had gone back with Her. That he would do something as disgusting and heartless as cheat on two women who loved him.
That's right, I said it. I loved him. I can say it now. I refuse to be embarrassed about it.
So why would I allow him to lie to me you may ask?
I've been spending the last few weeks trying to figure that out. Well not so much figure it out as try to completely bury what happened into the deepest darkest corners of my heart and mind....
I looked at him for a moment after she told me who she was. I looked at him, but didn't see. I had already deleted him from my heart. Poof! Just like that. I looked at what was standing in front of me and said, "Good to know."
I walked away to the sounds of her slapping his face.
He tried to call me 20 minutes later. I guess he had finished arguing with the person who actually mattered in his life and now it was my turn. I let it go to voicemail.
I didn't care about his explanations. I didn't need his fake apologies. I didn't want or need anything from him. He was more than dead to me. He was simply deleted from my mind.
I went to bed that night without crying. I couldn't cry. What would I cry about? None of it had been real. It was worse than a lie. It had never existed.
I had known. For weeks I knew there was someone else. I may not have wanted to admit it to myself but god I knew. And I had done nothing!
Why? WHY??
It came to me today when I heard that quote.
"I am the trafficker of broken hearts."
I did nothing because I think a part of me thought I deserved it. I mean, I don't think I believe that I deserved to be betrayed like that. No one deserves to go through that kind of pain and betrayal. What I think I believe is that I deserve to be alone.
No, that's not right either. It's more that I believe that I'm supposed to be alone. Forever.
Now how depressing is that?
The whole time I was with him I knew I was on borrowed time. I knew it wouldn't last. I knew that we were heading towards the end. Yet I waited for it to come to me. I could have called him out at any time. I could have broke things off and moved on. But I didn't. I didn't because I wanted to be happy. I wanted to not be alone, atleast for a little while.
I wanted to pretend that finding love was possible for someone like me.
I am the trafficker of broken hearts.
I feel, I share, I help others. I give advice, I encourage, I give hope. I'm a muse. I believe everyone will find someone to love, but I don't think that's in the cards for me. I've never admitted to myself before but I think that I've always believed that I need to help others and stay open and free myself.
I once said that I felt like a revolving door when dating. It's true. I've dated more people in 2 years than most do in an entire lifetime. I've given a little piece of myself to each one and I know that in some way or the other they have benefited from their short time with me.
Step right up, make a right at the light, pass on through, stop for a moment but after a while the light has to turn green again and away you go!
I don't like feeling this way. I want to change.
I never should have closed the door on WCC. I never should have closed the door on you. I thought I was writing for others. That was never the case. This was always for me. Writing made me feel better about me.
He text me a few days later. I've memorized every word by what's left of my heart.
"I'm sorry for the other night. I'm sorry for everything. There is no excuse but I am sorry for hurting you."
Sorry you got caught you mean...
That's the day I finally cried. I cried like someone had died for 3 days straight. I wasn't crying over losing him. Hell no! He doesn't desearve any of my tears. I cried over allowing him to make me lose myself.
Maybe that's what the cracking sound was. It was the sound of the light in the batcave switching on. It was the sound the door being pried the fuck open. It was the sound of West Coast Carrie fighting her way back to me.
She is my strength, my backbone, my inner voice. She is the one who will help me regain my sense of self worth.. She is my truth, my uncensored honesty. I've been half a person but it's time for me to learn to be whole again.
Guess who's back?
West Coast Fucking Carrie, that's who.
Sorry I took so long.
WCC
"I am the trafficker of broken hearts."
The words felt like a strike across my face... just like that the light in the bat cave turned on...and she was back...
I was hoping I would never return to this. I was hoping that I would never return to you, Dear Reader. Oh I've heard your calls. I've received your emails. I've felt the yearning looks from my friends.
But I hoped, oh how I hoped, that I would find happiness and wouldn't need this place. That I wouldn't need you.
But I do. Life is hard. Dating is harder. It hurts, all the time. Even more now since I haven't had you. This world was a way for me to make each heartbreak, each failed relationship, mean something.
Writing made it all worth the pain it required to create something worthy of reading. Sharing the ups and downs of my life with you helped. Helped me to not feel used. Helped me to get through it all. Helped me to keep going.
It's been a year since I last wrote you. Oh and what a year it has been! Instead of getting better my dating life became even more ridiculous. There have been far too many men for me to back track and share with you, but trust me, you would have loved them all...
I've dated models and actors...a movie Super Hero body double...a Gay Alcoholic comedian (long story) Hell I even dated the Ringmaster for a major circus.
I know what you're thinking. The same thing I am tonight. That I was supposed to be getting serious about my relationships. That the purpose of not writing was so that I could focus on the men in my life. So that I could stop creating caricatures of who they are...or better yet, stop making a caricature of who I am.
I guess I just couldn't help myself. I had formed a habit. I no longer knew how to date only one man. I no longer knew how to take anyone seriously. Hell, I no longer knew how to date someone who was serious.
So 7 months ago I made a decision to try something new. I decided to choose a friend. I decided to date someone who I had already loved as a person hoping to be able to love him as...well something more.
For a while it worked, until I noticed that the closer I got to him the more he pulled away. I thought it was me. I thought that I was the one who was damaged. I thought that I was imagining things. The two of us were close. We spoke all day everyday. He texted before bed each night. I went to all his friends parities and events. We were even reading the same books together. Everything was blissfully simple and sweet. The only thing that bothered me was that he didn't want the titles. He didn't want to call me his girlfriend.
I understood why. He had just broke up with his girlfriend a few months before us. I knew all about it. He was one of my best friends afterall. I had helped him through the breakup. I could understand that he was scared. I could understand that he felt less than. I could understand that he wasn't ready.
I stopped pushing. I mean what did I care? We were happy. I hated titles afterall so I don't know why I was so concerned about not having one.
Then it happened.
One day while leaving his apartment a girl was waiting for us at his gate. I kept walking not thinking anything of it. That is until I noticed that he wasn't following.
I turned around to see where he was, and saw the two of them staring at each other. It was so surreal. It was as if I wasn't there anymore. The only two people who existed were the two of them. I was confused.
"Hey," I said to him, trying to penetrate the bubble that surrounded them.
"So, um, you ok?" He asked in a forced nonchalant voice. I think the asshole even gestured my way for me to keep walking.
"I was up until a few seconds ago," I replied. "What's going on?"
He said nothing. I remember him seeing him gulp. I had thought only cartoon characters did that. Guess I was wrong. Apparently so did piece of shit assholes.
The three of us stood there for what must have only been about three seconds. It seemed like an eternity. She finally broke the silence.
With a flick of her hair she turned to me and said, "I'm his girlfriend."
That's when I heard it. I heard a crack. A breaking noise. It wasn't my heart. I was too numb to register anything that felt like pain. I think what I heard was the sound of the wall that I had helped build around his lies crack in my head.
You see, I think a part of me knew. I did know. Not that he had got back with his girlfriend. And he did get back with her. I know they broke up because we were friends before. He told me everything. What I didn't know was that he had decided to get back with her and keep me too...
What I knew was that he was cheating on me. Emotionally, and physically. I knew because as close as we were, he never loved me. Six months together. Six months of sex, and secretes and sharing of our lives. He knew things about me I had never told anyone. He spoke with me more than he did anyone else in his life. We laughed, and text sweet nothings to each other regularly. Things were simple and easy. Yet as close as we were, I knew that he didn't love me.
We should have been in love. He should have been my boyfriend. But he wasn't because he had decided to use me to make himself feel better about the way She made him feel.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. I knew he was seeing other people. I assumed that would be the only reason why he wouldn't want to call me his one and only. I assumed that was why he seldom saw me on the weekends. I assumed that was why I didn't see him on a few of the holidays. What I never assumed was that he had gone back with Her. That he would do something as disgusting and heartless as cheat on two women who loved him.
That's right, I said it. I loved him. I can say it now. I refuse to be embarrassed about it.
So why would I allow him to lie to me you may ask?
I've been spending the last few weeks trying to figure that out. Well not so much figure it out as try to completely bury what happened into the deepest darkest corners of my heart and mind....
I looked at him for a moment after she told me who she was. I looked at him, but didn't see. I had already deleted him from my heart. Poof! Just like that. I looked at what was standing in front of me and said, "Good to know."
I walked away to the sounds of her slapping his face.
He tried to call me 20 minutes later. I guess he had finished arguing with the person who actually mattered in his life and now it was my turn. I let it go to voicemail.
I didn't care about his explanations. I didn't need his fake apologies. I didn't want or need anything from him. He was more than dead to me. He was simply deleted from my mind.
I went to bed that night without crying. I couldn't cry. What would I cry about? None of it had been real. It was worse than a lie. It had never existed.
I had known. For weeks I knew there was someone else. I may not have wanted to admit it to myself but god I knew. And I had done nothing!
Why? WHY??
It came to me today when I heard that quote.
"I am the trafficker of broken hearts."
I did nothing because I think a part of me thought I deserved it. I mean, I don't think I believe that I deserved to be betrayed like that. No one deserves to go through that kind of pain and betrayal. What I think I believe is that I deserve to be alone.
No, that's not right either. It's more that I believe that I'm supposed to be alone. Forever.
Now how depressing is that?
The whole time I was with him I knew I was on borrowed time. I knew it wouldn't last. I knew that we were heading towards the end. Yet I waited for it to come to me. I could have called him out at any time. I could have broke things off and moved on. But I didn't. I didn't because I wanted to be happy. I wanted to not be alone, atleast for a little while.
I wanted to pretend that finding love was possible for someone like me.
I am the trafficker of broken hearts.
I feel, I share, I help others. I give advice, I encourage, I give hope. I'm a muse. I believe everyone will find someone to love, but I don't think that's in the cards for me. I've never admitted to myself before but I think that I've always believed that I need to help others and stay open and free myself.
I once said that I felt like a revolving door when dating. It's true. I've dated more people in 2 years than most do in an entire lifetime. I've given a little piece of myself to each one and I know that in some way or the other they have benefited from their short time with me.
Step right up, make a right at the light, pass on through, stop for a moment but after a while the light has to turn green again and away you go!
I don't like feeling this way. I want to change.
I never should have closed the door on WCC. I never should have closed the door on you. I thought I was writing for others. That was never the case. This was always for me. Writing made me feel better about me.
He text me a few days later. I've memorized every word by what's left of my heart.
"I'm sorry for the other night. I'm sorry for everything. There is no excuse but I am sorry for hurting you."
Sorry you got caught you mean...
That's the day I finally cried. I cried like someone had died for 3 days straight. I wasn't crying over losing him. Hell no! He doesn't desearve any of my tears. I cried over allowing him to make me lose myself.
Maybe that's what the cracking sound was. It was the sound of the light in the batcave switching on. It was the sound the door being pried the fuck open. It was the sound of West Coast Carrie fighting her way back to me.
She is my strength, my backbone, my inner voice. She is the one who will help me regain my sense of self worth.. She is my truth, my uncensored honesty. I've been half a person but it's time for me to learn to be whole again.
Guess who's back?
West Coast Fucking Carrie, that's who.
Sorry I took so long.
WCC
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Happy Endings
It was my birthday last weekend. I turned the big 3-4. Freaked me out to be honest.
I mean I know I don't look it, but by god do I feel it. Thirty four years in the life of West Coast Carrie is like sixty four in the life of a "Normie". The last four years since my divorce have been insane! I've dated more these last few years than I had my entire life. Between Huge Asshole, The Kid, Nutty as a Fruitcake, Creeper, The Rocker, Puppy, and Frenchie; I'm exhausted.
This year stands out most of all. It's strange having my ups and downs, wins and failures, laid out before me, and posted, for the public as well as myself to see.
You would think that with all the dating that I do that I would have had a date for my special day. I didn't. My date instead decided to break up with me three days before my birthday.
I had met him a few weeks before my birthday. He was born in Britain but raised in France. His accent was pretty strange because of it. The mix made him sound like a New Yorker. He had came to the states a few months ago to pursue his acting and modeling career. He had seen some decent success in Europe and was excited to try his luck in the States.
Things had been going great between us until one day he decided to pull a Rocker and read my blog behind my back. As if invading my privacy hadn't been enough the guy had the nerve to judge me off of it. Atleast The Rocker had let me explain. He broke things off immediately. Idiot. Whatever. Good riddance. If a guy can't tell the difference between who they see in front of them and a fictional character than I don't need him in my life.
Wait. Don't listen to me. I'm not being totally honest. I was bothered. I was hurt and beyond frustrated. You see I had decided the month before I met him that I wasn't going to write my blog anymore. I had decided that I was done. You can imagine how upset I was that the first time in forever that I had decided to stay true to one guy, my damn blog from dating past ruined it?
After Frenchie left, I had dove straight back into my manic dating lifestyle. I couldn't help it. It took more than one man to make one Frenchie...hell it would take a whole army of men to build a Rocker. So that's what I did. I tried to pick up the slack by dating as many men as I could find. By now I was damn good at it.
It may have taken me a year, but I guess I finally achieved what I set out to do. I built the perfect man, by combining the meager powers of many. The "Weird Science" project has finally been achieved.
I had a boy for everything I may need. Here's the list I had running:
The Best Friend = Random British Guy gets this title. We talk about everything...via Skype. We share our feelings, dating horror stories and discuss our lives in general. I feel fortunate to still have a friend like him in my life. But don't get me wrong, the second this man's feet hits US soil again, I plan on making my "Porn" story a reality....
Lust = This title goes to The New Brit. I rarely see him. Usually we call each other in the mist of our partying and meet up at an after party or random Hollywood club. The man is disgustingly hot, but unfortunately much too flawed for me to ever take seriously.
Plus One = Leather Guy gets this one. I have yet to write about him, but we met on Christmas day. A member of The Cochella Tribe had a Christmas party at his house for those of us with no family in town. I decided to take Leather Guy along with me. He arrived at The Plex with a bar of chocolate truffle wrapped in holiday paper. Too cute! He fit in perfectly with my crew. He loves the same electronic music they do, is photogenic as hell, and adores me. When I need a plus one to any of my Hipster events, he's my go to guy.
Sense of Humor = We all know how much I love a guy that can make me laugh. I have to give this to my Penpal in Lake Arrowhead. Penpal is a 52 year old man that I had met on EstablishedMen.com. He is much too old for me to date, but the man cracks me up! We spend most of our day messaging jokes to each other...goodtimes.
Spiritual Connection = Got to be The Healer. The two of us have never hooked up. I think mainly because before we met I had expressed my dislike for his current hairstyle. Like I always say, men are sensitive creatures that can't handle shit. Even though, we still hang out occasionally and enjoy eachothers company. He is the only man in my life outside of my dad that understands my useless superpower. He is part psychic, part healer. The man has actual clients! He's taught me alot these last few months about how to protect my energy and tap into my inner talents. It's been nice to have a guy like him around. After all, every super hero needs a mentor. Now if I could just get him to cut his god awful hair he'd be perfect.....
Sex = I may lust after The New Brit, but the best sex available to me is from...drum roll please...Dude. That's right. Dude is back! His reconnection with his ex had only lasted two weeks. Guess giving them a month was a bit too generous on my part. He still isn't a guy I could fall in love with, but I do enjoy his company. We still argue every chance we get about being "real" and are comfortable and trusting enough for an occasional rough and tumble if we choose. And for the record, I was right...we did get better at it with practice...
