"Mr. Yellow-Bib"

Somebody once said: To be subjected to indifference is worse than being the object of hatred.

Those words always stuck with me, but I never fully grasped what they meant until now. Until now… as I lay in a fetal position on the sofa in my apartment, nursing a heartache brought about by my own obtuseness… by my own stupidity. I smothered my face in the sweatshirt she’d forgotten, sucking in her scent like a drowning man, and angrily cursed my inability to bridle my juvenile longing to feel needed, to feel desired.

Why had I allowed myself to fall for her? She was way out of my league; I should have known better! My fists clenched so tight they hurt! I sobbed long and hard into her sweatshirt, glad I was alone. Contrary to popular opinion, misery does NOT want company.

The first time we met was on an unusually warm February day. I was skiing at Camelback Mountain and had stripped down to my tee-shirt after my first run down the slopes. “Nice arms!”, came a pleasant female voice from behind me as I was pole-pushing myself towards the line for the ski lift. I twisted my body around to glance back and saw a very attractive woman catching up to me. I assumed she must have been talking to someone else, and so I turned forward again to see who the lucky guy was. But then a small but strong hand grasped my right arm from behind, just above the elbow, cold fingers causing an eruption of goosebumps as they squeezed my bare arm; “No, silly. I meant you, not someone else,” she said with a grin as I turned and looked down into the most stunning blue eyes I had ever seen.

I remember feeling all the blood rush out of my body and to my face, intent on humiliating me. The approach of this beautiful woman had knocked me completely out of my comfort-zone. This kind of thing NEVER happened to me; to my friend Troy, yes, but not to me. The only time a pretty girl had ever approached me out-of-the-blue was at a convenience store to… wait for it… to ask if I could spare a few bucks so she could buy cigarettes. It's not that I consider myself homely; I just know that I am not the prettiest tool in the shed. And that thing she said about my arms-- I don’t even work out! Sure, I play hard, and I do heavy work with my hands in construction which gives my arms and shoulders a lot of definition, but muscle-bound I am not.

The pain in my chest deepened as I recalled that beautiful day. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t STOP thinking about it, about HER, just like when somebody tells you, “Don’t think about the pink elephant.”

The next thing she said to me should have clued me in as to what might happen, what would eventually happen. Ahem! Where were all those red flags and alarm bells when I needed them?

But I was helpless before her, like a sheep being led to the slaughter, when she asked, “Do you mind if I ski with you? My ex-boyfriend is here, and I don’t want him to bother me; he’ll leave me alone if he sees me with another guy.” I was painfully shy, she was so pretty, and I feared that an opportunity like that would never come along again.

A little voice inside my head started screaming at me, DON’T DO IT… SHE’S USING YOU!! DON’T… DO… IT!! “Sure, no problem. Glad to help!”, I said back to her. What else could I say? That I would rather ride the lift alone than be than be stuck together with her on the same chair for the whole ride up to the top of the mountain, rinse-and-repeat, for the entire day? Which, I am ashamed to admit, was exactly the fantasy going through my head at that moment. So, I was cornered; I could either be rude and regret that moment for the rest of my life, or I could indulge my fantasy. The hateful little voice in my head then told me I should fall onto the pointy end of one of my ski-poles and get it all over with right then and there.

Too late. Before I knew it the chairlift had swept us off the ground… together, I should add.

Oh, remember how I said I was shy? Yea, exactly: It occurred to me that I was going to have to engage in something called “conversation” if I hoped to prolong my fantasy. We’d already exchanged names on the ground, “My name is James. What’s yours?”

“Don’t laugh when I tell you,” she had answered, starting to giggle at herself already, “my name is spelled L-i-e-y-a, pronounced Lie-ya, like the way a New Yorker says the word ‘liar’ without pronouncing the ‘r’ at the end.” We both laughed out loud. Meanwhile the little voice in my head was having a field-day: LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU! But my brakes had failed back at “Nice arms!”

She had made me laugh so easily. And by laughing at herself, she was telling me that she didn’t take herself too seriously. She had put me totally at ease. Conversation came without effort. I don’t even remember what we talked about. It was much too soon that we were getting off the lift.

We checked our bindings as we prepared to head down the mountain. Here comes the test, I thought to myself as my stomach tied itself up in knots wondering if she was going to ski with me or if she would drop me for the next guy who came along who had ‘nice arms’.

“You want to go first, and I’ll follow you?”, I said.

