Aftermath of a Partial Letdown.

I do feel that I get lonely sometimes, and I mean the kind of lonely one gets when they’re single and want that deep, intimate connection with someone. Some female that I can trust and share my secrets with, someone who can rely on me as much as I can rely on her, someone to hold as I sleep rather than hug a pillow, someone who compliments or compensates my character, as Carl Jung put it.

More often, however, I’m only incredibly horny, and that isn’t a good reason to get into a relationship. Or even date, perhaps. I’ve found that when one is horny enough and can’t bear to think of oneself as so primitive and shallow their private parts disguise their demands for sexual satisfaction as yearnings of the heart. As a consequence, I can’t even be entirely certain that when I feel lonely its truly loneliness; to the contrary, there is good reason to suspect that its just my dick’s last-ditch attempt to drive me towards the ol’ in-out via a false flag operation.

That may have been behind the whole Kara thing. And maybe that was truly what was behind me accepting Mary’s request for us to go out sometime and actually following through with it despite my isolationist tendencies and the ongoing global pandemic.

The evening I spent with her a few weeks back was nice enough, and I didn’t even manage to get my geographically-dyslexic ass lost on the way to her apartment. Actually, its her brother’s apartment, which he let both her and her daughter live in with him. It was a small but cozy place, and the only off-putting thing I eyed on the tour, or throughout the night for that matter, were two little Jesus pictures hung beside one another on the wall just behind the door.

I made the decision not to ask, but to pay close attention if she indicated any religious persuasion. And I tried to be conscious of my tendency to mock religion, as I didn’t want to offend her with any jokes poking fun at religion. I didn’t consider this self-censorship, either, so much as courtesey. If she asked me my angle on religion, I would oblige.

Later on in the night, in the midst of conversation, she referenced “getting right with god.” I held my tongue and let it bleed.

After the short tour, we ultimately rested our wary asses on the couch. The first member of her household — apartmenthold? — that I met was a little black cat named Spooky, who, unlike all other names in this blog that aren’t celebrities or political figures (fuck, is there a difference anymore?), I will not use a pseudonym for, because I fucking like the name. Spooky was a nice and delightfully weird little creature who occupied my attention throughout the night.

Next, her daughter came in, who I never really remember talking directly to me, but seemed sweet enough, and did occasionally laugh at things I said. Ultimately her brother arrived, who in some ways seemed like a more extroverted, motivated, and trusting form of myself. He seemed very giving, very welcoming, which I feel I might be like if not for the underlying suspicion and fear of being used or judged. He also had broadband empathy devoid of my fears of forgetting about my own emotions and being consumed by the other person’s.

If that makes sense.

He had all the good qualities I feel in me without the embittered obstructions I erect as a self defense mechanism, to put it another way. On top of that, he’s an excellent cook, but that came later. When he first came in, he was talking about the elderly landlord who wasn’t looking so good and had run out of his medication. He also hadn’t bought any food. So he had run some errands for him, but because he was tipsy he didn’t want to use the landlord’s car, so he did all the food shopping and whatnot on foot. As he told this story, he offered me a 24 of Bud Ice, which I gratefully accepted.

We had all been in the area just outside their apartment where they smoked when this incredibly skinny guy came in, and I quickly pieced together that he was the daughters boyfriend. While he certainly had a distinct feel about him in comparison to the other three, he fit in quite well with them: he was generous, trusting, welcoming. We smoked weed in the kitchen, where the brother began cooking.

The boyfriend had a lot of carts, but no vape pen, and I had my own pen in my bookbag in the truck. Sometimes I take a hit or two on break, as it tends to elevate my mood. I needed to offer it: they’d been so kind, and I had thus far only donated by awkward presence and cranberry juice for the vodka. I offered to go get it, and eventually I did. It was only on my way to car that I realized how moderately drunk and incredibly high I was. I got back and they passed it around. Talking a little, mostly listening, I couldn’t get over this group. Really. I liked them. All of them.

There was some talk of Gypsies among them in conversation, I believe regarding their family, which made me think of Hemlock Grove. It also made me remember a conversation Mary and I had had earlier while on the couch alone together, where we were talking about dogs and I mentioned a former collie my parents had had named Gypsy. She seemed to light up and told me how cool that was. It makes sense that they’d have some gypsy in them, too: they seem nomadic, very family-oriented, with true friends brought into the fold and considered to some degree as family.