Texting Buddy = I know this may sound funny, but I love to text! I was spoiled while dating Puppy. That boy texts his brains out. So I've been searching for a replacement that could handle my preferred method of hourly messaging. This title goes to my Sweet Home Alabamy. This boy came into town for only a week. He's friends with one of my Hipster Crew. I met him the last day of my birthday weekend. We were inseparable for the rest of the week until he left. We now text daily...on the hour, almost every hour. He's talking about moving, either to Denver or to Los Angeles soon. My fingers are crossed for the latter.
Money Bags/Intelligence = Moneys never really been a driving factor for my relationship choices. I've always been the type to be more attracted to ambition and drive. Intelligence is super hot to me as well. However if I'm building my own man, I might as well throw in some cheese, don't you think?
This title goes to The Pocket Jew. A short while back I had decided that I wanted to mix things up and write about Sugar Daddy's. A few weeks on the site made me change my mind. It's basically just a way to get around the laws of the land so that you can own your own prostitute. Really nothing much there for me to write about. I can sum it up with one word. Gross.
However, of the few men I spoke with during my brief cameo on the site, one stuck out. The Pocket Jew. I told him right away that I was only on the site for my writing. We became friends and eventually started to date. Without payment. He's a short Jewish lawyer that would normally never be my type. It's his wit and intelligence that made me stop and take notice. We go out for drinks and dinner a few times a month. I bring fun and silliness to his busy world. I really enjoy his company and love to debate about the world with the guy.
The Chef = I love me a man who can cook! The Hot Lebowsky gets this title. The two of us just recently started talking again. I still have yet to sleep with the poor guy. Honestly, I probably never will. I enjoy his company as a friend too much to ruin it by doing something like that. Although I may need to throw in a smooch or two eventually so that I can keep him cooking for me...
Date Nights = This is different from Plus One. Date Nights are one on one. I like a guy who is good with staying at home every once in a while. The Nerd deserves this title. The two of us enjoy movie nights together or occasional runs to Yogurtland. We may flirt when we message each other online but in person we keep things PG...13. It's nice to kick it in someones space without the dating pressures one usually feels. We're friends that are attracted to each other and content at being so...atleast for now. We plan on watching The Shining together sometime next week.
My Arch Nemesis = This may sound strange, but I like to have a bit of fight in my guy. I need to feel that the person I'm with is my equal. I want to feel challenged. I have to give this title to, you may have guessed it, The Creeper. Yes, I still speak with that wacky guy. We've actually become friends...in a way. He had always called me his equal in the dating world. Both of us have ran our individual social experiments in the past. Couldn't tell you if either of us have been successful, but we sure do like to shit talk our results to each other.
There are a few more men who bounce in and out of my crazy life, but these are the highlights. I will admit that there's more to building a perfect man than the options I have provided above, but come on? How many guys can one girl date at once?
I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go from here. Getting to this point has been a journey in itself. It was more complicated than I thought it would be. I had thought that all I would have to do was go out and find a handful of men to date that would fit my made up bill. That was so not the case! It was less about finding them and more about finding me. I had to change before I could accomplish such a difficult goal.
At the beginning of this I was a relationship girl. I had bounced from one boyfriend to the other, with little to no breaks, for years. It was difficult to break the chain. Difficult for me to learn to date without caring.
No. That's not right. I didn't learn to not care about guys...I had to learn how to care more about me. It's like what I wrote in, "Book 2: Poisoned Arrows". I fell in love with men in the past because they told me to. Because I thought I was supposed to. I had to learn to let that go. It wasn't until I fell in love with The Rocker that I learned that it was ok to do something for me.
Things became easier after that relationship. It made me take dating less seriously. Every guy I dated didn't need to be the one. I didn't need them to provide my happiness. In the beginning of the year I was constantly getting hurt. Between Partyboy's stupid head games and The Creepers dick flip, I was bruised. Everyone of the men I dated in the beginning of all this hurt me. They all pressed on the sore spots. It should never have felt that way. I should have been healed before I started. I shouldn't have looked for these damaged men to help me. They weren't worthy. Not one of them were worthy of me.
I'm in a better place now. I was broken when I started this journey. I found a way to heal. Even if I was broken again after I found that serenity I found a way to be okay with it. It was just life playing itself out. Ups and downs, cuts and bruises and all. Scar tissue is tougher than the skin we are born with. It was all apart of the process.
You know what I realize now? Building the perfect man won't make you happy. It didn't work for the boys in the film. Once the boys in Weird Science created their perfect woman, do you know what they did? They went out and found themselves a couple of perfectly normal, and flawed, women to be with instead.
I totally get it man. That's how I feel. These guys occupy my time, they entertain me and provide occasionally comfort; But overall, I still feel empty. I still feel alone. I used to think that I was ok with using Mr Wrong to keep me company while I waited for Mr Right, but I was sadly mistaken.
I guess it's better to have one flawed man who loves you and who you can love back, than many men who only have one part of the whole to give.
I swear there had to be a better way for me to figure all this out. A way that didn't involve having to go through what I went through this year. Oh wait, there was. I could have just re-watched the movie.
So now what? Where do I go from here? If I don't have a happy ending for this story, what can I provide for you? What can I give you Dear Reader? How can I give you hope? Hope not only for you but for me?
Maybe my writing has done it's own kind of damage. I started this because I needed WCC. I needed her protection. I needed her to say and do all the things I couldn't. To protect me.
I catch myself leaning on her still. Hell, not leaning, more like pushing her in front of me like an emotional bullet proof shield. She has become a way for me to hide from anything or anyone who might hurt me. A way for me to keep people at arms length. I guess I was unfair to the French Brit. I condemned him for thinking that I was WCC. In a way, the guy was right. I may know the difference between us but if I jump behind her every time something goes wrong no one will ever see me for who I really am. No one will ever know that I can stand alone.
One of the many things that I learned this year was that no one can break me. That I can heal and come back stronger every time. So I need to stop being afraid to show people who I am. It won't kill me. That knowledge should give me the confidence to allow people see Carrie.
I'm not WCC. I know I've said it time and time again, but I need to listen to my own words. I need to remember me. She's an Alter Ego. The opposite of who I am. She is pure ego and bravado. She is detached and judgemental. She is unforgiving and dismissive. I mean let's be honest? The woman is sort of an Asshole.
That's not me. I love. Alot. All the time. I love my friends, my family and men. I am positive and understanding. I'm forgiving to a fault. I hate cutting people out of my life. Even if they have wronged me. I never argue or raise my voice. I never say the, "F-word". If it's 4 am and someone needs a ride, I'm who they call. If someone needs a ear to listen to them, I'm here. I'm painfully sensitive. If a harsh word is spoken in my direction, I cry. But only when I'm alone and no one can see because I would hate to bring anyone else's mood down.
I keep my pain and my fear to myself. I deal with my sorrows alone. No. That's not right. I used too. Now I'm not allowed too. The Plex watch after me, they always know. They know who I am and love for me because of it. For my strengths and my weakness's. They make me share. They make me lean. They make it ok for me to be me.
I am a beautiful person.
Maybe that's the hope I can give you. Maybe that's what my journey has taught me. It taught me that it's okay to hurt. It's okay for people to see your tears. It's okay to put yourself out there. It's okay to show the world and men everything that you are. It's okay to lay all your cards on the table because even if you end up hurt you can still say that you were true to you. It won't kill you. You will heal.
I realize now that I will never find Mr Right...my Cool Rider...if I don't put myself out there so that he can find me.
Mr Right will love me for being me. Why would I want someone to love me for any less?
I'm going to approach this year as Carrie. As plain, amazingly sensitive and loving...Carrie.
It's time to let WCC go...and you.
I'm sorry but I will never be able to find love if I don't stop the public commentary. I need to treat men and myself with the respect and love that they deserve. The disassociation and detachment needs to stop.
WCC will still be apart of me. We all need a small piece of our alter egos to help us during the hard times. Just don't make the mistake I did and start to believe that she is the only way you can be okay with facing the day.
So this is goodbye...but don't worry. The lights in the Bat cave may be dark, but that doesn't mean that no one is home. I'm sure she'll be back one day.
She's already waiting.
xoxo,
Carrie
I mean I know I don't look it, but by god do I feel it. Thirty four years in the life of West Coast Carrie is like sixty four in the life of a "Normie". The last four years since my divorce have been insane! I've dated more these last few years than I had my entire life. Between Huge Asshole, The Kid, Nutty as a Fruitcake, Creeper, The Rocker, Puppy, and Frenchie; I'm exhausted.
This year stands out most of all. It's strange having my ups and downs, wins and failures, laid out before me, and posted, for the public as well as myself to see.
You would think that with all the dating that I do that I would have had a date for my special day. I didn't. My date instead decided to break up with me three days before my birthday.
I had met him a few weeks before my birthday. He was born in Britain but raised in France. His accent was pretty strange because of it. The mix made him sound like a New Yorker. He had came to the states a few months ago to pursue his acting and modeling career. He had seen some decent success in Europe and was excited to try his luck in the States.
Things had been going great between us until one day he decided to pull a Rocker and read my blog behind my back. As if invading my privacy hadn't been enough the guy had the nerve to judge me off of it. Atleast The Rocker had let me explain. He broke things off immediately. Idiot. Whatever. Good riddance. If a guy can't tell the difference between who they see in front of them and a fictional character than I don't need him in my life.
Wait. Don't listen to me. I'm not being totally honest. I was bothered. I was hurt and beyond frustrated. You see I had decided the month before I met him that I wasn't going to write my blog anymore. I had decided that I was done. You can imagine how upset I was that the first time in forever that I had decided to stay true to one guy, my damn blog from dating past ruined it?
After Frenchie left, I had dove straight back into my manic dating lifestyle. I couldn't help it. It took more than one man to make one Frenchie...hell it would take a whole army of men to build a Rocker. So that's what I did. I tried to pick up the slack by dating as many men as I could find. By now I was damn good at it.
It may have taken me a year, but I guess I finally achieved what I set out to do. I built the perfect man, by combining the meager powers of many. The "Weird Science" project has finally been achieved.
I had a boy for everything I may need. Here's the list I had running:
The Best Friend = Random British Guy gets this title. We talk about everything...via Skype. We share our feelings, dating horror stories and discuss our lives in general. I feel fortunate to still have a friend like him in my life. But don't get me wrong, the second this man's feet hits US soil again, I plan on making my "Porn" story a reality....
Lust = This title goes to The New Brit. I rarely see him. Usually we call each other in the mist of our partying and meet up at an after party or random Hollywood club. The man is disgustingly hot, but unfortunately much too flawed for me to ever take seriously.
Plus One = Leather Guy gets this one. I have yet to write about him, but we met on Christmas day. A member of The Cochella Tribe had a Christmas party at his house for those of us with no family in town. I decided to take Leather Guy along with me. He arrived at The Plex with a bar of chocolate truffle wrapped in holiday paper. Too cute! He fit in perfectly with my crew. He loves the same electronic music they do, is photogenic as hell, and adores me. When I need a plus one to any of my Hipster events, he's my go to guy.
Sense of Humor = We all know how much I love a guy that can make me laugh. I have to give this to my Penpal in Lake Arrowhead. Penpal is a 52 year old man that I had met on EstablishedMen.com. He is much too old for me to date, but the man cracks me up! We spend most of our day messaging jokes to each other...goodtimes.
Spiritual Connection = Got to be The Healer. The two of us have never hooked up. I think mainly because before we met I had expressed my dislike for his current hairstyle. Like I always say, men are sensitive creatures that can't handle shit. Even though, we still hang out occasionally and enjoy eachothers company. He is the only man in my life outside of my dad that understands my useless superpower. He is part psychic, part healer. The man has actual clients! He's taught me alot these last few months about how to protect my energy and tap into my inner talents. It's been nice to have a guy like him around. After all, every super hero needs a mentor. Now if I could just get him to cut his god awful hair he'd be perfect.....
Sex = I may lust after The New Brit, but the best sex available to me is from...drum roll please...Dude. That's right. Dude is back! His reconnection with his ex had only lasted two weeks. Guess giving them a month was a bit too generous on my part. He still isn't a guy I could fall in love with, but I do enjoy his company. We still argue every chance we get about being "real" and are comfortable and trusting enough for an occasional rough and tumble if we choose. And for the record, I was right...we did get better at it with practice...
Texting Buddy = I know this may sound funny, but I love to text! I was spoiled while dating Puppy. That boy texts his brains out. So I've been searching for a replacement that could handle my preferred method of hourly messaging. This title goes to my Sweet Home Alabamy. This boy came into town for only a week. He's friends with one of my Hipster Crew. I met him the last day of my birthday weekend. We were inseparable for the rest of the week until he left. We now text daily...on the hour, almost every hour. He's talking about moving, either to Denver or to Los Angeles soon. My fingers are crossed for the latter.
Money Bags/Intelligence = Moneys never really been a driving factor for my relationship choices. I've always been the type to be more attracted to ambition and drive. Intelligence is super hot to me as well. However if I'm building my own man, I might as well throw in some cheese, don't you think?
This title goes to The Pocket Jew. A short while back I had decided that I wanted to mix things up and write about Sugar Daddy's. A few weeks on the site made me change my mind. It's basically just a way to get around the laws of the land so that you can own your own prostitute. Really nothing much there for me to write about. I can sum it up with one word. Gross.
However, of the few men I spoke with during my brief cameo on the site, one stuck out. The Pocket Jew. I told him right away that I was only on the site for my writing. We became friends and eventually started to date. Without payment. He's a short Jewish lawyer that would normally never be my type. It's his wit and intelligence that made me stop and take notice. We go out for drinks and dinner a few times a month. I bring fun and silliness to his busy world. I really enjoy his company and love to debate about the world with the guy.
The Chef = I love me a man who can cook! The Hot Lebowsky gets this title. The two of us just recently started talking again. I still have yet to sleep with the poor guy. Honestly, I probably never will. I enjoy his company as a friend too much to ruin it by doing something like that. Although I may need to throw in a smooch or two eventually so that I can keep him cooking for me...
Date Nights = This is different from Plus One. Date Nights are one on one. I like a guy who is good with staying at home every once in a while. The Nerd deserves this title. The two of us enjoy movie nights together or occasional runs to Yogurtland. We may flirt when we message each other online but in person we keep things PG...13. It's nice to kick it in someones space without the dating pressures one usually feels. We're friends that are attracted to each other and content at being so...atleast for now. We plan on watching The Shining together sometime next week.
My Arch Nemesis = This may sound strange, but I like to have a bit of fight in my guy. I need to feel that the person I'm with is my equal. I want to feel challenged. I have to give this title to, you may have guessed it, The Creeper. Yes, I still speak with that wacky guy. We've actually become friends...in a way. He had always called me his equal in the dating world. Both of us have ran our individual social experiments in the past. Couldn't tell you if either of us have been successful, but we sure do like to shit talk our results to each other.
There are a few more men who bounce in and out of my crazy life, but these are the highlights. I will admit that there's more to building a perfect man than the options I have provided above, but come on? How many guys can one girl date at once?
I'm not sure where I'm supposed to go from here. Getting to this point has been a journey in itself. It was more complicated than I thought it would be. I had thought that all I would have to do was go out and find a handful of men to date that would fit my made up bill. That was so not the case! It was less about finding them and more about finding me. I had to change before I could accomplish such a difficult goal.
At the beginning of this I was a relationship girl. I had bounced from one boyfriend to the other, with little to no breaks, for years. It was difficult to break the chain. Difficult for me to learn to date without caring.
No. That's not right. I didn't learn to not care about guys...I had to learn how to care more about me. It's like what I wrote in, "Book 2: Poisoned Arrows". I fell in love with men in the past because they told me to. Because I thought I was supposed to. I had to learn to let that go. It wasn't until I fell in love with The Rocker that I learned that it was ok to do something for me.
