The loss of everyday.

It was a cold winter night and her breath started fogging the rear view mirror while she backed out her car. While I stood waiting for her to bring her car back on the street, my hands started getting cold and the gloves didn’t help at all. She rolled down her window and giggled, “what the hell are you waiting for?” I climbed inside of her old Camaro as she put the heater on full. I couldn’t anticipate how eager she was until I heard her push down her accelerator fully and burn rubber along with the snow. We started singing ‘Bye bye Miss American Pie”, and set off to meet the man of our dreams. She didn’t know I loved him too. She was driving me for her date night where she was trying to hitch me to some random stranger she met at work. Being the best friend I am, I smiled and dressed up with her.
There were many instances in these years that I wanted to tell her that I loved him, loved him so much that every time I saw them kiss, I would break glasses in my bathroom, sit on the floor and sob myself to sleep. Love him so much that I was ready to give her up, my friendship up, to be with him. But I do realise later, after doing a line, that he isn’t worth sacrificing my friend for. This love or infatuation for him is what got hooked me onto drugs in the first place. I didn’t want it this way. The pain of not being with him ripped me to shreds every time I saw him. I would then just have to suck up and be the friend that never gets laid.
We finally reached the restaurant for the date, both of them at their own tables while I sat with my stranger. He seemed out of place, so I tried making conversation.
“So what do you do in your free time? I like to paint.” I started initiating our talk. All this time, I prayed to god that at least this man should be decent. I have had my own, big share of bad hookups and relationships. All this while I was stealing glances towards the man I loved.
“I don’t get much free time but whenever I do, I like to spend it on writing music” he replied back sweetly.
“I’m sorry to point this out, but I have noticed for the past half an hour, that you have not once even looked at my face. You have been staring at Clarissa’s boyfriend this whole time” he said this blatantly while I choked on my wine.
And then I saw his face. It looked like the face of someone who could instantly analyze anyone and expect them to come up with the truth of whatever they were thinking of. The fine lines around his face in the candlelight made him look extremely handsome and I for once, stared at him.
“You…you have a nice face” I stammered while thinking of how stupid I must have sounded to him. He laughed at what I had said. The laugh a clear, deep one that you could relate to Sean Connery or George Clooney.
Having calmed out the tension that had built up during the start of our date, he put me at ease to talk to him and open up. Slowly I told him of how I had fallen in love with the other stranger at the next table. How he had saved my friend and instead of her falling in love, I did. How they started meeting up more and eventually got into a relationship, how when I had secretly told another friend she had laughed at me. I told him most of the background story as to why I was there.
He smiled a big smile at me after I stopped talking, poured me some wine and asked “if you are free the next weekend, I would like to tell you my part of the story, about why I’m here right now, with you”. I agreed to meet with him. Before leaving, I again managed to look towards Clarissa and her boyfriend and be sad that he wasn’t with me. I was in the throes of pain again and cursed myself for being that stupid.
I got back home and she asked me if I liked this man. I told her he was alright and that we would be meeting next week too. She got really excited for some reason and started jumping around. I went off to sleep amongst the noises of moans coming in from her room. The worst part was knowing that the man I loved was making love to my friend when all this time I fantasised of being in his arms.
Eventually I drifted off to sleep and went about my week in a haze of work, groceries and Netflix. On Saturday night, while I was getting ready, I got jittery about meeting him so I lit up a joint. As high that I was, I messaged him asking if he was still up for it. He replied with a yes and no other frills. I didn’t know that he was going to pick me up but there he was, honking away below my window. I was just in my underpants so I shouted out to him to wait for a couple of minutes. After half an hour, I went down and saw him standing outside with a bouquet of lilies and he said “that was way more than a couple of minutes”. I smiled back and didn’t say anything.
He took me to a restaurant in the outskirts of the city, the places with tables under the stars and fairy lights on the short fences, there was a band playing Miles Davis and I fell in love with the place as soon as I stepped inside. I knew he was smiling because of the constant smile I had on my face the whole time. We started talking again and this time he told me about himself. He told me about his wife who was caught cheating on him while he was away in the army and she left with nothing, how he was a nobody and people didn’t care about him, his family abandoning him. By the end of it, my hand was on my mouth and I was visibly shocked. He looked at my face and laughed and told me he wasn’t bothered by it anymore.
We finished off our dinner and shared a cake.
“You do know I love him right?” I asked him sheepishly
“Yes, I’m not looking forward to date you either. You’re a very nice person and I like spending time with you, that’s all”.
We agreed to meet up for the third time. And then the fourth and fifth.
After we met for the eighth time, I realized Clarissa’s sexual noises didn’t bother me as much. I also didn’t want to commit suicide because they were having sex. I could look him in the eye while talking to him.
On our tenth date, I decided to let Mark know I liked spending time with him.
The only thing he said was, “Does his presence bother you anymore?”
“No.” My reply was prompt too.
Slowly I felt a great weight lift off my shoulders too and another realization hit me. It had been almost two months since I snorted cocaine. I was almost clean. I smiled to myself again.
Today, it has been almost three years since I’ve known Mark, I can hear him around my house cooking dinner for everyone. While he popped his question the only thing he said was “I’ll always be the friend who you can trust your life with.”
We’re having Clarissa over for dinner since her break up took a fatal toll on her as she tried to kill herself. The bell rang loudly and I see her at the door, with a bottle of wine for us. I look at her, she looks back at me, with tears in her eyes, “I knew you loved him and now you’ve saved yourself so much pain.” I couldn’t help but cry with her and drew her into the tightest hug I could muster.
“I love you and I will take care of you.” I whispered quietly into her ears.