At some point, as we were out smoking alone, she tells me how her ex-husband was schizophrenic. She didn’t know when they first marrued, but over the years it became painfully evident and she finally handed him the divorce papers. She had at least one live-in boyfriend before moving in with her brother, and it seems she — as with her brother and daughter — have been moving from state to state, town to town for most of their lives. To someone like me, who has lived in Ohio all throughout this life, I found that fascinating.

I waited till I was sober, gave her a hug, and headed out. Shortly before I did, I realized that though I really liked her, really liked her whole tribe, there was nothing there between her and I romantically, even sexually. Part of me did feel let down, and I immediately began to worry that she might feel differently. In either case, I had gained a really cool friend, if I could secure her as one, and a really cool friend who wed me to a circle of equally awesome people, but subsequent hangouts would never again be confused with dates.

She texted me back the next day and said that what she was really looking for right now was a friend, which was a profound relief. Even before the “date,” I had been driving myself nuts, as if it turned out I wasn’t interested, I didn’t know a kind way to express that to her.

Now, I realize this hardly constitutes trying in the realm of finding a girl, and in fact hardly constitutes dating, and that if a child were to give up after he’d fallen multiple times as he’s trying to walk on two feet, that kid would remain crawling on all fours for the rest of his life. But maybe that’s the wrong analogy. And even if its not, this “child” is 42 fucking years old.

If I could just get laid by a girl I find fascinating and attractive, no strings attached, and get all this out of my system after a sexless decade, perhaps I’d find that’s all it was. Just a biological impulse to scratch that instinctive itch. Or maybe, after I’d get it out of my system, I’d find that sex was only part of it, and while I need it, I also need something more.

Maybe maybe maybe. Maybe I’ll never get laid again, and I’ll have to pick up the mystery in my next incarnation.

Sometimes its hard for me to believe I’m a member of a social species.

Turning a New Leaf (9/9/20 & 9/11/20 Dreams).

9/11/20

When I awoke, I strove to recall everything about my dream that I could.

I recall hanging out with a girl, primarily in a forest during the daytime. At some point we came up to a tree stump that had been partially carved into and hollowed out, and I think there were things kept inside there, though I’m certainly fuzzy on this point. Elsewhere in the dream, we were lounging around outside, presumably still in the forest, and I was sitting way back, sprawled out in my chair nearby the girl, who was doing essentially her own version of the same thing in her chair. I kept forgetting and then realizing that I wasn’t wearing any pants, just my briefs — which is precisely how I slept last night — but was never concerned about it around her.

The dream itself as a whole reminded me of many of the many dreams I had in my very early teens, which also often took place in the forest, mostly due to the light, joyous, playful and relaxing kind of mood that those dreams embodied. I hadn’t felt that in a dream, so far as I recall — and certainly not in real life — for an unimaginably long period of time.

When trying to discern who the girl was after awakening, which was, aside from the hollowed-out tree stump, the focal point of my curiosity, I focused on how I felt around her. I felt very close to her, very connected and comfortable. I wasn’t trying to hide myself, I wasn’t worrying about how she perceived me or concerned to the level of paranoia regarding how I made her feel. It was just warm, easygoing, natural and nice. I felt calm and happy.

It made me think primarily of my long-time, gothic friend, Terra, though I also thought of Penny, as both make me feel very similar when I’m around them. I don’t think it was either of them, however, and perhaps no one I actually know in my waking life.

A quick search to guide my exploration into the meaning of the potential symbols provided interpretations that were actually quite intuitive and resonated deeply with each other and the overall mood of the dream. Trees are symbols of life and connectivity. With respect to life, the roots wind down into the past, the branches spread outward and upward, towards the future, and the trunk, linking both, represents the present.

To dream of a forest is supposed to represent a desire for connection, which certainly resonates with the mood of the dream and how the girl made me feel. The alleged meaning of the partially hollowed out tree stump was less intuitive to me, but certainly resonates with my waking life, specifically the vague recollection I had of a dream the day before yesterday (9/9/20) and the surrounding events, thoughts and emotions. Its supposed to symbolize something, such as a relationship, having recently come to an end, that something is missing from your life, or both.