Things became easier after that relationship. It made me take dating less seriously. Every guy I dated didn't need to be the one. I didn't need them to provide my happiness. In the beginning of the year I was constantly getting hurt. Between Partyboy's stupid head games and The Creepers dick flip, I was bruised. Everyone of the men I dated in the beginning of all this hurt me. They all pressed on the sore spots. It should never have felt that way. I should have been healed before I started. I shouldn't have looked for these damaged men to help me. They weren't worthy. Not one of them were worthy of me.
I'm in a better place now. I was broken when I started this journey. I found a way to heal. Even if I was broken again after I found that serenity I found a way to be okay with it. It was just life playing itself out. Ups and downs, cuts and bruises and all. Scar tissue is tougher than the skin we are born with. It was all apart of the process.
You know what I realize now? Building the perfect man won't make you happy. It didn't work for the boys in the film. Once the boys in Weird Science created their perfect woman, do you know what they did? They went out and found themselves a couple of perfectly normal, and flawed, women to be with instead.
I totally get it man. That's how I feel. These guys occupy my time, they entertain me and provide occasionally comfort; But overall, I still feel empty. I still feel alone. I used to think that I was ok with using Mr Wrong to keep me company while I waited for Mr Right, but I was sadly mistaken.
I guess it's better to have one flawed man who loves you and who you can love back, than many men who only have one part of the whole to give.
I swear there had to be a better way for me to figure all this out. A way that didn't involve having to go through what I went through this year. Oh wait, there was. I could have just re-watched the movie.
So now what? Where do I go from here? If I don't have a happy ending for this story, what can I provide for you? What can I give you Dear Reader? How can I give you hope? Hope not only for you but for me?
Maybe my writing has done it's own kind of damage. I started this because I needed WCC. I needed her protection. I needed her to say and do all the things I couldn't. To protect me.
I catch myself leaning on her still. Hell, not leaning, more like pushing her in front of me like an emotional bullet proof shield. She has become a way for me to hide from anything or anyone who might hurt me. A way for me to keep people at arms length. I guess I was unfair to the French Brit. I condemned him for thinking that I was WCC. In a way, the guy was right. I may know the difference between us but if I jump behind her every time something goes wrong no one will ever see me for who I really am. No one will ever know that I can stand alone.
One of the many things that I learned this year was that no one can break me. That I can heal and come back stronger every time. So I need to stop being afraid to show people who I am. It won't kill me. That knowledge should give me the confidence to allow people see Carrie.
I'm not WCC. I know I've said it time and time again, but I need to listen to my own words. I need to remember me. She's an Alter Ego. The opposite of who I am. She is pure ego and bravado. She is detached and judgemental. She is unforgiving and dismissive. I mean let's be honest? The woman is sort of an Asshole.
That's not me. I love. Alot. All the time. I love my friends, my family and men. I am positive and understanding. I'm forgiving to a fault. I hate cutting people out of my life. Even if they have wronged me. I never argue or raise my voice. I never say the, "F-word". If it's 4 am and someone needs a ride, I'm who they call. If someone needs a ear to listen to them, I'm here. I'm painfully sensitive. If a harsh word is spoken in my direction, I cry. But only when I'm alone and no one can see because I would hate to bring anyone else's mood down.
I keep my pain and my fear to myself. I deal with my sorrows alone. No. That's not right. I used too. Now I'm not allowed too. The Plex watch after me, they always know. They know who I am and love for me because of it. For my strengths and my weakness's. They make me share. They make me lean. They make it ok for me to be me.
I am a beautiful person.
Maybe that's the hope I can give you. Maybe that's what my journey has taught me. It taught me that it's okay to hurt. It's okay for people to see your tears. It's okay to put yourself out there. It's okay to show the world and men everything that you are. It's okay to lay all your cards on the table because even if you end up hurt you can still say that you were true to you. It won't kill you. You will heal.
I realize now that I will never find Mr Right...my Cool Rider...if I don't put myself out there so that he can find me.
Mr Right will love me for being me. Why would I want someone to love me for any less?
I'm going to approach this year as Carrie. As plain, amazingly sensitive and loving...Carrie.
It's time to let WCC go...and you.
I'm sorry but I will never be able to find love if I don't stop the public commentary. I need to treat men and myself with the respect and love that they deserve. The disassociation and detachment needs to stop.
WCC will still be apart of me. We all need a small piece of our alter egos to help us during the hard times. Just don't make the mistake I did and start to believe that she is the only way you can be okay with facing the day.
So this is goodbye...but don't worry. The lights in the Bat cave may be dark, but that doesn't mean that no one is home. I'm sure she'll be back one day.
She's already waiting.
xoxo,
Carrie
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Pieces of You
The day where I was forced to say goodbye to Frenchie came and went; and even though it ripped my heart in two to do it, I have to admit that enjoyed every last minute of it...
Friday morning I received one of my last text from Frenchie. He was scheduled to leave early Saturday morning. It would be our last day together.
He messaged me, "Can you meet me in downtown in 1 hour and bring your bikini?"
For you? Anything Mr Man.
"My bathing suit?" I ask, confused.
"Yes Cherie'," he says.
"Okay, I can do that," I answer. "Where am I meeting you?"
"At my friends loft. I v'will be v'waiting for you on zi roof," he text.
I head downtown an hour later, my suit and cover up stuffed securely into my hand bag.
I punch in the code for the secured building and make my way up to the roof. I had long since received the code for the door. Why wouldn't I have it? Frenchie was my boyfriend afterall...
As I climbed the familiar stairs to the roof, I allowed my mind to wander to the first night I had been up here. I open the rooftop door, half expecting to walk into starry skyed darkness. Instead I step into the bright sunlight and begin my search for Frenchie. I find him sitting at a table next to the jacuzzi, wearing a pair of swim trunks, dark sunglasses and a hipster Fedora.
"Hello baby," he says, standing to give me a kiss.
"Aren't you the lucky one," I say to him, taking a seat at the table. "Leave it to tourist luck to get such a beautiful day like today in the middle of December."
"Are you 'Ungry," he asks, gesturing towards the other half of the sandwich he was eating.
"No I'm fine, I ate a little something before I got here," I tell him.
We both pause for a moment and just smile at each other. We do that alot. Stare at each other and smile. There are no uncomfortable silences between Frenchie and I. Ever.
We laughed and shot the shit for a bit while Frenchie finished his sandwich. It was hard to believe that in just a few short hours, he would be gone. We were both still so at ease. As if there would still be a tomorrow for us.
Frenchie finishes up and holds his hand out to me saying, "Come. I have zomething for you."
I take his hand and allow him to lead me back into the building and down to the loft. He walks over to the kitchen table and appears to be adjusting something in a box. He finally turns around holding a beautiful white Amaryllis flower, set into a small box. It has several bulbs not quite bloomed, but one of the large star like flowers was fully opened and stunning.
Frenchie is grinning sheepishly as he points to the card pushed into the dirt of the plant. I take it in my hands to read it.
"Cherie Carrie, Thank you so much for being my American Girlfriend for a week, xx Frenchie."
I laugh and give Frenchie a quick kiss and a hug. I hide my face in his shoulder for a moment, collecting my bearings. The gift was sweet. My eyes had teared a bit. I didn't want him to see. I wanted this day to stay positive. I refused to give into tears.
"Thank you so much Frenchie, really," I say to him, finally pulling a way. "It's beautiful. I love it."
"Z'he lady said that it can live a long time," he says to me. "She give me instructions for you. I thought it was the most pretty. I v'wanted something that v'would last, so that you v'would have z'omthing to look at and think of me."
I feel the familiar sting in my eyes again.
I will them away, saying, "It's perfect. I've never been the type to like flowers. I mean flowers like roses and things like that, you know? It always seemed wrong to pick the flowers off the plant like that. This is so much better. It's still alive. I can plant it and keep it going. I love it."
Frenchie smiles again, obviously pleased with himself, "I'm so happy you like it. I have never given a gift like this before. I don't give flowers before. I'm happy."
I give him another quick kiss and place the flower back down on the table.
"Would you like to go in the jacuzzi now?" he asks.
"Sure," I answer. "I just need to change."
I head into the bathroom to change into my suit. I look at myself in the mirror, making sure that no trace of my momentary choke up is noticeable. Satisfied with what I see, I take a deep breath and head back to the roof with Frenchie.
He slips into the jacuzzi first as I pull my cover up off.
"Wow," I hear Frenchie say under his breath.
I had stressed over which of my many bathing suits to wear for my first and last water adventure with Frenchie. I had finally settled on a zebra striped Monokini. The cutouts, low back, ringed bottom of the suit compliment my body perfectly. My hips, large ass and small waist all featured individually around the overpriced suit. I had apparently chosen correctly. Frenchie couldn't take his eyes off me as I entered the hot water.
He pulls me to him the moment I hit the underwater bench. We begin to kiss passionately, his hands searching under the water for me frantically.
Then he stops, turning away from me and moving to the other end of the jacuzzi.
"What's wrong," I ask concerned.
"I am getting too excited," he answers, not looking at me.
"What's wrong with that," I ask, laughing.
"I decided it v'would be best if v'we don't have sex again," he says to me. "Yes, that v'would be better."
"Why, I don't understand," I ask him confused.
"I think it v'would be too hard for us," he says seriously. "It v'would make it harder for me, and you. It iz best v'we don't."
Say's who?
"Okay," I say instead. "If that's what you want."
I was confused. I wasn't sure who he was trying to protect. Himself or me? I was fine. I had no problem making love to my week long boyfriend. I mean he was leaving, why wouldn't we be together one last time? Was he afraid I would freak out later? I mean I already knew he was leaving, it's not like I would feel used or anything. Geez, why do men always have to over complicate the uncomplicated!
Frenchie steps out of the jacuzzi and sits on the bench nearby. I swim over to my cover up and pull my cell phone out of the pocket, snapping a few pics of Frenchie lounging in the sun. Satisfied, I place my phone safely away and dip back into the water, an idea forming mischievously in my head.
I turn my back to Frenchie and lean my body against the opposite side of the pool. I use my arms to prop my body up above the water, kicking my legs back lazily. To the casual observer it would appear that I was merely leaning over to get a better view of the city. In reality, I was fully aware of the view I was giving to Frenchie. I was leaning forward just enough so that the supple part of my hips and ass were exposed just above the bubbling water. It didn't take long for my arched back trick to do it's job.
Within seconds I hear Frenchie's body splash back into the water. His hands found my hips under the water and pulled me towards him. He pressed my back to his chest, squeezing me tight and kissing my neck. He finally turns me around and caresses my ass while kissing my lips. The steam is rising above us, at this point I can't be sure if it's the heaters or us.
No, we didn't have sex. I knew that they placed security cameras on top of buildings like these, and I was positive one of them had to be pointed directly at the jacuzzi. I wasn't looking for sex, I just wanted passion. And passion I got...
We finally dried off and left the roof for the warmth of the loft. I quickly jump into the shower, alone. I may have been able to get Frenchie to waver upstairs, but he wasn't having any of it back in the apartment. I begrudgingly entered the shower alone.
After we both redressed, Frenchie asked if I would mind shopping with him around town for a bit. He still needed to pick up gifts and souvenirs for his friends and family back home.
"If it isn't too much trouble," he says to me apologetically. "It may be very boring."
"It won't be boring for me," I tell him. "I don't care what we do, I just want to be with you."
He smiles and places his arm around me as we head back down to the street towards my car.
We spend the next few hours walking around downtown, shopping. I'm quiet most of the way, lost in thought. The week had been amazing. We had done so much together! It had been a while since I had spent that much time with a man outside of The Kid. It was strange how close I felt to him. I still marveled at my comfort with my French boo. It had only been one week! It had seemed so much longer. The experience had been unreal.
Finally satisfied with his purchases, Frenchie and I decide to find a place to eat. He had seen a lovely restaurant in the center of the city he had been wanting to try all week. We step inside of a large room drenched in white decor with white linen tables spaced through out.
We order two of the house special martini's, mine fruity, his laced in cream; along with a gourmet salad to accompany our thin crust prosciutto and goat cheese pizza. Frenchie orders a few appetizers that I can't pronounce but am more than happy to eat. We settle into our corner booth and begin to talk.
We talk about the week we've had. We talk about our day. But most of all we talk about each other. We talk about what attracted us to the other when we first met. We talk about what made us care as the week wore on. It's funny, I've always had a hard time accepting compliments from people in the past. I have an even harder time accepting love and romance. Not with Frenchie. With him it's different. I never feel the urge to roll my eyes. There was no need to hold my gag reflex in check. I think it's because he doesn't say things to flatter me. He's not trying to get on my good side. He says what he says because to him, they are simple truths. Truths that need to be said. So he does.
"You have been v'wonderful," he is saying to me. "You are so sexy, and passionate, and honest. You laugh all the time. That's v'what I like most of all v'when v'we met. You laughed v'with me. You smiled. You thank me for the things I do. You make me feel good...about me. You are v'what a women should be. You are The Women."
Frenchie looks at his food during this whole speech lost in thought, searching for the right words. Happy with his analyses, he continues to eat.
I look away towards the wall. How does he do that? How can he just allow the sweetest things to roll off his tongue without even noticing the effects that they have on me? Could he really be that selfless?
I'm starting to loose it! I knew this was coming. I knew he would be gone. I'm not sad that he's leaving, I was prepared for that. I was, touched. Touched that he had ever came. Touched that I was able to enjoy his company, and that he had chose to enjoy mine.
Frenchie looks over, noting my silence.
He grabs my hand and says, "I know I am leaving...but I v'will still be here. I mean v'we v'will maybe send messages and z'things like that but v'we have zomething else. I am leaving a piece of me here...v'with you. And I am taking a piece of you v'with me. Here. Inside."
He takes my hand and presses it against his heart to make sure that I understand.
I shake my head in awe of his sweetness and lean in for a kiss. This guy is fucking unreal!!
We continue our dinner. We don't say much towards the end. We merely sit enjoying our delicious meal, content to merely be in the others presence.
We finally finish up and head out of the restaurant and back onto the busy city street. I look up at the tall buildings surrounding me. There's nothing I love more than standing in the middle of Downtown LA, looking up at the tall buildings, lights glowing out of the many windows, illuminating the sidewalks below.
Frenchie and I walk in silence towards my car. It was getting late. I knew our day was done. Right before we get to the garage entrance, he stops and looks at me.
"This is v'where I need to leave Cherie'," he says to me. "I v'want to v'walk the rest of the way to my friends alone. I v'want to see the city one last time."
I mouth the words, "Okay."
I can't speak. I can hardly breathe.
He pulled me to him and kissed me. He kissed my mouth and my face. He hugged me tighter and pulled my hands to his lips and kissed those as well. There was so much I wanted to say. So much that I felt.
I wanted to tell him what he had done for me. It had been more than enjoying a week with a stranger. He had got me to trust again. He had got me to feel again. He had helped me to realize that I could find love again. I could connect with someone. He had helped to heal my heart. He had healed the bruise left by The Rocker. He had helped me to feel good about...me. I loved me once again, and I was very aware that there was a part of me that also loved him. I loved Frenchie.
I loved him for being the man he was. I loved him for how he treated me. I loved him for enjoying my company and allowing me to enjoy his. My love for him was selfless. I needed nothing from him in return. No promises, no goodbyes. Just a thank you. From me to him.
