Flying

Glitch.

I’m standing on my balcony railing in the dark wearing my decade-old prom dress, its silky red fabric wetly adhering to my skin. 

I’m surprisingly steady as I balance in the cold November rain. Normally I'd be freezing and shivering, but I don't even notice. What’s your secret, Wonder Woman? Lots of Liquid Courage!

I'm not suicidal, just self-destructive: in the end, I need another drink and some attention – which I’m not getting out here – so I stumble down from the ledge and back inside. 

I pour another. My fourth or fifth, my sober brain might track. She's been stomped down beyond drank-timony at the moment, though.

My roommate is on the big leather sofa, staring at me ins.. cru.. tibbly. Haha Tibbly. That is a great name for a cat. The room is spinning, so I plop down beside him, looking deeply into his eyes and blinking like a cat, then I shake off the rainwater like a dog. He says nothing, just shakes his own head and calls me a dumbass. Again. But I see he’s smiling now. A little. At least a smirk.

Doesn’t matter. I can already tell he plans to sleep out here tonight. He doesn’t like when I’m out of control. 

Funny, he used to live for my wild side. Now he doesn’t even check out back to see if I flew.

><

Unglitch.

He suddenly materialized after my last divorce. I woke up hungover one morning, and he was still here from the night before. We originally met and got along well in online games together, but I didn’t want him here permanently. 

I am too nice to say that outright, so we both pout.

I still openly date to Exert My Independence. 

He punches holes in the walls while I’m out.

We used to sleep together, game together, do everything together, in the beginning. Now he just loafs and lets me pay for everything.

I wish I could say that I wouldn’t still welcome him into my bedroom. Doesn’t matter, though. That’s a pretty rare thing now RE-GARD-LESS, so I am finishing this drink and getting another.

><

Glitch.

I make it a double, somehow careful to avoid the large glass chunks from where I dropped the coconut rum Friday night. It’s made a sticky mess – isn’t alcohol supposed to evaporate? – but since it’s mostly confined to the kitchen pantry, I just close the door and ignore it. I haven’t been sober since I dropped it, and everyone knows glass is dangerous. 

He hasn’t cleaned it because he does nothing anymore. We are in a war of … attention…? abstention…? attrition.

This new stuff is harsher, but it’s high proof and cloyingly sweet. These are a few of my fav-o-rite things. 

YES! I love that song that just came on! It’s dancin’ time!

Best. Dress. Ever. Wheeeee!

><

Unglitch.

I woke up on the floor in my prom dress today.

Somehow I made it to work. I wonder: if I made less money, would I drink as much? My habit is expensive. But I keep my job against all odds, week in and week out.

I'm good at my job, but I am not good at partners. I feel like an asshole, the way I treat him sometimes; I know, on some level, that he was in love with me, at least at first, and wanted us to last.

I wish I could tell him I’m sorry, we just are oil and water. What seemed like a good thing online should have stayed there.

You being here makes me want to drink even more.

We’re neither of us what we seemed. Only, I knew me. And I didn’t want him here for that.

I can't throw him out, since he has nowhere to go and is now unemployed. Is it really the best course, though? We just end up torturing each other, instead.

><

He kept our online friends when our split began after a few months of living together. 

When I get home at night and want to play the game, I feel like a stranger in our own guild – he's always there – so I make secret characters and play those instead. I pour myself one. Or two.

Glitch.

This game is pretty fun, but not as fun as when I had guild chat. I cannot kill beetles when I am this drunk omg and wtf is hitting me with arrows1! I text him a game chat and tell him to transfer me some cash so my dead-ass character can buy armor to make her IN-de-STRUCTIBLE!

He does it. And I’m not a secret anymore. 

If I'm going to be bored, I may as well keep texting to him in-game. He answers sometimes. Sometimes, from the other side of our computer table, he asks me wtf that word was supposed to be. I jump because I forget he’s here when we are texting in-game.

The room goes silent again except for our keyboards and our palpable need for escapism.

><

Unglitch.

I woke up with heart palpitations today. I don’t even remember going to bed. I ask him to take me to the hospital asap. On the way, I make him stop so I can get a quickie-mart burrito, because I am famished.

(Mmm delicious burrito, red hot!)

I didn't know his skin could even get red.

He waits with me while I am in the Emergency Room for hours. It was nothing after all, turns out. Probably just hungover. I need another burrito.

><

Glitch.

He’s text-chatting but not with me anymore. Curiosity kills me, so I wait 'til he goes to the bathroom and run around the table to look at his screen. It's a girl in our guild. MY guild.

I pour myself a triple. He lives off me and hits on her. They seem serious. I remember when I was nearly blackout the other night that I heard him on the phone really late. I fill in the blanks.

I put on my headphones and move a stack of game boxes between us so I don’t have to look at him and don't have to hear him typing to her. My brain is on fire, and I surprisingly don’t want to say anything I will regret. I must not be drunk enough.

He raises an eyebrow, when he returns, but doesn't say anything.

I blackout. He tells me later I got on his machine and typed to her that she wasn’t good enough for him, then broke his keyboard. I don’t believe him, because I don’t feel that way. But he is inscrutable again, and the truth never reveals itself to me anymore.

><

Unglitch.

He moved to Maryland while I was at work today. Just packed up what he could hold in his car and left a note.

She has the same last name as me. On my third drink and find that riotously funny, because W isn’t even a real letter: guess my whole life is a lie. Now hers is, too.

><

Glitch.

Fuqit wuold be a gREat name for a vokda who can I contact with that diea when I sober. uup /?