“Yea, that would be great. But do you mind waiting for a couple minutes? That’s my Ex over there,” she said, pointing to a guy in a bright yellow ski-bib who had his back to us as he started down the mountain. “I just want to make sure we don’t run into him on the slope or end up anywhere near him in line at the bottom.”

“No problem.”

We skied together for the rest of that day. We talked about all kinds of things; we laughed about all kinds of things. And we skied together again four more times over the next couple of months before ski season ended. She had this way of making me feel so good about myself whenever we were together. And I provided her with plenty of laughs too, at my own expense. She started referring to me affectionately as her “little dork” whenever I would deliberately do something silly. She had coaxed me out of my shell without me realizing it.

We continued to see each other most weekends until her spring college semester ended and she returned home to Syracuse for the summer.

When her college classes started up again in the fall, we made plans several times to get together, but something always seemed to come up, and we only saw each other a couple of times. Fall was usually the busiest time of year for me with work anyway. December came along, which had me booked for a Colorado ski trip during the Christmas/New Years holidays, while Lieya would spend the holidays with her family in Syracuse.

At the last minute, however, something came up on my end, forcing me to bail out on Colorado. I would have to settle for a long ski-weekend at Killington, Vermont with my younger brother. I had thought of calling Lieya but decided against interrupting her during her family-time.

My brother and I drove to Killington on the Thursday before New Years weekend, arriving just as a major nor’easter snowstorm was getting under way! Super excited, we were first in line for the chair-lift Friday morning! Snow was falling, twelve inches of fresh powder already on the ground with another eight inches forecast to accumulate by the end of the day. It was one of the best days of skiing my brother and I ever had!

Then, Saturday morning woke us up to brutal conditions: clear blue skies, but a temperature of minus 5 degrees Fahrenheit and forty mph winds. We had come prepared, however, with masks and goggles designed to cover everything so that not even one little patch of skin would be exposed! We were still stoked from the day before, despite the conditions.

At lunch time, the warmth of the ski lodge had us lingering after we finished eating, reluctant to head back out to the punishing cold. Several tables away from us, through the lunch-crowd, I noticed a guy wearing a yellow ski-bib. I was wondering why it looked familiar when suddenly, my brother blurted out, “Isn’t that Lieya? I thought you said she was staying with her parents for the holidays?”

“Where?”

My brother then pointed to where I was already looking. “Next to that guy wearing the yellow ski-bib. He’s got his arm around her.”

As my brother was speaking, the crowd parted, allowing me line-of-sight to a face I will never forget. It was Lieya, all right. She was talking, laughing, and smiling with Mr. Yellow-Bib, carrying on and pushing her hair back with her hand the way girls do when they are interested in the person they are talking to. I bet she told him “Nice arms!” too. She had no idea that I was staring at her… until she did, and then we locked eyes with each other. I could tell the moment that recognition struck her; it visibly shook her to see me looking back at her; she obviously thought I was in Colorado. She recovered quickly, though, looking down to pretend at fussing with something in her lap, and then she proceeded to carry on with Mr. Yellow-Bib as if she had never seen me.

I jumped up out of the chair I was sitting in, feeling hurt, betrayed, lost, unsure what to do. My stomach was in knots, and my heart was starting to ache. I decided to head over to their table. My brother jumped up, alarmed by my reaction, and grabbed me by the arm to restrain me. “What are you doing?? Leave it alone! She’s not worth it!”

I turned back to my brother and told him, “I am not looking for trouble. I am looking for confirmation.” Upon which I continued towards Mr. Yellow-Bib’s table. The pain in my chest was building. I stopped in full view of both of them, ostensibly to check something on my phone. Lieya looked up at me then, or rather, she looked right through me, as if I wasn’t even there. How was that even possible?

I had to get away; I hurried to the men’s room and found an empty stall. Her betrayal was so nonchalant, yet absolute. My heartache became an intense, crushing weight that made me want to cry out; I tried to scream but couldn’t; I tried to breathe, but couldn’t. I remember thinking: so, this is what it feels like to die from a broken heart. 

And then I woke from my nightmare. The scream which had been trapped exploded from me as I jerked awake in bed. I was overcome by an intense feeling of relief when I realized it had all been a bad dream. I let out a muffled sob as I took stock of the familiar, comforting surroundings of the bedroom.

“Same nightmare with Mr. Yellow-Bib?”, my wife asked me with concern in her voice. I didn’t need to answer. “Don’t worry,” she said as she snuggled closer and kissed my arm exactly where she had grabbed it from behind so many years ago, “I could never leave these nice arms.”