I looked into his eyes, hoping that he could read all that I felt in them. He looks back at me and smiles. He presses his lips to mine for the last time.
"Goodbye," I say to him.
I squeeze his hand and walk away, without looking back.
I hold my breathe the entire walk to my car. I could see Frenchie, in my minds eye, walking down the city street. His black trench coat pulled tight around him. A grin fixed on his face.
The moment I locked myself safely into my car, I let go. I cried. Hell, I sobbed. My heart was throbbing. It wasn't broken, it was merely full to the point of bursting.
I sobbed the entire drive home. I didn't take the freeway. That would have been too quick. I instead chose the streets. Each stop light allowing me more time to cry out my feelings.
If felt good! It felt good to feel! It's true what they say. The only way to get over a lost love is to find love with someone else. I'm not sure if I'm really ready to love someone. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take the chance and commit. But one thing I did know, I finally was over The Rocker. The pain was gone. I could finally think of him with out feeling the old twitch in my heart.
I may be healed, but I don't quite feel whole. And I'm ok with that. I'm ok with crying, I'm ok with loving, and I'm ok with missing the men that once meant the world to me. I'm ok with it because for the first time in a long time, I'm ok with me.
Thank you Frenchie. Thank you for finding me. Thank you for caring. And thank you for my flower. It's bloomed beautifully since you left. I plan on keeping it alive for a long time. But don't worry, even if it does die?
I still have a piece of you with me.
WCC
Friday morning I received one of my last text from Frenchie. He was scheduled to leave early Saturday morning. It would be our last day together.
He messaged me, "Can you meet me in downtown in 1 hour and bring your bikini?"
For you? Anything Mr Man.
"My bathing suit?" I ask, confused.
"Yes Cherie'," he says.
"Okay, I can do that," I answer. "Where am I meeting you?"
"At my friends loft. I v'will be v'waiting for you on zi roof," he text.
I head downtown an hour later, my suit and cover up stuffed securely into my hand bag.
I punch in the code for the secured building and make my way up to the roof. I had long since received the code for the door. Why wouldn't I have it? Frenchie was my boyfriend afterall...
As I climbed the familiar stairs to the roof, I allowed my mind to wander to the first night I had been up here. I open the rooftop door, half expecting to walk into starry skyed darkness. Instead I step into the bright sunlight and begin my search for Frenchie. I find him sitting at a table next to the jacuzzi, wearing a pair of swim trunks, dark sunglasses and a hipster Fedora.
"Hello baby," he says, standing to give me a kiss.
"Aren't you the lucky one," I say to him, taking a seat at the table. "Leave it to tourist luck to get such a beautiful day like today in the middle of December."
"Are you 'Ungry," he asks, gesturing towards the other half of the sandwich he was eating.
"No I'm fine, I ate a little something before I got here," I tell him.
We both pause for a moment and just smile at each other. We do that alot. Stare at each other and smile. There are no uncomfortable silences between Frenchie and I. Ever.
We laughed and shot the shit for a bit while Frenchie finished his sandwich. It was hard to believe that in just a few short hours, he would be gone. We were both still so at ease. As if there would still be a tomorrow for us.
Frenchie finishes up and holds his hand out to me saying, "Come. I have zomething for you."
I take his hand and allow him to lead me back into the building and down to the loft. He walks over to the kitchen table and appears to be adjusting something in a box. He finally turns around holding a beautiful white Amaryllis flower, set into a small box. It has several bulbs not quite bloomed, but one of the large star like flowers was fully opened and stunning.
Frenchie is grinning sheepishly as he points to the card pushed into the dirt of the plant. I take it in my hands to read it.
"Cherie Carrie, Thank you so much for being my American Girlfriend for a week, xx Frenchie."
I laugh and give Frenchie a quick kiss and a hug. I hide my face in his shoulder for a moment, collecting my bearings. The gift was sweet. My eyes had teared a bit. I didn't want him to see. I wanted this day to stay positive. I refused to give into tears.
"Thank you so much Frenchie, really," I say to him, finally pulling a way. "It's beautiful. I love it."
"Z'he lady said that it can live a long time," he says to me. "She give me instructions for you. I thought it was the most pretty. I v'wanted something that v'would last, so that you v'would have z'omthing to look at and think of me."
I feel the familiar sting in my eyes again.
I will them away, saying, "It's perfect. I've never been the type to like flowers. I mean flowers like roses and things like that, you know? It always seemed wrong to pick the flowers off the plant like that. This is so much better. It's still alive. I can plant it and keep it going. I love it."
Frenchie smiles again, obviously pleased with himself, "I'm so happy you like it. I have never given a gift like this before. I don't give flowers before. I'm happy."
I give him another quick kiss and place the flower back down on the table.
"Would you like to go in the jacuzzi now?" he asks.
"Sure," I answer. "I just need to change."
I head into the bathroom to change into my suit. I look at myself in the mirror, making sure that no trace of my momentary choke up is noticeable. Satisfied with what I see, I take a deep breath and head back to the roof with Frenchie.
He slips into the jacuzzi first as I pull my cover up off.
"Wow," I hear Frenchie say under his breath.
I had stressed over which of my many bathing suits to wear for my first and last water adventure with Frenchie. I had finally settled on a zebra striped Monokini. The cutouts, low back, ringed bottom of the suit compliment my body perfectly. My hips, large ass and small waist all featured individually around the overpriced suit. I had apparently chosen correctly. Frenchie couldn't take his eyes off me as I entered the hot water.
He pulls me to him the moment I hit the underwater bench. We begin to kiss passionately, his hands searching under the water for me frantically.
Then he stops, turning away from me and moving to the other end of the jacuzzi.
"What's wrong," I ask concerned.
"I am getting too excited," he answers, not looking at me.
"What's wrong with that," I ask, laughing.
"I decided it v'would be best if v'we don't have sex again," he says to me. "Yes, that v'would be better."
"Why, I don't understand," I ask him confused.
"I think it v'would be too hard for us," he says seriously. "It v'would make it harder for me, and you. It iz best v'we don't."
Say's who?
"Okay," I say instead. "If that's what you want."
I was confused. I wasn't sure who he was trying to protect. Himself or me? I was fine. I had no problem making love to my week long boyfriend. I mean he was leaving, why wouldn't we be together one last time? Was he afraid I would freak out later? I mean I already knew he was leaving, it's not like I would feel used or anything. Geez, why do men always have to over complicate the uncomplicated!
Frenchie steps out of the jacuzzi and sits on the bench nearby. I swim over to my cover up and pull my cell phone out of the pocket, snapping a few pics of Frenchie lounging in the sun. Satisfied, I place my phone safely away and dip back into the water, an idea forming mischievously in my head.
I turn my back to Frenchie and lean my body against the opposite side of the pool. I use my arms to prop my body up above the water, kicking my legs back lazily. To the casual observer it would appear that I was merely leaning over to get a better view of the city. In reality, I was fully aware of the view I was giving to Frenchie. I was leaning forward just enough so that the supple part of my hips and ass were exposed just above the bubbling water. It didn't take long for my arched back trick to do it's job.
Within seconds I hear Frenchie's body splash back into the water. His hands found my hips under the water and pulled me towards him. He pressed my back to his chest, squeezing me tight and kissing my neck. He finally turns me around and caresses my ass while kissing my lips. The steam is rising above us, at this point I can't be sure if it's the heaters or us.
No, we didn't have sex. I knew that they placed security cameras on top of buildings like these, and I was positive one of them had to be pointed directly at the jacuzzi. I wasn't looking for sex, I just wanted passion. And passion I got...
We finally dried off and left the roof for the warmth of the loft. I quickly jump into the shower, alone. I may have been able to get Frenchie to waver upstairs, but he wasn't having any of it back in the apartment. I begrudgingly entered the shower alone.
After we both redressed, Frenchie asked if I would mind shopping with him around town for a bit. He still needed to pick up gifts and souvenirs for his friends and family back home.
"If it isn't too much trouble," he says to me apologetically. "It may be very boring."
"It won't be boring for me," I tell him. "I don't care what we do, I just want to be with you."
He smiles and places his arm around me as we head back down to the street towards my car.
We spend the next few hours walking around downtown, shopping. I'm quiet most of the way, lost in thought. The week had been amazing. We had done so much together! It had been a while since I had spent that much time with a man outside of The Kid. It was strange how close I felt to him. I still marveled at my comfort with my French boo. It had only been one week! It had seemed so much longer. The experience had been unreal.
Finally satisfied with his purchases, Frenchie and I decide to find a place to eat. He had seen a lovely restaurant in the center of the city he had been wanting to try all week. We step inside of a large room drenched in white decor with white linen tables spaced through out.
We order two of the house special martini's, mine fruity, his laced in cream; along with a gourmet salad to accompany our thin crust prosciutto and goat cheese pizza. Frenchie orders a few appetizers that I can't pronounce but am more than happy to eat. We settle into our corner booth and begin to talk.
We talk about the week we've had. We talk about our day. But most of all we talk about each other. We talk about what attracted us to the other when we first met. We talk about what made us care as the week wore on. It's funny, I've always had a hard time accepting compliments from people in the past. I have an even harder time accepting love and romance. Not with Frenchie. With him it's different. I never feel the urge to roll my eyes. There was no need to hold my gag reflex in check. I think it's because he doesn't say things to flatter me. He's not trying to get on my good side. He says what he says because to him, they are simple truths. Truths that need to be said. So he does.
"You have been v'wonderful," he is saying to me. "You are so sexy, and passionate, and honest. You laugh all the time. That's v'what I like most of all v'when v'we met. You laughed v'with me. You smiled. You thank me for the things I do. You make me feel good...about me. You are v'what a women should be. You are The Women."
Frenchie looks at his food during this whole speech lost in thought, searching for the right words. Happy with his analyses, he continues to eat.
I look away towards the wall. How does he do that? How can he just allow the sweetest things to roll off his tongue without even noticing the effects that they have on me? Could he really be that selfless?
I'm starting to loose it! I knew this was coming. I knew he would be gone. I'm not sad that he's leaving, I was prepared for that. I was, touched. Touched that he had ever came. Touched that I was able to enjoy his company, and that he had chose to enjoy mine.
Frenchie looks over, noting my silence.
He grabs my hand and says, "I know I am leaving...but I v'will still be here. I mean v'we v'will maybe send messages and z'things like that but v'we have zomething else. I am leaving a piece of me here...v'with you. And I am taking a piece of you v'with me. Here. Inside."
He takes my hand and presses it against his heart to make sure that I understand.
I shake my head in awe of his sweetness and lean in for a kiss. This guy is fucking unreal!!
We continue our dinner. We don't say much towards the end. We merely sit enjoying our delicious meal, content to merely be in the others presence.
We finally finish up and head out of the restaurant and back onto the busy city street. I look up at the tall buildings surrounding me. There's nothing I love more than standing in the middle of Downtown LA, looking up at the tall buildings, lights glowing out of the many windows, illuminating the sidewalks below.
Frenchie and I walk in silence towards my car. It was getting late. I knew our day was done. Right before we get to the garage entrance, he stops and looks at me.
"This is v'where I need to leave Cherie'," he says to me. "I v'want to v'walk the rest of the way to my friends alone. I v'want to see the city one last time."
I mouth the words, "Okay."
I can't speak. I can hardly breathe.
He pulled me to him and kissed me. He kissed my mouth and my face. He hugged me tighter and pulled my hands to his lips and kissed those as well. There was so much I wanted to say. So much that I felt.
I wanted to tell him what he had done for me. It had been more than enjoying a week with a stranger. He had got me to trust again. He had got me to feel again. He had helped me to realize that I could find love again. I could connect with someone. He had helped to heal my heart. He had healed the bruise left by The Rocker. He had helped me to feel good about...me. I loved me once again, and I was very aware that there was a part of me that also loved him. I loved Frenchie.
I loved him for being the man he was. I loved him for how he treated me. I loved him for enjoying my company and allowing me to enjoy his. My love for him was selfless. I needed nothing from him in return. No promises, no goodbyes. Just a thank you. From me to him.
I looked into his eyes, hoping that he could read all that I felt in them. He looks back at me and smiles. He presses his lips to mine for the last time.
"Goodbye," I say to him.
I squeeze his hand and walk away, without looking back.
I hold my breathe the entire walk to my car. I could see Frenchie, in my minds eye, walking down the city street. His black trench coat pulled tight around him. A grin fixed on his face.
The moment I locked myself safely into my car, I let go. I cried. Hell, I sobbed. My heart was throbbing. It wasn't broken, it was merely full to the point of bursting.
I sobbed the entire drive home. I didn't take the freeway. That would have been too quick. I instead chose the streets. Each stop light allowing me more time to cry out my feelings.
If felt good! It felt good to feel! It's true what they say. The only way to get over a lost love is to find love with someone else. I'm not sure if I'm really ready to love someone. I'm not sure if I'm ready to take the chance and commit. But one thing I did know, I finally was over The Rocker. The pain was gone. I could finally think of him with out feeling the old twitch in my heart.
I may be healed, but I don't quite feel whole. And I'm ok with that. I'm ok with crying, I'm ok with loving, and I'm ok with missing the men that once meant the world to me. I'm ok with it because for the first time in a long time, I'm ok with me.
Thank you Frenchie. Thank you for finding me. Thank you for caring. And thank you for my flower. It's bloomed beautifully since you left. I plan on keeping it alive for a long time. But don't worry, even if it does die?
I still have a piece of you with me.
WCC
Monday, December 26, 2011
Nightmares and Dreams
They say the only way to get over your fear is to face it. So that's exactly what I did...
Frenchie and I were inseparable the days after our first date. He would explore Los Angeles alone in the mornings, and I would pick him up in the late afternoon so that we could spend some time together. One evening, while enjoying tropical martini's overlooking the ocean in Downtown Long Beach, he proposed a plan to me.
Apparently Frenchie's life long dream was to visit the desert. He had actually planned to visit Joshua Tree National park during his brief visit here to the states. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten his drivers license and was unable to rent a car. His friends all worked during the day, so he had all but given up on his goal.
"Vould you like to come with me," he asks earnestly. "I will pay for a room. We can stay in Palm Springs. I've planned everything. Should we go?"
"Um...ok. Sure. Why not? When?" I ask him.
I had no plans for the week. He was going to pay for the trip. There really was no reason for me to say no. My only hesitation came from my...irrational fear. I hated the desert. You see, something happened to me a few years ago. Something that scared the shit out of me. Something that made me feel, for the first time in my life, my mortality.
"Let's go tonight," he answers excitedly. "V'we can look up rooms on your phone. I know the v'website."
"Tonight? Are you serious?" I ask him laughing. "I would need to go home and pack and we would need to drive dowtown to get your stuff which is..."
He places his hand over my mouth, interrupting my protest.
"Please," he says. "Come v'with me?"
He's looking into my eyes again. He isn't trying to seduce me. He is just trying to convey how much this means to him.
"Ok, " I answer. "Let's go to the desert."
After securing rooms in Palm Springs over the phone, we quickly drove back to Hollywood so that I could pack. No one was home at The Plex, so I shot Hippie Chick a text letting her know what I was doing.
"What?!," she immediately replies. "The desert? You hate the desert!"
"I know," I text back. "He wants to go. It means alot to him...so I guess to the desert I go lol..."
"Okay. Text me when you two crazy kids get there," she answers.
We drive downtown to the loft to pick up his gear. He throws a handful of clothes into a bag and straps his guitar to his back. His friends arrive home just as we are leaving.
"Where you guys headed too," his jam session partner asks.
"Frenchie is dragging me to the desert," I reply with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
They all laugh.
