We’re just too different

*

We’re just too different.

The bright green of the message box remained stuck like a fog on my eyes. 

Only when they dried out did I see the text underneath: “You can no longer message this user”.

Surely I couldn’t love you in the hang-out-all-the-time way, and that made our connection different. I cared about you more than about anyone else, but I wouldn’t pick up the phone every time you’d call. I had for you the kind of love that stayed in the shadows. 

Weeks later, I’d type in my notes We’re just too different and stare at the words for minutes at once. 

I saw what you thought was the ugliest part of you from the very beginning; on a grey afternoon of November, almost ten years ago. 

We stopped to chat by the swings in the park on our way home from school. We had both switched schools that semester and had a challenging time fitting in. We laughed a lot that day, getting to know each other. 

The man appeared while we were walking towards our neighborhood. He was in a rush, but when he saw you, his countenance changed. Without a word, he pulled you from the collar of your school-shirt and pushed your back against the building’s wall. 

“Why are you not home yet?”, and glancing at me and back to you, “Since when does it take you one whole hour to get home?”, he shouted in your ear. 

I didn’t know what to do, so I just waited. He told you to get the fuck home, and something about talking when he’d come back from work. Then reminded you to stop fucking wasting time and get the fuck home, and walked past me without another word. 

“Goodbye”, I said moronically, when he was already crossing the street. 

I looked back at you and your face was flushed. 

At that point I knew your dad was a bully. 

You were embarrassed that I had discovered that. 

We never spoke of it again, not directly anyway; but we spoke of many other things over the years. We’d grow apart for a couple months, and then find our way back to each other. You knew all the big things that happened to me in the past years, even if you learned some of them in a five-hour talk one night on the beach. And I could say the same about you. 

We’re just too different. 

*

The morning of Ashley’s mom funeral, I had to find appropriate black clothes, get ready, and go to the meeting point I’d agreed upon with Kathy in less than one hour. The wind was cold and bitter, but it suited the context; I’d always felt a funeral on a hot day would be unbearable. 

Kathy’s mom was driving us to a church on the outskirts of the city, not that far from campus. It surprised me that Kathy didn’t want to drive us there and instead called her mother. 

When we met, she looked like she’d been crying and it only occurred to me that day that maybe Kathy and Ashley weren’t just in the same group of friends. Maybe they were close, maybe she’d met his now-deceased mother. 

“How are you holding up, darling?”, Kathy’s mom asked and checked out my face in the rear-view mirror. 

I said I was doing well, but the situation was very sad etc. Apparently she didn’t know her daughter emotionally blackmailed me to attend this funeral I would have never attended otherwise. Not only did I not know the deceased woman - when Ashley and I last saw each other, he was spitting blood on the ground while holding his nose with his fingers. 

Shortly before the We’re just too different text arrived in my inbox. 

The car ride lasted roughly forty minutes, and Kathy’s mother did all the talking. She told us about this trip she had been organising with her fiancé, and all the cute adventures they had planned together. I couldn’t tell whether Ms. Mullins was divorced or a widow or neither. She was trying to keep our minds distracted while driving us to a church of miserable people. I kept thinking about your message.

It was, of course, about the fight we had that Friday night. I could only recall our argument in short bits of thoughts, or my head would start spinning. 

“You are unreliable, and just very difficult to be around sometimes”, you said to me. 

I didn’t understand. We didn’t hang out that much.

*

At the funeral, Ashley didn’t look at me once, and I didn’t say a word to him for the whole day. Or to anyone really, except for Kathy, who was being unreasonable and needy. She kept asking me to bring her things - like coffee from the cafeteria outside the church - hold her jacket and purse, or save her seat. It was driving me crazy, but running around for her errands was still better then trying to speak to Ashley or his father and sister. 

Kathy was acting like she was somehow a victim in Ashley’s mother suicide too. I couldn’t understand it. She hugged him a few times and tried staying close to him the whole day, but there was a clear separation between her and the rest of his family. So why was she crying so much? 

*

“You wouldn’t get it”, was another one of your stark responses from that night. I had asked why you couldn’t see I truly cared about you; and why you couldn’t accept that love can have different expressions, and mine being less conventional did not make my love for you less genuine. 

