[True Life Tales] bar fights continued

[rawTOP]

Click here to see Nick's original blog post on True Life Tales...

The streets were cold and black and orange in the still of the night. I had left the bar blocks behind but now was when my own troubles started. I kept thinking oh god what have I done. I punched the man I love. Then I shouted at myself no I don’t love him, I hate him. I couldn’t decide, I couldn’t remember how I had felt about him before then. I think one way then I see or speak to him then I I think another. He has a power over me. I don’t know if its his words or the potential I project on him but either way im addicted to him, or at the very least the idea of him. And I was in such turmoil because with one punch I had ripped away any shred of potential that there even could have been left.

I sat on a bench. I was so worked up I couldn’t even work out where the fucking bus stop was. All I could do was smoke one fag after another, tap my foot and rest my chin on my chest.

After a time of doing that I brought my phone into the equation. Nothing from nobody. Was that bad or good. Should I call him? Why hasn’t he called me? Why hasn’t anyone from the bar called me? What the hell happened? I started going through my text inbox, and stopped as I came to the last message from Si:

‘well go fuck yourself then.’

It had been nearly two weeks then since we had spoke after all that shit went down. And I had no idea if it was forgiven or forgotten or what the hell was happening. But I could think of no one else to talk to, no one else to turn to. He was probably the worst person to call that night. I had so many others I could have, my best mate for one, but it just didn’t enter into my mind. All I could think of was Si, and all I could remember was that first night we got together, the way we danced so long and the way we held each other at night. I thought there must be something still in that. Those feelings cant be forgotten, even after the rollercoaster that we had been through.

I called him and he picked up. I spewed words down the phone. I was shaky at the beginning, but then I got stronger. As I relayed what was happening and what I had been feeling the last few weeks, more started to come out. I hated the fact that he had left me for Garry. It upset me completely. After Manchester I had this image, this idea that we were rock solid. That I had screwed up but there was something between us worth fighting for. And I felt hurt when he didn’t understand why I had to go to Africa, but then again I understood why it hurt him. I got how he was feeling about me and about how we were getting back on track until I had gone and thrown the spanner in the works, and oh god I was sorry. And oh god please don’t tell me you love Garry.

I thought it was raining. I said on the phone oh god its raining now. But I looked up and there was nothing. My shaken hand touched my face and I felt the tears streaming out of my involuntary eyes. I could not stop this avalanche of emotion. But it fell into place. This was why I had been feeling so angry recently, this was why I was feeling like everything was falling apart and that I couldn’t cope. I had never thought that I could be in the wrong with Si. I couldn’t countenance that version of events. Yes I had gone off with my ex in Manchester, but did he not understand what my ex, what S meant to me? Did he not get it?

Just then the whole thing appeared to me from his direction. I saw myself as he saw me. Someone false, callous, uncaring, but with this capacity to love and to care to others, but not to show that to the ones I did love. To never compromise or to give in, to see love as a battle, as a war that lasts until one gives in to the other or until one flees the battlefield.

He must have listened to just my tears on the phone for excruciating minutes. I wasn’t even sure if he was still there I heard nothing to indicate that he was.

He got me to calm down though, and he was exactly how I wanted him to be. Garry didn’t mean a thing to him. I was right, he said, he was just there to hurt me, to make me suffer for what I had made him suffer through.

‘But despite all that, Nick. Despite what you put me through for months. I still feel the same way about you that I do when I came to change your lightbulb. I still feel for you what I felt for god so long before I even had the guts to say anything. Theres things I want to say right now, theres things I want to tell you but I only want to say it when im sitting with you, when I can tell you what I want to say while I can touch your face and hold your body and smell your skin and wipe your tears that your crying.’

I stumbled and stuttered and the tears were only interrupted by the sniffs.

‘Don’t say anything. That place is obviously stressing you out to fuck. Come away for a few days. Come up here and stay with me for a while. Clear your head. I don’t want to hear about your work. Its temping you can easily not take a couple of shifts for a few days. Come up tomorrow morning, I’ll meet you at the bus station and we can go to that diner and talk this thing out.’

I nodded. That was what I needed. I said to him though:

‘what about…him.’

‘hes on holiday right now. I don’t know ive not heard from him the last week or so, he wont answer his phone or his texts. I think hes got someone new. Don’t worry about it man.’

I made my way to the bus stop, it’s the last one in the town before you get the bridge over the river to the other side of the city. It felt like the last bus stop on the road to nowhere. I felt that was where I was going. Deep into the dark with only a vague knowledge of the route. I got on and went to the back, and as we drove into the night I thought about all the things you guys said about Si. And you are all right. As you usually are. As you are about the doctor and about how I should feel and act. But I cant do it. I cant hate Si. I cant even hate the doc. At that moment I got a text from one of the people who I was with at the bar:

‘everythins kl now. Big Jamie jmpd over frm the bar and kikd that wankr out, we sed he waz threatenin u man! And Jamie added £40 on2 his bar tab and gave me da cash to giv to u cuz we kept sayin how he stole it frm u man!’

I couldn’t help but smile. Not just at that, but about Si. Can you make a relationship happen after so many false starts? After so many things that would have blown up any other relationship? Can you make it happen when you are starting from a position of having almost no trust in the other person whatsoever? What is meant to happen? I have another good month before I can move back to where he is. I don’t know if it can survive another pause. Maybe we just don’t start anything for another month. Does he even want that I don’t know. What did he want to tell me? I can guess but what would I say. I don’t know if I love him. I swore that I would repeat that mistake of telling the person I loved them when I didn’t. I hated him two weeks ago. I hated his living guts. But then I hated him two months ago, and then just after Manchester when he would understand what I was going through. Im not as strong as I think I am. Hes not as bad as I thought he was.

Everything can change, everything has changed so much in the last few months that we have been together or not. I don’t know what I want to happen, but sitting on that bus, I knew one thing for certain. I knew how I felt about him then. Right then, I knew how I felt, and I could picture exactly what I wanted to say.

‘Thanks for saving me again.’ I texted as the bus rumbled past the doctors flat.

More...