"Have fun," he says to me.
He grabs my arm just as we are walking out and tells me out of earshot of Frenchie, "Thank you for doing this. You are really making this guys dream come true."
I smile at him and take a deep breath as we walk out. I can hear Frenchies friends chuckle as I shut the door behind us.
The drive to the desert was very intimate. The time flew by. We talked the whole way...about his life in France. About our past relationships. About what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everything was so easy with him. It had been a long time since I had felt comfortable enough to share myself, my inner most thoughts with someone. Without any fear of being judged, or misunderstood.
We got to our hotel in Palm Springs, but didn't go straight to bed. Instead Frenchie pulled out his guitar and played for me. He sang for me. I sat on the small couch next to our bed and just watched him. I was mesmerized. After his third or fourth song, he finally puts down his guitar and walks over to me. He reaches down and pulls me to the bed...
...
The next day Frenchie was practically jumping out of his skin. He was so excited! He rushed me through breakfast and out of my shower. He was beyond eager to get our adventure under way.
I was less enthused.
We drove out of Palm Springs and into the Mohave desert. Frenchie had planned the entire trip long before he boarded his plane out of Paris. The night before he had spread out his maps and notes on the bed showing me the path we would take.
As we drove deeper into the desert, my anxiety increased.
"This is the right way? For sure," I ask him. "This is the way it says to go on your maps?"
"Yes, don't V'worry," he says to me. "I know it. I studied. Thiz iz it."
He grabs my hand to comfort me. He knows why I'm filled with fear. I had shared my story of peril with him the night before...
...
The last time I had been to the desert was with my ex, Nutty as a Fruitcake. Amongst Nutty's many jobs, his one true passion was Electronic music. He wanted to be a DJ. He had seen some moderate success since coming to California, but it wasn't until he teamed up with a local producer that he really started to push his dream. Being the supportive girlfriend I am, I had decided to join him on his trip to a desert rave one day.
I know. What the hell was I thinking?
The drive to the event location was a crazy one. We lost the people we had been following so we were forced to figure out our way on our own. The rave was set to be held in the deserts between Lancaster and Palmdale. It was obviously illegal, so the roads were not the best. What I mean by not the best,is that they were non existent. Luckily as we were driving we saw a handful of ravers shoved into a too small vehicle. I pulled up next to them and offered my vehicle as a means to lighten their load.
"Do you guys know how to get to the rave," I ask them after a few of them piled into my backseat.
"Yes, " one of them say. "See that dirt road there? Go across it. We will come to a paved road on the other side. From there we should see it."
I follow his instructions. The road was less of a road, and more like...well, empty desert. I maneuvered my car around the occasional brush and holes in the sand. I began to get nervous. Just when I was ready to turn my poor 2002 Camry around, we saw the lights of the rave.
We pulled onto a paved road and followed the lights to the concert. The scene was impressive! They had somehow managed to pull a huge stage and two large big screens onto the empty desert. The Dj booth sat on top of the stage, still attached to the huge tractor they had used to drag it in. Fire dancers were spinning near them and there were candy ravers everywhere.
We get out of the car and step into the freezing night. We tried to warm ourselves by dancing but it was difficult.
"We should do some E," Nutty tells me. "That would warm us up for sure."
"That's ok, I'm good," I respond.
"Why not," he asks me, irritated. "You told me once before that you were willing to try it."
"I know, but I don't want to. Not now," I respond. "Look, I have to work tomorrow night. I don't want to be out of it. Plus, if or when I do decide to try it, I want it to be with people I trust. Somewhere familiar and safe. Not here, ok?"
Nutty doesn't respond. I can tell he's annoyed with me. I decide to ignore him. I was having a good time. The scene was interesting, the music was loud. It was a new experience for me and I was taking in every part of it. I wasn't going to let his silly request bring me down.
As the night wore on, Nutty gradually became more and more withdrawn. I couldn't understand why?!
"I'm cold, lets go in the car and warm up for a second," I tell him.
I pull out my flashlight and we make our way back to my car. Outside of the strobe lights the desert was completely black. We get inside and I turn on the engine, and quickly flip on the heater. Nutty sat next to me, still sulking.
Finally unable to deal with the dingbat anymore I turn to him and ask, "What's wrong with you?"
"You fucking hate this," he answers me.
"What?" I say surprised. "What are you talking about?"
"You hate this. I know you do. You don't want to be here," he replies.
He hasn't raised his voice. He's not even looking at me. The guy was just looking out the windshield, towards the stage. The only sign of life was the pulsating light flashing in his eyes.
"That's not true," I tell him. "I'm having a good time. This is way cool man. Why are you saying that?"
That's when he finally told me the truth. Told me why he was so upset. It was because I didn't want to do drugs with him. It was because I didn't want to share in this beautiful moment with him, totally hammered off of drugs. He told me I was ruining it for him.
I couldn't believe my ears! I mean I could understand getting yelled at for doing drugs, but for someone to be pissed because I wasn't?! You got to be kidding me!?
I was aware of Nutty's past. We had talked about it before we had got together. I had made it very clear. If he wanted to be with me, then he couldn't do drugs. It was a non-negotiable for me. He had agreed. And up to this point he had stayed true to his promise. It had been 9 months without a hitch. Until this night.
"Look dude, if you want to do some Ecstasy, then go ahead," I say to him, close to tears. "I don't mind. Have your goodtime. I won't be mad. But I don't want to do any, ok?"
This is when he blows it. He yells at me. I don't remember what he said. All I knew was that the two of us were over. This was too much! This isn't what I wanted. Let him do his drugs, let him find a girl who will do them with him. I was done. With him and this fucking rave.
We decide to leave. We don't tell anybody. I put on my seatbelt and head back into the desert. We drove down the paved road in silence. I could feel him fuming next to me. The tears are still spilling down my face.
We drove for a mile or two down the road. It was so dark! We pass a paved turn off. I not sure why, but I look up and take note of the street name. Thank God I do. It was one of the only reasons we were found later.
We see the dirt road we had crossed over on and turn onto it. The desert seemed to swallow my car up in its darkness. We drive for a bit. Nothing looks familiar.
"Is this the right way," I ask Nutty.
He doesn't respond. He's still looking moodily out the window.
"I don't think this is right," I say again. "I'm going to turn around and go back."
Seconds before I turn my wheel, it happens. The sand beneath us goes soft, and I feel the nose of my my car sink into the ground with a, "Thuck!"
"Fuck!!" Nutty yells immediately.
I jump at his voice. He hadn't said a word since our fight. I try to back out of the ditch, but my wheels just spin.
"We need to get something under the tires," I say to him. "They aren't catching on anything."
I've stopped crying. I knew we were in trouble. I immediately go into survival mode. I'm not the type of girl who waits around to get rescued. I was going to fix this.
We get out of the car. I pull out my flashlight and begin scouring the desert floor in search of anything large enough to place under my tires. I couldn't believe what I heard next. It was my car. I had shut off the engine before I had got out. Nutty had turned it back on and was trying to back my car out of the ditch.
"Nutty, no!!" I yell, running back towards him.
The idiot! What was he thinking?! Everyone knows that when your car is stuck in mud or sand that you have to place something solid under the wheels. Otherwise you will just sink further.
As I ran towards the car I could see the front end of my car dipping deeper into the sand. I reached the open car door and yelled for him to stop.
"Why," he asks irritated.
"It will only sink further if you do that," I tell him panicked. "We have to place something under the tires. Please!"
Nutty stops the engine and gets back out. He walks away a few feet and lets out a blood curdling scream into the desert.
I shudder and take a few steps back from him. Luckily he doesn't look at me. He walks away from the car and into the desert, picking up pieces of wood along the way. I turn the opposite direction and do the same, grateful for the time to be alone.
We both head back to the car several times dumping our spoils onto the ground in front of the tires. We have an old blue suit case, a few hubcaps and some random pieces of wood. We begin to place them under the tires.
"Get back in the car and try to pull out when I tell you," he says to me.
His voice is calmer, but I can still hear the hysteria boiling just beneath the surface. I do what he says. I know I have to keep him calm.
I try to pull out after his command. Nothing happens. The wheels just turn, catching onto nothing.
"Again," Nutty yells.
I try again. Nothing. The debris either flies out from under the car, or pushes deeper into the dirt.
"We have to stop," I finally tell him. "It's not working, and we are just sinking deeper into the sand."
By this point night has turned into early dawn. We've been stuck for atleast an hour. It was time to call for help.
"Just try it again," he yells.
"Dude, I can't," I tell him. "It's not going to work. Look how deep we are now!"
The bottom of the front end of the car is now sitting on top of the sand. The tires half buried.
Nutty grabs a long piece of wood and lies down onto the dirt. He begins to use it to shovel the sand out from under the car. I stand there in silence. I grab a scarf from my backseat and wrap it around my neck. It's still early morning, so the desert is an ice box. I can see the steam coming out of Nutty's nostrils. He is making little progress. For every bit he shovels out, another avalanche of sand falls back in.
"Babe, please," I say to him. "Let me just call a tow truck. This isn't going to work."
Nutty stands up and looks at me. I can see the sweat pouring off of him. There is blood on his forearms and his knuckles are busted and also bleeding. He had this crazy look in his eyes. I shudder again.
"Look, for once, in your fucking life...will you just listen to me?"
He doesn't yell this to me. If I hadn't been looking at him I would have been able to pretend that he was calm. But I was looking at him. I was looking at his eyes. They were red. Not blood shot. The whites were completely red. Nutty was no longer himself. Nutty had actually gone...well, nutty.
"Ok, I'll try again," I say to him.
I get back into the car shaking, and try again. The same thing happens. My car was going no where.
"Get out, let me do it," he says.
I quickly move out of his way and let him try. Nothing.
We played that game for another hour or so. I'm not sure how long exactly. By this point I had lost track of time. We had been stuck for several hours. That I knew. I felt so helpless. All I could do was sit there and watch Nutty dig with his bloody knuckles and allow him to have his melt down on his own. As long as he was focused on the car, I knew he wouldn't have time to freak out on me.
Finally he looks at me and says, "Ok, go ahead and call who you want."
I grab my phone gratefully and call up AAA. They were of little help. We were too far off the road for them to assist us. They give me the number of a local towing company and I call them myself. Thank god I had looked at that street sign . Otherwise I would have had zero directions to give them.
"We are about a mile past that street, on the left side of the road," I tell them. "I can't see the pavement from here, but there is a abandoned house just above us. We are stuck behind there."
"Ok, " the dispatcher tells me. "We'll have a driver up there in 30 minutes."
"Thirty minutes!" I thought. "This mad men could kill me in thirty minutes."
I laugh to myself. I was trying to do everything I could to hold it together. By this time Nutty wasn't just manically digging and revving the engine. He would also stop every now and then and yell at the universe. You heard me. He was yelling at the Universe. He would scream out into the desert, spittle flying from his mouth each time, about how awful his life always was. About how fucked the universe was to him.
I said nothing. I stayed out of his way. I allowed him to do whatever he wanted. I had help on the way. That's all I cared about.
My phone finally rings. I had left it on the charger in my car. I run over and accidentally rip the cord in half in my haste to grab my phone. It doesn't matter, it's the tow truck. Help was finally here.
"I'm near where you told us," he says to me. "Where are you?"
"Just give me a second," I answer back. "There is an abandoned house right near us. I'll walk up and find you."
I hang up the phone and walk over to where Nutty is laying. He was still digging sand out from under the car.
"The tow truck is here, " I tell him. "I'm going to walk up to the road so that he can find us."
"Just stay here, let him find us himself," he answers irritably.
"He can't see us. We're in a ditch," I respond. "I'll be right back."
I turn around and walk back towards the road. I didn't need his permission. Why would I need the permission of a madman?
I climb the hill to the abandoned house and step onto the other side. What I saw made my blood run cold.
I saw nothing. No road. Just desert. Nothing but desert.
My phone rings again. It's the tow truck driver.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure where the road is," I tell him. "I have to go back and find my boyfriend. He might know the direction. I'll call you back."
"I can't wait for long," the driver says. "I have other calls."
"Ok. Just give me five minutes, I'll call you back," I tell him. "My phone is dying so I need to hang up. I'll call right back."
I hang up the phone and quickly head back to the car.I walk down the hill and look around. I don't see anything. No car, no boyfriend. Nothing. Just desert.
I look back at the house and try to get my barrings. I could have sworn the car was in this direction! I hadn't walked far. It should be right there!
I begin to panic. I look around me. The sun has risen so I have a perfect view of the nothingness that surrounds me. I feel my own hysteria rising in me.
"Oh my god," I think. "I'm lost! I'm really lost. I don't know where the road is...I don't know where Nutty is...what am I going to do?"
I keep walking, my eyes searching the nothingness around me. Ten minutes go by. I try not to walk far. The abandoned house is my only land mark. I didn't want loose that as well.
"I'm lost," I think again. "Wow, there could be wild animals out here. Coyotes. I have no weapon. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."
The fear begins to take hold of me. This is real! I could actually die out here. I was lost and alone. What the hell was I going to do??
"Calm down," I tell myself. "Don't freak out. Just call for Nutty. Keep it together Carrie. You can do this."
Having a game plan helps to calm me, even though I new it was a pathetic one. I begin to call out for Nutty. My voice doesn't carry. The second I scream, its as if my voice is blocked. It just drops to the ground right in front of me.
Little did I know, Nutty was still able to hear my screams. I just couldn't hear him yelling back. Luckily I turned just in time to see him heading in my direction. I run over to him and collapse into his arms. I'd rather be lost with a madman then die out here by myself.
"I told you not to leave," he says to me.
There is no tenderness in his voice. My tears dry up immediately.
We walk back to the car. It was buried deep in the ditch. No wonder I couldn't find it.
"Look, we need to find the road," I tell him. "The tow truck is here but he can't find us. I thought it was that way, but all I found was more desert."
"That's because we came from that direction," Nutty says to me, pointing the opposite direction.
"Are you sure," I ask him. "I could have sworn we came the opposite way."
Nutty only looks at me. That's all he needed to do. I shut my mouth and follow his lead. After about 20 minutes of walking, he finally gives up on his theory.
"Come on," I tell him. "I have an idea."
I walk back to the car and look down at the sand, happy with what I find. Pressed deep into the earth are my cars tire tracks. I begin to follow them up the dirt "road". We get pretty far that way. Following my tire tracks, occasionally stopping to decipher which are ours and which are old tire marks from trucks. We walk for almost a mile. Eventually we loose the tracks. We both stop and look at each other; the fear we both felt mirrored in the others eyes.
Nutty pulls me in for a hug.
"Finally!" I thought. "He is going to comfort me. He is going to try to make me feel better."
If only that would have been true. Instead of comfort Nutty begins to cry. That's right. My ex underground cage fighting, ex body builder, trans house DJ, escort body guard ex began to cry in my arms like a little baby!
I allow him his release. Better he cry than launch himself into another rage. As I held him I heard something. I pull him away from me and hold my fingers to his lips to silence him. There it was again!
We both look at each other and yell, "Cars!"
We jog towards the sound. A few minutes later, we see it. The road! I see a tow truck zoom by. I pull out my phone and the driver again. Thank god it still hadn't died!
"We're here, I just saw you drive by us," I yell into the phone.
"Sorry, I have to go to another pick up," the tow driver replies back. "You're going to have to call someone else."
Then the dirty bastard had the nerve to hang up on me!
"What did he say?" Nutty asks.
"He said he had to go," I tell him. "What a dick!. Wait, look! There's a car coming!"