*

Maybe that’s what Kathy would respond to me as well, had I asked her why Ashley’s mother killing herself moved her so deeply - that I wouldn’t get it. 

When Ms. Mullins drove us back into the city, it was already dark. Kathy and I each had two full glasses of red wine to drink after the service, and the conversation was more spirited. When we circled back to the bleak event we were returning from, Kathy’s mom remarked: 

“That boy, Ashley, he must have had a lot on his plate these past couple days. He actually looked like he’s gotten in a fight very recently.”

“Yeah, his upper lip was swollen, he looked like he’d been punched in the face. I thought about it too.”, Kathy responded. “But he hasn’t been up to any shady shit recently, not that I know of. ”

Ms. Mullins raised an eyebrow. 

“And then, his mother taking her own life”, Kathy’s voice was now shaking, “do you think he saw something like that coming?”

Ms. Mullins looked outside through the window for a moment, then quickly signaled that she was pulling over. “Who knows”, she sighs, “This is the train station, baby. Give me a call when you get to the dorm, we can talk more.”

Kathy agreed and picked up her purse from the backseat, then we got out of the car in a light rain. 

*

You told me many anecdotes from the time you moved out with your mother and your baby sister. Some of them you brought up more than a couple times, but I’ve never stopped you from sharing them. I felt they were important to you. 

And Kathy genuinely loved her mother. She would get it. 

I told you I had to move out by myself three months after it had happened, the night before my seventeenth birthday. You were shocked, emotional.

You said you were sorry, but you never offered me to stay for a few nights with your family. It’s like you intuitively knew that in cases like ours, moving out by yourself when you have the chance, even before you are ready, might be the best course of action. I didn’t care that you never offered. It was enough to see you moved by my story to know you cared about me.

How come, suddenly, we’re just too different? 

*

Back at the dorm, Kathy popped open two beers and asked: 

“Do you know what happened to Ashley? To his face, I mean.” 

I nod. 

“What about his mom? Do you know her story?” 

“Why would I know?”, I ask defensively. 

“Ashley hosts parties at his house, really big ones, and sometimes his mother is - was - there too. She wasn’t bothered by anything. Sometimes she’d even stay and drink with us for a while. We liked her.” 

Kathy went on for a while. She thought Ashley’s mom was really cool, but she also found her different from many other parents she’d know. The group didn’t like Ashley’s dad. 

“He hasn’t had a party in a couple months, though. And me and Katia were discussing that something must be going on in Ashley’s life, since we had no parties that would go so wild as to upset Ms. Foy.“

I could definitely feel upset with Kathy at that very moment. We weren’t friends. Yet she barged into my room crying, demanding hysterically to go with her to a funeral the next day. It took me several minutes to get a story out of her - who died, when was the funeral etc. We never got to talk about why I must be there with her. In the end, I was too tired to fight it. 

*

You told me at the beginning of our discussion - the one that turned into our huge fight - that I never made an effort to bond with people. I said that was unfair. You responded that I should see things from your perspective. 

And I am trying to see our story from your perspective. 

I am hoping that would make me feel less deceived - what I was calling love all these years, you found hard to handle. It’s not your fault.

*

“She left a really long letter on her coffee table before, you know, taking all those pills.” 

Zoning back into Kathy’s story feels painful. 

“Ashley found it, and he read it right there, with his mother laying unconscious on the floor. He said the letter doesn’t contain financial information, so he doesn’t let anyone read it. Not even his father.”

“Do you think he was close to his mother then?” 

“I guess. I didn’t know him that well”, she added “I wanted to - but things didn’t always work out.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say so I reached for my phone. A painful kick in the stomach - you blocked my number. 

I told Kathy I was going to go to sleep and she looked disappointed. She probably didn’t want to be alone. We weren’t friends. 

She kept texting me for a while after I went to bed.

“I think Ashley could often be a bully; in those moments I don’t like him very much but I feel heartbroken for him”, Kathy wrote.