We both run towards the road just in time to stop the car from flying by us. It's a couple of party goers headed home from the rave.
"You guys ok, " the driver asks.
He looks to be around 19/20 years old. His girlfriend is in the passenger seat.
"Our car got stuck in the desert," I tell them. "We need to get a tow truck."
"We just passed a tow truck hitching up another car," he tells me. "We can drive you over there if you want?"
"Oh my god yes! That would be amazing," I say to him.
I hop into the backseat, instructing Nutty to wait for me on the side of the road. I knew if we both left that spot we would never find the location of my car again.
Nutty complies, saying nothing. He had been eerily quiet for a while now. Since his crying. Whatever. Atleast he's calm.
On the drive down the road, I retell the story of what happened to us to my rescuers. They can't stop laughing. The guy almost drove off the road when I told him about how I thought Nutty was going to comfort me but had instead started to cry.
"Oh wow," he says to me. "That's the funniest story I've ever heard! I'm so glad we picked you up!"
I begin to laugh with them. It really was sort of funny wasn't it? I mean I could laugh now, couldn't I? We were going to be ok, it was time to relax.
We get to the tow driver, and my laughter quickly turned to anger. The guy won't help me!
"You have to call someone else," he says to me. He had just finished hitching up his load and was getting back into his driver seat. "I have to haul this car all the way back to town. I won't be able to come back here."
I pull out my phone and call another tow truck. I couldn't believe what was happening! I used my limited battery to call my job to inform them I wouldn't be coming in. I knew this nightmare was far from over.
The ravers drove me back to Nutty.
"Do you want us to take you guys into town," they ask, concerned.
"No, its ok," I tell them. "I called another tow truck. I don't want to leave this spot. If we do, we'll never be able to find my car. We'll be fine."
"Ok, well take this," his girlfriend says.
She hands us a half empty bottle of water. We had been lost for atleast 4 or 5 hours. We hadn't had a drop of water for even longer than that. We were exhausted and hungry. I took it gratefully.
"Take this too," she says, handing me a small bottle of 5 hour energy drink. "It'll keep you going."
She gives me a wink and they pull away.
Nutty and I take a small drink of the water. We know we need to conserve. Nutty takes the energy drink and downs it. Great. Now I'm stuck with a psycho high on caffeine.
The wait is a long one. Another hour goes by. It was a nightmare. Nutty was freezing. He had left the car without his jacket. The air was cold but the sun was still hot. Our bodies shivered as our cheeks burned. Nutty began to cry again. He looked so pathetic. Sitting there with his arms in his t-shirt, shaking, his eyes still red. He began to rant.
"Why does this happen to me? Why does this always happen to me," he says to no one in particular. "I thought last night was going to be so amazing. I thought that you and I would take some drugs and enjoy the event together. Why couldn't you just do that. Why? Why!!"
He's standing again. He begins to yell again. He starts to work himself up so badly that he eventually makes himself sick. I'm sure it was a combination of the lack of sleep, no water, the way he had exhausted himself for hours trying to dig out the car. All he had in his stomach was that energy drink. Dehydration had set in...
He began to dry heave on the side of the road.
"Baby, baby," I said to him. "You have to calm down. It's ok. The tow truck is coming. Come here. Drink the rest of the water. I'm going to call them again."
He calms down a bit and drinks the rest of our water. I'm dying of thirst but I hardly notice. All of my senses had been heighten since this nightmare had began. I had my own adrenaline running through me. I was aware of how close I was coming to cracking. But as long as Nutty was useless, I knew I had to hold it together. I was our last hope of getting out of this mess.
We hadn't seen one car since our raver friends had left us. I pulled out my phone and called the towing company again.
"I'm sorry ma'am, " she says to me. "We have no record of your call. We never sent anyone out."
I thought would loose it right then. I somehow kept it together. I gave her our location again and hung up the phone. I take a moment before I turn around. I knew Nutty wasn't going to take this well.
"So they had a shift change and never sent anyone out to find us," I tell him. "They just resent a driver."
"This is your fault," he says to me under his breath.
"What," I reply shocked.
"All of this," he continues. He is sitting on a rock near the road, looking down at the ground. He never raises his head. "It was your fault we left. You were the one who decided to take that road. And look at the way you have been talking to the dispatchers. It's no wonder they haven't come. You've been too fucking nice!"
His voice begins to get louder. He looks up at me. I hardly recognize his face. He continues his latest and greatest rant.
"You should be telling them this is an emergency! You need to tell them how long we've been stuck! You need to tell them what you've done!!!"
I stand my ground under his assault. He's still sitting. I try to decide how to handle this. How to handle him. My body begins to shake again. I feel my own wave of nausea and dizziness overtake me. I shake my head, willing it away. Now wasn't the time for me to fall apart. I had to calm him down. I was still the only one that could get us out of this.
"Look, I'm sorry baby. I'm so sorry," I tell him gently. "You're right. I never meant to ruin your night. I'm sorry I got us lost. We're going to be ok. Help is on the way. Please believe me. I love you ok? I love you. Please don't be mad at me."
I don't believe any of this. At this point I don't even believe that I love this person anymore. I'm just doing what I knew I had to do. I needed to keep him calm. I needed to keep us safe. Most of all I needed to keep myself safe, from the desert and from him.
I walk over to where he is sitting and wrap my arms around him. I can feel the tension drain from his muscles. It's difficult for me to hold him. Not because I'm afraid...but because I'm disgusted. By him. By what I had just watched him become in a few short hours
Another hour goes by. We are nearing hour number six now. I hadn't ate since the day before. I was totally drained. I was afraid. My phone was on its last bar. I was so afraid of it dying before the tow truck was able to call me back.
My phone finally rings.
"Hi, I believe I'm near you," the man says to me. "I don't see you anywhere."
"We are right on the left side of the road," I say to him. "You can't miss us. We are the only things out here."
After a few moments of instructions the tow truck driver delivers what is still to this day the most awful thing I have ever heard.
"Oh my god," he says, sounding distressed. "They sent me to the East side...you are on the West. I'm about 45 minutes away from you. I'm all the way on the other side of town!"
That was it. That was the moment. The moment I finally snapped.
"Listen, my boyfriend and I have been stuck our here for over 6 hours," I begin. My voice begins to shake, "We have no food, no water, and we are freezing. My phone is about to die and you are the only person who knows that we are stuck out here..."
The tears begin to flow from my eyes. My last words pour out of me in a high pitched hysterical scream, "Do you hear what I'm telling you?!! No one knows we are here! I don't want to die in the desert!!"
I hear silence on the other side of the phone. I wait patiently. I've had my freak out. I feel calmer.
"Ok, don't worry miss," he responds kindly. "I know where you are. Do you hear me? I know where you are, and I'm coming! I'll be there in under an hour. Don't worry if your phone dies. I'll find you."
"Alright, thank you," I reply softly.
I hang up and face Nutty. I tell him the bad news. He doesn't take it well.
"I'm going back to the car," he says to me. "I can get it out. I just didn't have enough time to dig."
"Dude, you can't get it out," I say. "We already tried that. For hours remember? There's no way."
"I can do it. Just give me the keys," he says, holding out his hand.
"Babe, I doubt if you could even find the car, let alone get it out," I say. "We barely found the road. There's no way you are going to be able to find it."
I had this vision of the news later that evening. There would be a shot of my wrecked car and then a picture of Nutty with a, "Missing" logo flashing beneath his face. There was no way in hell I was going to let him get himself lost out in the middle of nowhere.
"Give me the fucking keys," he says to me between gritted teeth.
I knew arguing wouldn't work with him. That's what he wanted. He wanted to fight. I had always felt secure in the fact that Nutty would never try to physically hurt me, but at this point I wouldn't put anything past him. His mind had snapped hours ago. So I tried the only thing I could. A line from one of my favorite books pops into my head,
"I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool..."
The Great Gatsby.
So that's what I did. I played a fool. I played a pathetic women. I used my beauty and charm to fool him into staying.
"You can't leave me," I began. I used my most terrified looking face. I bulged my eyes and grabbed his arm. "Please baby! You can't leave me on the side of the road by myself! I'm afraid! Please please don't leave me alone."
I try to will tears to my eyes. I can't do it. I wasn't sad, I was actually afraid. I wasn't afraid of being left alone. I was afraid that he would leave and get lost. I was afraid that he would see that I was lying. Most of all I was afraid that he would try to wrestle the keys from my pocket. That was one struggle I knew I couldn't win. One of Nutty's favorite games was to lift me up and toss me up and down into the air like a ball. He could crush me.
I continue looking at him, pleading with my eyes. I see his face soften. He believes me! At the end of the day, through all of his craziness, the boy actually does love me. It works. He sits back down on the road and waits.
Forty five minutes later our salvation finally arrives.
The tow truck pulls up next to us. The tall burly man behind the wheel jumps out holding a plastic bag in his hands.
"You two ok," he asks, his eyes soft with concern.
"Yes, I'm so happy you're here," I say to him. I actually gave the guy a hug.
He opens up his truck and lets us in.
"Here, this is for you two," he says, placing the bag on my lap.
I open it up. It looked as if the guy had raided the entire contents of a gas station vending machine. There were several bottles of water and a load of candy bars. I look at him and smile.
"Thank you so much," I say to him.
It took us almost twenty minutes to find my car. The tow truck driver actually spotted it first. The car was deep in the ditch. If it hadn't been for a glint of sunlight reflecting off its roof, we never would have seen it.
"Hold on," he says to us. "That's quick sand you guys are stuck in. I need get across it to the other side. This may get a little rough."
Nutty and I grab onto the cars interior railings and brace ourselves. He kicks in the trucks 4 wheel drive and slams on his gas. The truck shoots forward with a roar. We bounce and fly our way across the ditch safely to the other side.
We get out and take a look at my car. It's a pathetic scene. I wish I would have taken a photo. The nose of my car was completely buried. There were pieces of wood and trash everywhere. I felt myself start to choke up. I push it back down. There would be plenty of time for that later.
"Wow, you guys never would have gotten out of this alone. Crazy," he says, shaking his head. "Ok, who can drive better in reverse?"
"That would be me, " I answer.
Nutty nods his head in agreement. It may have took seven hours but he finally knew who was in charge of this rescue mission.
"Ok, I'm going to hook up the car and pull you out," the tow driver instructs me. "I need you to turn on your engine the second you hit the hard sand. I'll pull you a few feet and then unlatch you. Once I do, safely turn around and follow me out of the sand. Don't stop. Don't slow down. Just drive exactly where I do, understand?"
I shake my head and walk to my car. Nutty gets in the passenger seat next to me. I ignore him. Everything was going to be ok. He wasn't my problem anymore.
Everything goes according to plan. It takes several minutes for his chain to pull my deeply buried car out of the sand. Once he does I turn my car around and began to follow him out. I ignore the brush I hit, I ignore the pot holes. I plowed through them all, making sure to keep up with my rescuer.
Once we get back onto the road and after we took care of the drivers fee, I fell back into our rescuers arms once again.
"Thank you so much," I told him. "If you ever need anything, you call us. He's a DJ and I'm a dancer. Any parties you have, we'll be happy to entertain. No charge."
Nutty pulls out our individual business cards and hands them to him.
Before he jumps back into his truck I yell out to him, "By the way! I am totally going to name my first born child after you!"
He laughs and gets behind the wheel. We follow him down a different road to the freeway. Nutty and I drive home in silence. Once we get there we both jump into the shower together.
"I'm so sorry, " he says to me under the running water.
Finally. Finally he was going to apologize for his freak out.
"I'm so sorry I tried to make you do drugs," he says instead.
"What," I reply shocked.
"I never wanted to be the type of person to push anything like that on you. I'm so sorry," he finishes.
He pulls me into a hug. I'm speechless. He was sorry for trying to make me do drugs? That's what he was sorry for? Did he forget about the rest? Did he forget about us almost dying? Did he forget about his rage filled outbursts? Did he forget that if it hadn't been for me, we would still be stuck in that god awful desert?
He releases me from his hug and kisses my face before stepping out of the shower. I linger just long enough for him to dry off and leave the bathroom. I get out and begin to dry off. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
My cheeks and nose are burnt from the relentless sun and cold. My eyes are glossy from exhaustion and my lip is cut from the dehydration. That did it. I was done. It was finally my turn. My turn to freak out.
I fell to the floor and began to sob. My body shook from the effort. All the fear, all the anger, all the pain and exhaustion I felt over the last 24 hours poured out of me. I sat there on the floor until I was spent before I finally pulled myself off up and put myself to bed. I broke up with Nutty 3 weeks later...
The memory of what had happened flooded my brain as I drove into the desert with Frenchie. My anxiety level was off the charts. That is until we hit the first destination on his map. It was some sort of boulder cove. It was beautiful.
He grabbed his guitar and lead me to a cluster of huge boulders. With the others help we made our way to the top of the largest one we could find. Once on top we both gazed out into the nothingness.
"I love this," he says, his face beaming. "It's so empty. I'z like the end of the v'world. It's sort of like walking on the moon."
I laugh and looked out into the empty desert. I saw it all with new eyes. Through Frenchie's eyes. My anxiety disappeared. He pulled out his guitar and began to play. His voice echoes off the rocks and into the nothingness. I loved it. I loved it because Frenchie loved it. I loved it, because with him, I felt safe.
We had an amazing day. We stopped at cactus gardens and rock caves. We took a two hour hike through the desert mountains to a lush tree filled Oasis. At the end we drove our way to the tallest of the mountains, past patches of snow, to a beautiful lookout so that we could watch the sun set. We held eachother and marveled at the beauty of the desert and at the comfort we felt around eachother.
I couldn't stop smiling all the way home. I drove the familiar roads back to LA, rubbing Frenchie's hair, willing him to sleep. My chest filled with happiness and affection for him. Once back downtown, I got out of the car only for a moment so that I could hug him goodnight before I headed back home.
"Thank you so much," he whispers into my ear. "That meant a lot to me. That v'was very special."
I squeeze him tighter. I didn't need a thank you. I may have helped to full fill his dream, but he had given me so much more. He had helped me to move past a horrible memory. He had helped me move on. No, wait, there was more to it than that. I was filled with more than gratitude. I was also filled with something that felt very similar to love. Love for him.
I try not to dwell on it. I kiss him goodnight and head home, painfully aware that I only had 2 days left with my out of country boo. Two days left to enjoy the first boyfriend I've had since my painful breakup with The Rocker.
Two days left until I would have to say goodbye.
I hope I can handle it.
WCC
Frenchie and I were inseparable the days after our first date. He would explore Los Angeles alone in the mornings, and I would pick him up in the late afternoon so that we could spend some time together. One evening, while enjoying tropical martini's overlooking the ocean in Downtown Long Beach, he proposed a plan to me.
Apparently Frenchie's life long dream was to visit the desert. He had actually planned to visit Joshua Tree National park during his brief visit here to the states. Unfortunately for him, he had forgotten his drivers license and was unable to rent a car. His friends all worked during the day, so he had all but given up on his goal.
"Vould you like to come with me," he asks earnestly. "I will pay for a room. We can stay in Palm Springs. I've planned everything. Should we go?"
"Um...ok. Sure. Why not? When?" I ask him.
I had no plans for the week. He was going to pay for the trip. There really was no reason for me to say no. My only hesitation came from my...irrational fear. I hated the desert. You see, something happened to me a few years ago. Something that scared the shit out of me. Something that made me feel, for the first time in my life, my mortality.
"Let's go tonight," he answers excitedly. "V'we can look up rooms on your phone. I know the v'website."
"Tonight? Are you serious?" I ask him laughing. "I would need to go home and pack and we would need to drive dowtown to get your stuff which is..."
He places his hand over my mouth, interrupting my protest.
"Please," he says. "Come v'with me?"
He's looking into my eyes again. He isn't trying to seduce me. He is just trying to convey how much this means to him.
"Ok, " I answer. "Let's go to the desert."
After securing rooms in Palm Springs over the phone, we quickly drove back to Hollywood so that I could pack. No one was home at The Plex, so I shot Hippie Chick a text letting her know what I was doing.
"What?!," she immediately replies. "The desert? You hate the desert!"
"I know," I text back. "He wants to go. It means alot to him...so I guess to the desert I go lol..."
"Okay. Text me when you two crazy kids get there," she answers.
We drive downtown to the loft to pick up his gear. He throws a handful of clothes into a bag and straps his guitar to his back. His friends arrive home just as we are leaving.
"Where you guys headed too," his jam session partner asks.
"Frenchie is dragging me to the desert," I reply with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
They all laugh.
"Have fun," he says to me.
He grabs my arm just as we are walking out and tells me out of earshot of Frenchie, "Thank you for doing this. You are really making this guys dream come true."
I smile at him and take a deep breath as we walk out. I can hear Frenchies friends chuckle as I shut the door behind us.
The drive to the desert was very intimate. The time flew by. We talked the whole way...about his life in France. About our past relationships. About what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everything was so easy with him. It had been a long time since I had felt comfortable enough to share myself, my inner most thoughts with someone. Without any fear of being judged, or misunderstood.
We got to our hotel in Palm Springs, but didn't go straight to bed. Instead Frenchie pulled out his guitar and played for me. He sang for me. I sat on the small couch next to our bed and just watched him. I was mesmerized. After his third or fourth song, he finally puts down his guitar and walks over to me. He reaches down and pulls me to the bed...
...
The next day Frenchie was practically jumping out of his skin. He was so excited! He rushed me through breakfast and out of my shower. He was beyond eager to get our adventure under way.
I was less enthused.
We drove out of Palm Springs and into the Mohave desert. Frenchie had planned the entire trip long before he boarded his plane out of Paris. The night before he had spread out his maps and notes on the bed showing me the path we would take.
As we drove deeper into the desert, my anxiety increased.
"This is the right way? For sure," I ask him. "This is the way it says to go on your maps?"
"Yes, don't V'worry," he says to me. "I know it. I studied. Thiz iz it."
He grabs my hand to comfort me. He knows why I'm filled with fear. I had shared my story of peril with him the night before...
...
The last time I had been to the desert was with my ex, Nutty as a Fruitcake. Amongst Nutty's many jobs, his one true passion was Electronic music. He wanted to be a DJ. He had seen some moderate success since coming to California, but it wasn't until he teamed up with a local producer that he really started to push his dream. Being the supportive girlfriend I am, I had decided to join him on his trip to a desert rave one day.
I know. What the hell was I thinking?
The drive to the event location was a crazy one. We lost the people we had been following so we were forced to figure out our way on our own. The rave was set to be held in the deserts between Lancaster and Palmdale. It was obviously illegal, so the roads were not the best. What I mean by not the best,is that they were non existent. Luckily as we were driving we saw a handful of ravers shoved into a too small vehicle. I pulled up next to them and offered my vehicle as a means to lighten their load.
"Do you guys know how to get to the rave," I ask them after a few of them piled into my backseat.
"Yes, " one of them say. "See that dirt road there? Go across it. We will come to a paved road on the other side. From there we should see it."
I follow his instructions. The road was less of a road, and more like...well, empty desert. I maneuvered my car around the occasional brush and holes in the sand. I began to get nervous. Just when I was ready to turn my poor 2002 Camry around, we saw the lights of the rave.
We pulled onto a paved road and followed the lights to the concert. The scene was impressive! They had somehow managed to pull a huge stage and two large big screens onto the empty desert. The Dj booth sat on top of the stage, still attached to the huge tractor they had used to drag it in. Fire dancers were spinning near them and there were candy ravers everywhere.
We get out of the car and step into the freezing night. We tried to warm ourselves by dancing but it was difficult.
"We should do some E," Nutty tells me. "That would warm us up for sure."
"That's ok, I'm good," I respond.
"Why not," he asks me, irritated. "You told me once before that you were willing to try it."
"I know, but I don't want to. Not now," I respond. "Look, I have to work tomorrow night. I don't want to be out of it. Plus, if or when I do decide to try it, I want it to be with people I trust. Somewhere familiar and safe. Not here, ok?"
Nutty doesn't respond. I can tell he's annoyed with me. I decide to ignore him. I was having a good time. The scene was interesting, the music was loud. It was a new experience for me and I was taking in every part of it. I wasn't going to let his silly request bring me down.
As the night wore on, Nutty gradually became more and more withdrawn. I couldn't understand why?!
"I'm cold, lets go in the car and warm up for a second," I tell him.
I pull out my flashlight and we make our way back to my car. Outside of the strobe lights the desert was completely black. We get inside and I turn on the engine, and quickly flip on the heater. Nutty sat next to me, still sulking.
Finally unable to deal with the dingbat anymore I turn to him and ask, "What's wrong with you?"
"You fucking hate this," he answers me.
"What?" I say surprised. "What are you talking about?"
"You hate this. I know you do. You don't want to be here," he replies.
He hasn't raised his voice. He's not even looking at me. The guy was just looking out the windshield, towards the stage. The only sign of life was the pulsating light flashing in his eyes.
"That's not true," I tell him. "I'm having a good time. This is way cool man. Why are you saying that?"
That's when he finally told me the truth. Told me why he was so upset. It was because I didn't want to do drugs with him. It was because I didn't want to share in this beautiful moment with him, totally hammered off of drugs. He told me I was ruining it for him.
I couldn't believe my ears! I mean I could understand getting yelled at for doing drugs, but for someone to be pissed because I wasn't?! You got to be kidding me!?
I was aware of Nutty's past. We had talked about it before we had got together. I had made it very clear. If he wanted to be with me, then he couldn't do drugs. It was a non-negotiable for me. He had agreed. And up to this point he had stayed true to his promise. It had been 9 months without a hitch. Until this night.
"Look dude, if you want to do some Ecstasy, then go ahead," I say to him, close to tears. "I don't mind. Have your goodtime. I won't be mad. But I don't want to do any, ok?"
This is when he blows it. He yells at me. I don't remember what he said. All I knew was that the two of us were over. This was too much! This isn't what I wanted. Let him do his drugs, let him find a girl who will do them with him. I was done. With him and this fucking rave.
We decide to leave. We don't tell anybody. I put on my seatbelt and head back into the desert. We drove down the paved road in silence. I could feel him fuming next to me. The tears are still spilling down my face.
We drove for a mile or two down the road. It was so dark! We pass a paved turn off. I not sure why, but I look up and take note of the street name. Thank God I do. It was one of the only reasons we were found later.
We see the dirt road we had crossed over on and turn onto it. The desert seemed to swallow my car up in its darkness. We drive for a bit. Nothing looks familiar.
"Is this the right way," I ask Nutty.
He doesn't respond. He's still looking moodily out the window.
"I don't think this is right," I say again. "I'm going to turn around and go back."
Seconds before I turn my wheel, it happens. The sand beneath us goes soft, and I feel the nose of my my car sink into the ground with a, "Thuck!"
"Fuck!!" Nutty yells immediately.
I jump at his voice. He hadn't said a word since our fight. I try to back out of the ditch, but my wheels just spin.
"We need to get something under the tires," I say to him. "They aren't catching on anything."
I've stopped crying. I knew we were in trouble. I immediately go into survival mode. I'm not the type of girl who waits around to get rescued. I was going to fix this.
We get out of the car. I pull out my flashlight and begin scouring the desert floor in search of anything large enough to place under my tires. I couldn't believe what I heard next. It was my car. I had shut off the engine before I had got out. Nutty had turned it back on and was trying to back my car out of the ditch.
"Nutty, no!!" I yell, running back towards him.
The idiot! What was he thinking?! Everyone knows that when your car is stuck in mud or sand that you have to place something solid under the wheels. Otherwise you will just sink further.
As I ran towards the car I could see the front end of my car dipping deeper into the sand. I reached the open car door and yelled for him to stop.
"Why," he asks irritated.
"It will only sink further if you do that," I tell him panicked. "We have to place something under the tires. Please!"
Nutty stops the engine and gets back out. He walks away a few feet and lets out a blood curdling scream into the desert.
I shudder and take a few steps back from him. Luckily he doesn't look at me. He walks away from the car and into the desert, picking up pieces of wood along the way. I turn the opposite direction and do the same, grateful for the time to be alone.
We both head back to the car several times dumping our spoils onto the ground in front of the tires. We have an old blue suit case, a few hubcaps and some random pieces of wood. We begin to place them under the tires.
"Get back in the car and try to pull out when I tell you," he says to me.
His voice is calmer, but I can still hear the hysteria boiling just beneath the surface. I do what he says. I know I have to keep him calm.
I try to pull out after his command. Nothing happens. The wheels just turn, catching onto nothing.
"Again," Nutty yells.
I try again. Nothing. The debris either flies out from under the car, or pushes deeper into the dirt.
"We have to stop," I finally tell him. "It's not working, and we are just sinking deeper into the sand."
By this point night has turned into early dawn. We've been stuck for atleast an hour. It was time to call for help.
"Just try it again," he yells.
"Dude, I can't," I tell him. "It's not going to work. Look how deep we are now!"
The bottom of the front end of the car is now sitting on top of the sand. The tires half buried.
Nutty grabs a long piece of wood and lies down onto the dirt. He begins to use it to shovel the sand out from under the car. I stand there in silence. I grab a scarf from my backseat and wrap it around my neck. It's still early morning, so the desert is an ice box. I can see the steam coming out of Nutty's nostrils. He is making little progress. For every bit he shovels out, another avalanche of sand falls back in.
"Babe, please," I say to him. "Let me just call a tow truck. This isn't going to work."
Nutty stands up and looks at me. I can see the sweat pouring off of him. There is blood on his forearms and his knuckles are busted and also bleeding. He had this crazy look in his eyes. I shudder again.
"Look, for once, in your fucking life...will you just listen to me?"
He doesn't yell this to me. If I hadn't been looking at him I would have been able to pretend that he was calm. But I was looking at him. I was looking at his eyes. They were red. Not blood shot. The whites were completely red. Nutty was no longer himself. Nutty had actually gone...well, nutty.
"Ok, I'll try again," I say to him.
I get back into the car shaking, and try again. The same thing happens. My car was going no where.
"Get out, let me do it," he says.
I quickly move out of his way and let him try. Nothing.
We played that game for another hour or so. I'm not sure how long exactly. By this point I had lost track of time. We had been stuck for several hours. That I knew. I felt so helpless. All I could do was sit there and watch Nutty dig with his bloody knuckles and allow him to have his melt down on his own. As long as he was focused on the car, I knew he wouldn't have time to freak out on me.
Finally he looks at me and says, "Ok, go ahead and call who you want."
I grab my phone gratefully and call up AAA. They were of little help. We were too far off the road for them to assist us. They give me the number of a local towing company and I call them myself. Thank god I had looked at that street sign . Otherwise I would have had zero directions to give them.
"We are about a mile past that street, on the left side of the road," I tell them. "I can't see the pavement from here, but there is a abandoned house just above us. We are stuck behind there."
"Ok, " the dispatcher tells me. "We'll have a driver up there in 30 minutes."
"Thirty minutes!" I thought. "This mad men could kill me in thirty minutes."
I laugh to myself. I was trying to do everything I could to hold it together. By this time Nutty wasn't just manically digging and revving the engine. He would also stop every now and then and yell at the universe. You heard me. He was yelling at the Universe. He would scream out into the desert, spittle flying from his mouth each time, about how awful his life always was. About how fucked the universe was to him.
I said nothing. I stayed out of his way. I allowed him to do whatever he wanted. I had help on the way. That's all I cared about.
My phone finally rings. I had left it on the charger in my car. I run over and accidentally rip the cord in half in my haste to grab my phone. It doesn't matter, it's the tow truck. Help was finally here.
"I'm near where you told us," he says to me. "Where are you?"
"Just give me a second," I answer back. "There is an abandoned house right near us. I'll walk up and find you."
I hang up the phone and walk over to where Nutty is laying. He was still digging sand out from under the car.
"The tow truck is here, " I tell him. "I'm going to walk up to the road so that he can find us."
"Just stay here, let him find us himself," he answers irritably.
"He can't see us. We're in a ditch," I respond. "I'll be right back."
I turn around and walk back towards the road. I didn't need his permission. Why would I need the permission of a madman?
I climb the hill to the abandoned house and step onto the other side. What I saw made my blood run cold.
I saw nothing. No road. Just desert. Nothing but desert.
My phone rings again. It's the tow truck driver.
"I'm sorry, I'm not sure where the road is," I tell him. "I have to go back and find my boyfriend. He might know the direction. I'll call you back."
"I can't wait for long," the driver says. "I have other calls."
"Ok. Just give me five minutes, I'll call you back," I tell him. "My phone is dying so I need to hang up. I'll call right back."
I hang up the phone and quickly head back to the car.I walk down the hill and look around. I don't see anything. No car, no boyfriend. Nothing. Just desert.
I look back at the house and try to get my barrings. I could have sworn the car was in this direction! I hadn't walked far. It should be right there!
I begin to panic. I look around me. The sun has risen so I have a perfect view of the nothingness that surrounds me. I feel my own hysteria rising in me.
"Oh my god," I think. "I'm lost! I'm really lost. I don't know where the road is...I don't know where Nutty is...what am I going to do?"
I keep walking, my eyes searching the nothingness around me. Ten minutes go by. I try not to walk far. The abandoned house is my only land mark. I didn't want loose that as well.
"I'm lost," I think again. "Wow, there could be wild animals out here. Coyotes. I have no weapon. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."
The fear begins to take hold of me. This is real! I could actually die out here. I was lost and alone. What the hell was I going to do??
"Calm down," I tell myself. "Don't freak out. Just call for Nutty. Keep it together Carrie. You can do this."
Having a game plan helps to calm me, even though I new it was a pathetic one. I begin to call out for Nutty. My voice doesn't carry. The second I scream, its as if my voice is blocked. It just drops to the ground right in front of me.
Little did I know, Nutty was still able to hear my screams. I just couldn't hear him yelling back. Luckily I turned just in time to see him heading in my direction. I run over to him and collapse into his arms. I'd rather be lost with a madman then die out here by myself.
"I told you not to leave," he says to me.
There is no tenderness in his voice. My tears dry up immediately.
We walk back to the car. It was buried deep in the ditch. No wonder I couldn't find it.
"Look, we need to find the road," I tell him. "The tow truck is here but he can't find us. I thought it was that way, but all I found was more desert."
"That's because we came from that direction," Nutty says to me, pointing the opposite direction.
"Are you sure," I ask him. "I could have sworn we came the opposite way."
Nutty only looks at me. That's all he needed to do. I shut my mouth and follow his lead. After about 20 minutes of walking, he finally gives up on his theory.
"Come on," I tell him. "I have an idea."
I walk back to the car and look down at the sand, happy with what I find. Pressed deep into the earth are my cars tire tracks. I begin to follow them up the dirt "road". We get pretty far that way. Following my tire tracks, occasionally stopping to decipher which are ours and which are old tire marks from trucks. We walk for almost a mile. Eventually we loose the tracks. We both stop and look at each other; the fear we both felt mirrored in the others eyes.