At around 3 am, she texted in all lower-case: “thanks for coming today naomi i know something went down with you and ashley too”, followed by “so thanks and good night”. 

It seemed Kathy was beginning to heal. Perhaps so should I. 

*

I remember feeling excited to see you on a Friday night, even if it was for something so small like exchanging a couple books. Perhaps we could also grab a drink. I called to let you know I was close to your house, and you sounded upset on the phone. 

I smoked while anxiously waiting for you to come downstairs, a few meters away from the poorly illuminated entry of the building. Bits of sunset were drying off the sky. I started hearing two people talking while coming down the main stairs. Their voices sounded angry. 

“If I were you, I’d mind my own fucking business”, I hear someone say. 

“I have no interest in whatever you’re doing. Leave me the fuck alone.” 

Two people were now in front of the entrance. I could distinguish their tense silhouettes in the pale light.

“Let go of my bag.”

“Or what? You’ll call my mom?” 

“You already drove her crazy.” 

A loud thud makes me drop my bag on the ground. In front of me, one silhouette pinned the other to the wall. 

“What is she doing here,” he turns around, “did you call her to defend you?” He continues, “I heard she’s a slut but wants to seem the opposite.” 

“Don’t talk of her like that.”

“Oh, but you can talk about my mother? You fucking nobody!” 

A head is banged against the wall. 

I took two steps further. You looked weak, vulnerable under someone’s hand pushing your right shoulder onto the cold wall behind. Why was this happening to you? 

“Ashley, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I shouted.

He let go of you and turned around so abruptly, I thought he might get to hit me across the face. Laying at my feet, there was my bag with three books I was going to lend to you. Next thing I knew, I was swinging the bag hard into Ashley’s face, twice, pushing him to the ground. His hands reached for his mouth and got coloured in blood. 

He stayed like that for several moments, and that’s when you came running to me and started rushing me to get going. I couldn’t believe I was leaving Ashley behind. He was hurt. But he hurt you. When he glanced at me, he had a violent look in his eye. Perhaps that of a man who had to deal with so much pain, it turned into violence. 

*

He had to attend his mother’s funeral with his face messed up and I had to be there to see it. This time, his eyes looked dry, dead. 

I still felt I did the right thing. 

*

We were getting close to the dorm, after walking in silence for minutes, when you said: 

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What, hit him? Why - is it because I’m a girl?”

“This is not a joke.”

I knew, but I was hoping you would find it amusing. Your serious tone made me apprehensive. 

“You think that if I wanted to hit him, or at least be aggressive enough to escape the situation, I couldn’t have? That’s just not the person I want to be. And you know why.”

Your voice took a tender tone when you said those last words. You’re right, I do know why - it all started to unravel on a bleak November afternoon ten years ago. 

 “I hate violence”, you added, “and I’ve seen good things poisoned by it. I would have rather taken that violence, than put it back into the world.” 

Tears came to my eyes. 

“Everything you’re saying is wonderful, but I just saw you and thought you were in danger - “ 

You didn’t let me finish. 

“It doesn’t matter anymore. Ashley might have hurt you. He can be a real bully.”

“Then why did you say I shouldn’t have hit him?” 

“Because that’s not the person you want to be either.” 

I said I didn’t care for the person I wanted to be. For me, that image faded in front of that of seeing you getting hurt. 

Maybe it would ache too much to remember what triggered us to start shouting at each other. Heavy words were flying around. You told me I was violent. I said you lived in a made-up world, a fairytale. 

You asked me why Ashley said people knew me as a slut, and it hurt that you asked that.

You called me violent more than once, saying I could get like that sometimes. You implied that you could never love me. I wondered if you meant you could never love me in the same way I loved you, or just love me in general. You said you appreciated our bond over the years. Yet you couldn’t fit it into your life anymore. 

I left without replying and started crying on the way to the bus station. 

I worried Ashley was going to take some sort of action against me. I ran into him on the way to the station. He had a bloody piece of cloth over his nose and shouted my way: fucking whore. Turned out he had other things on his mind that following weekend after all. I wondered if his mother saw him with his face like that before ending it. 

You texted me We’re just too different, and I still don’t know where I went wrong.