Nutty pulls me in for a hug.
"Finally!" I thought. "He is going to comfort me. He is going to try to make me feel better."
If only that would have been true. Instead of comfort Nutty begins to cry. That's right. My ex underground cage fighting, ex body builder, trans house DJ, escort body guard ex began to cry in my arms like a little baby!
I allow him his release. Better he cry than launch himself into another rage. As I held him I heard something. I pull him away from me and hold my fingers to his lips to silence him. There it was again!
We both look at each other and yell, "Cars!"
We jog towards the sound. A few minutes later, we see it. The road! I see a tow truck zoom by. I pull out my phone and the driver again. Thank god it still hadn't died!
"We're here, I just saw you drive by us," I yell into the phone.
"Sorry, I have to go to another pick up," the tow driver replies back. "You're going to have to call someone else."
Then the dirty bastard had the nerve to hang up on me!
"What did he say?" Nutty asks.
"He said he had to go," I tell him. "What a dick!. Wait, look! There's a car coming!"
We both run towards the road just in time to stop the car from flying by us. It's a couple of party goers headed home from the rave.
"You guys ok, " the driver asks.
He looks to be around 19/20 years old. His girlfriend is in the passenger seat.
"Our car got stuck in the desert," I tell them. "We need to get a tow truck."
"We just passed a tow truck hitching up another car," he tells me. "We can drive you over there if you want?"
"Oh my god yes! That would be amazing," I say to him.
I hop into the backseat, instructing Nutty to wait for me on the side of the road. I knew if we both left that spot we would never find the location of my car again.
Nutty complies, saying nothing. He had been eerily quiet for a while now. Since his crying. Whatever. Atleast he's calm.
On the drive down the road, I retell the story of what happened to us to my rescuers. They can't stop laughing. The guy almost drove off the road when I told him about how I thought Nutty was going to comfort me but had instead started to cry.
"Oh wow," he says to me. "That's the funniest story I've ever heard! I'm so glad we picked you up!"
I begin to laugh with them. It really was sort of funny wasn't it? I mean I could laugh now, couldn't I? We were going to be ok, it was time to relax.
We get to the tow driver, and my laughter quickly turned to anger. The guy won't help me!
"You have to call someone else," he says to me. He had just finished hitching up his load and was getting back into his driver seat. "I have to haul this car all the way back to town. I won't be able to come back here."
I pull out my phone and call another tow truck. I couldn't believe what was happening! I used my limited battery to call my job to inform them I wouldn't be coming in. I knew this nightmare was far from over.
The ravers drove me back to Nutty.
"Do you want us to take you guys into town," they ask, concerned.
"No, its ok," I tell them. "I called another tow truck. I don't want to leave this spot. If we do, we'll never be able to find my car. We'll be fine."
"Ok, well take this," his girlfriend says.
She hands us a half empty bottle of water. We had been lost for atleast 4 or 5 hours. We hadn't had a drop of water for even longer than that. We were exhausted and hungry. I took it gratefully.
"Take this too," she says, handing me a small bottle of 5 hour energy drink. "It'll keep you going."
She gives me a wink and they pull away.
Nutty and I take a small drink of the water. We know we need to conserve. Nutty takes the energy drink and downs it. Great. Now I'm stuck with a psycho high on caffeine.
The wait is a long one. Another hour goes by. It was a nightmare. Nutty was freezing. He had left the car without his jacket. The air was cold but the sun was still hot. Our bodies shivered as our cheeks burned. Nutty began to cry again. He looked so pathetic. Sitting there with his arms in his t-shirt, shaking, his eyes still red. He began to rant.
"Why does this happen to me? Why does this always happen to me," he says to no one in particular. "I thought last night was going to be so amazing. I thought that you and I would take some drugs and enjoy the event together. Why couldn't you just do that. Why? Why!!"
He's standing again. He begins to yell again. He starts to work himself up so badly that he eventually makes himself sick. I'm sure it was a combination of the lack of sleep, no water, the way he had exhausted himself for hours trying to dig out the car. All he had in his stomach was that energy drink. Dehydration had set in...
He began to dry heave on the side of the road.
"Baby, baby," I said to him. "You have to calm down. It's ok. The tow truck is coming. Come here. Drink the rest of the water. I'm going to call them again."
He calms down a bit and drinks the rest of our water. I'm dying of thirst but I hardly notice. All of my senses had been heighten since this nightmare had began. I had my own adrenaline running through me. I was aware of how close I was coming to cracking. But as long as Nutty was useless, I knew I had to hold it together. I was our last hope of getting out of this mess.
We hadn't seen one car since our raver friends had left us. I pulled out my phone and called the towing company again.
"I'm sorry ma'am, " she says to me. "We have no record of your call. We never sent anyone out."
I thought would loose it right then. I somehow kept it together. I gave her our location again and hung up the phone. I take a moment before I turn around. I knew Nutty wasn't going to take this well.
"So they had a shift change and never sent anyone out to find us," I tell him. "They just resent a driver."
"This is your fault," he says to me under his breath.
"What," I reply shocked.
"All of this," he continues. He is sitting on a rock near the road, looking down at the ground. He never raises his head. "It was your fault we left. You were the one who decided to take that road. And look at the way you have been talking to the dispatchers. It's no wonder they haven't come. You've been too fucking nice!"
His voice begins to get louder. He looks up at me. I hardly recognize his face. He continues his latest and greatest rant.
"You should be telling them this is an emergency! You need to tell them how long we've been stuck! You need to tell them what you've done!!!"
I stand my ground under his assault. He's still sitting. I try to decide how to handle this. How to handle him. My body begins to shake again. I feel my own wave of nausea and dizziness overtake me. I shake my head, willing it away. Now wasn't the time for me to fall apart. I had to calm him down. I was still the only one that could get us out of this.
"Look, I'm sorry baby. I'm so sorry," I tell him gently. "You're right. I never meant to ruin your night. I'm sorry I got us lost. We're going to be ok. Help is on the way. Please believe me. I love you ok? I love you. Please don't be mad at me."
I don't believe any of this. At this point I don't even believe that I love this person anymore. I'm just doing what I knew I had to do. I needed to keep him calm. I needed to keep us safe. Most of all I needed to keep myself safe, from the desert and from him.
I walk over to where he is sitting and wrap my arms around him. I can feel the tension drain from his muscles. It's difficult for me to hold him. Not because I'm afraid...but because I'm disgusted. By him. By what I had just watched him become in a few short hours
Another hour goes by. We are nearing hour number six now. I hadn't ate since the day before. I was totally drained. I was afraid. My phone was on its last bar. I was so afraid of it dying before the tow truck was able to call me back.
My phone finally rings.
"Hi, I believe I'm near you," the man says to me. "I don't see you anywhere."
"We are right on the left side of the road," I say to him. "You can't miss us. We are the only things out here."
After a few moments of instructions the tow truck driver delivers what is still to this day the most awful thing I have ever heard.
"Oh my god," he says, sounding distressed. "They sent me to the East side...you are on the West. I'm about 45 minutes away from you. I'm all the way on the other side of town!"
That was it. That was the moment. The moment I finally snapped.
"Listen, my boyfriend and I have been stuck our here for over 6 hours," I begin. My voice begins to shake, "We have no food, no water, and we are freezing. My phone is about to die and you are the only person who knows that we are stuck out here..."
The tears begin to flow from my eyes. My last words pour out of me in a high pitched hysterical scream, "Do you hear what I'm telling you?!! No one knows we are here! I don't want to die in the desert!!"
I hear silence on the other side of the phone. I wait patiently. I've had my freak out. I feel calmer.
"Ok, don't worry miss," he responds kindly. "I know where you are. Do you hear me? I know where you are, and I'm coming! I'll be there in under an hour. Don't worry if your phone dies. I'll find you."
"Alright, thank you," I reply softly.
I hang up and face Nutty. I tell him the bad news. He doesn't take it well.
"I'm going back to the car," he says to me. "I can get it out. I just didn't have enough time to dig."
"Dude, you can't get it out," I say. "We already tried that. For hours remember? There's no way."
"I can do it. Just give me the keys," he says, holding out his hand.
"Babe, I doubt if you could even find the car, let alone get it out," I say. "We barely found the road. There's no way you are going to be able to find it."
I had this vision of the news later that evening. There would be a shot of my wrecked car and then a picture of Nutty with a, "Missing" logo flashing beneath his face. There was no way in hell I was going to let him get himself lost out in the middle of nowhere.
"Give me the fucking keys," he says to me between gritted teeth.
I knew arguing wouldn't work with him. That's what he wanted. He wanted to fight. I had always felt secure in the fact that Nutty would never try to physically hurt me, but at this point I wouldn't put anything past him. His mind had snapped hours ago. So I tried the only thing I could. A line from one of my favorite books pops into my head,
"I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool..."
The Great Gatsby.
So that's what I did. I played a fool. I played a pathetic women. I used my beauty and charm to fool him into staying.
"You can't leave me," I began. I used my most terrified looking face. I bulged my eyes and grabbed his arm. "Please baby! You can't leave me on the side of the road by myself! I'm afraid! Please please don't leave me alone."
I try to will tears to my eyes. I can't do it. I wasn't sad, I was actually afraid. I wasn't afraid of being left alone. I was afraid that he would leave and get lost. I was afraid that he would see that I was lying. Most of all I was afraid that he would try to wrestle the keys from my pocket. That was one struggle I knew I couldn't win. One of Nutty's favorite games was to lift me up and toss me up and down into the air like a ball. He could crush me.
I continue looking at him, pleading with my eyes. I see his face soften. He believes me! At the end of the day, through all of his craziness, the boy actually does love me. It works. He sits back down on the road and waits.
Forty five minutes later our salvation finally arrives.
The tow truck pulls up next to us. The tall burly man behind the wheel jumps out holding a plastic bag in his hands.
"You two ok," he asks, his eyes soft with concern.
"Yes, I'm so happy you're here," I say to him. I actually gave the guy a hug.
He opens up his truck and lets us in.
"Here, this is for you two," he says, placing the bag on my lap.
I open it up. It looked as if the guy had raided the entire contents of a gas station vending machine. There were several bottles of water and a load of candy bars. I look at him and smile.
"Thank you so much," I say to him.
It took us almost twenty minutes to find my car. The tow truck driver actually spotted it first. The car was deep in the ditch. If it hadn't been for a glint of sunlight reflecting off its roof, we never would have seen it.
"Hold on," he says to us. "That's quick sand you guys are stuck in. I need get across it to the other side. This may get a little rough."
Nutty and I grab onto the cars interior railings and brace ourselves. He kicks in the trucks 4 wheel drive and slams on his gas. The truck shoots forward with a roar. We bounce and fly our way across the ditch safely to the other side.
We get out and take a look at my car. It's a pathetic scene. I wish I would have taken a photo. The nose of my car was completely buried. There were pieces of wood and trash everywhere. I felt myself start to choke up. I push it back down. There would be plenty of time for that later.
"Wow, you guys never would have gotten out of this alone. Crazy," he says, shaking his head. "Ok, who can drive better in reverse?"
"That would be me, " I answer.
Nutty nods his head in agreement. It may have took seven hours but he finally knew who was in charge of this rescue mission.
"Ok, I'm going to hook up the car and pull you out," the tow driver instructs me. "I need you to turn on your engine the second you hit the hard sand. I'll pull you a few feet and then unlatch you. Once I do, safely turn around and follow me out of the sand. Don't stop. Don't slow down. Just drive exactly where I do, understand?"
I shake my head and walk to my car. Nutty gets in the passenger seat next to me. I ignore him. Everything was going to be ok. He wasn't my problem anymore.
Everything goes according to plan. It takes several minutes for his chain to pull my deeply buried car out of the sand. Once he does I turn my car around and began to follow him out. I ignore the brush I hit, I ignore the pot holes. I plowed through them all, making sure to keep up with my rescuer.
Once we get back onto the road and after we took care of the drivers fee, I fell back into our rescuers arms once again.
"Thank you so much," I told him. "If you ever need anything, you call us. He's a DJ and I'm a dancer. Any parties you have, we'll be happy to entertain. No charge."
Nutty pulls out our individual business cards and hands them to him.
Before he jumps back into his truck I yell out to him, "By the way! I am totally going to name my first born child after you!"
He laughs and gets behind the wheel. We follow him down a different road to the freeway. Nutty and I drive home in silence. Once we get there we both jump into the shower together.
"I'm so sorry, " he says to me under the running water.
Finally. Finally he was going to apologize for his freak out.
"I'm so sorry I tried to make you do drugs," he says instead.
"What," I reply shocked.
"I never wanted to be the type of person to push anything like that on you. I'm so sorry," he finishes.
He pulls me into a hug. I'm speechless. He was sorry for trying to make me do drugs? That's what he was sorry for? Did he forget about the rest? Did he forget about us almost dying? Did he forget about his rage filled outbursts? Did he forget that if it hadn't been for me, we would still be stuck in that god awful desert?
He releases me from his hug and kisses my face before stepping out of the shower. I linger just long enough for him to dry off and leave the bathroom. I get out and begin to dry off. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
My cheeks and nose are burnt from the relentless sun and cold. My eyes are glossy from exhaustion and my lip is cut from the dehydration. That did it. I was done. It was finally my turn. My turn to freak out.
I fell to the floor and began to sob. My body shook from the effort. All the fear, all the anger, all the pain and exhaustion I felt over the last 24 hours poured out of me. I sat there on the floor until I was spent before I finally pulled myself off up and put myself to bed. I broke up with Nutty 3 weeks later...
The memory of what had happened flooded my brain as I drove into the desert with Frenchie. My anxiety level was off the charts. That is until we hit the first destination on his map. It was some sort of boulder cove. It was beautiful.
He grabbed his guitar and lead me to a cluster of huge boulders. With the others help we made our way to the top of the largest one we could find. Once on top we both gazed out into the nothingness.
"I love this," he says, his face beaming. "It's so empty. I'z like the end of the v'world. It's sort of like walking on the moon."
I laugh and looked out into the empty desert. I saw it all with new eyes. Through Frenchie's eyes. My anxiety disappeared. He pulled out his guitar and began to play. His voice echoes off the rocks and into the nothingness. I loved it. I loved it because Frenchie loved it. I loved it, because with him, I felt safe.
We had an amazing day. We stopped at cactus gardens and rock caves. We took a two hour hike through the desert mountains to a lush tree filled Oasis. At the end we drove our way to the tallest of the mountains, past patches of snow, to a beautiful lookout so that we could watch the sun set. We held eachother and marveled at the beauty of the desert and at the comfort we felt around eachother.
I couldn't stop smiling all the way home. I drove the familiar roads back to LA, rubbing Frenchie's hair, willing him to sleep. My chest filled with happiness and affection for him. Once back downtown, I got out of the car only for a moment so that I could hug him goodnight before I headed back home.
"Thank you so much," he whispers into my ear. "That meant a lot to me. That v'was very special."
I squeeze him tighter. I didn't need a thank you. I may have helped to full fill his dream, but he had given me so much more. He had helped me to move past a horrible memory. He had helped me move on. No, wait, there was more to it than that. I was filled with more than gratitude. I was also filled with something that felt very similar to love. Love for him.
I try not to dwell on it. I kiss him goodnight and head home, painfully aware that I only had 2 days left with my out of country boo. Two days left to enjoy the first boyfriend I've had since my painful breakup with The Rocker.
Two days left until I would have to say goodbye.
I hope I can handle it.
WCC
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