I began writing about it on the day it all happened, but felt hesitant about finishing and sharing it, though it seems appropriate enough in this context.

9/9/20

Its been a year and a few months since I spoke with Claire, and though she has crossed my mind now and then, I simply don’t allow myself to engage with the thoughts. I no longer permit myself to care. Its a futile game I simply refuse to play anymore — consciously or, so far as I have been aware, even unconsciously, in the land of dreams, and my dream recall has returned the last few months without any clear sign of Claire’s presence. Even the suggestion of her. Until this morning, September 9th, the day before her fucking birthday.

I didn’t clearly remember the dream, I only recalled vague suggestions, but it didn’t deal with her or I interacting. It did deal with her and I, however. Specifically the apparent fact that she felt the same way about me as I did about her — essentially that the end had come and there was no sense in continuing any emotional investment in the friendship, in even entertaining the thought that it may eventually become something more. To the contrary, we would probably never see or talk to each other ever again.

Roughly 25 years of knowing each other and its simply dead, dead, deadinski.

Though it’s vague, the scene left me with the sense that I was eavesdropping on her having a conversation about me, or eavesdropping on someone else having a conversation about her and I. It seemed like I was viewing it from a distance, too, which reminds me of an element in one of my apparent telepathic experiences with Eva back in the day, though I’m not making the leap in assumption and concluding that’s what happened here.

Though it wasn’t as if there was much to write down regarding this dream, or this vague fragment of a dream, I’ve taken notes on less. Even so, I failed to write a word about it until now. The reason is clear: I honestly didn’t want to write about her ever again. At least not for awhile. I didn’t want to conjure up any potentially buried emotions, open up any healing wounds, or anything of that nature. Just let it stay behind me. Let it be obscured in the dust as I tear down that dirt road, leaving it all in the past, refusing so much as a mere glance in the rearview.

So I ran some erronds, went to work, did my shit, and then, after night fell and the fast food joint was busy as hell, cars wrapped around the drive-thru, as I was taking the gondola full of trash out to the dumpster corral, I hear my name being called.

For whatever reason, this is not unusual. I assumed that it was either a coworker seeking my help or someone in drive thru who saw me and wanted to say hello. It turned out that it was someone in the passenger seat of an SUV, wearing a black winters cap over her black, shoulder-length hair, looking out at me from the open window. I tried to discern the face from the distance. At about the same time I realized who it was, she yells, “Its Kara.”

“You coming back?” I knew damned well she wasn’t.

“Nope,” she said. “Sorry, bud.”

You’re tragically beautiful, I think to myself. I really like you, so go fuck yourself.

“Its nice to see you,” I tell her, and I wasn’t entirely lying, for it was, in a way.

In another way it was utterly maddening, however. Endlessly frustrating. Recently, she abruptly quit her job over the phone, claiming that she was going to admit herself to a mental institution again, and then blocked me (at the very least) on Facebook.

That’s the second time she’s blocked me, and by no fault of my own.

This was also the second time she has quit within the last month or two, though for some reason I felt confident she wouldn’t return as she had done on the previous occasion. I figured our paths had crossed for a time and now the chapter in my life involving her — despite her being in the distance for most if it, save for that week of false hope she gave me — had finally and abruptly come to a close. It hurt at a level, but there was a much more prominent sense of relief.

I was finally holding on to letting go, to moving on, and hopefully learning from past mistakes and former delusions and illusions. I thought that had been the case when I let go of Claire, but then the whole Kara thing happened, and she and my experience of and with her seemed to echo many former women who had been prominent in my life. Perhaps Kara embodied those elements because she was the emotional equivalent to the grand finale of a fire works display on Independence Day.

Finally, it was dead and buried, I naively believed.

Then, within a single day, albeit through different routes, both Claire and Kara, formerly buried, rise like zombies from their deep graves, as if seeking to feed their insatiable hunger for my tired brain once again.

Some damsals, it seems, just won’t stay dead.

Even though their reemergence was jarring and left me feeling like the universe was intent on keeping me bound to the miserable, hopeless cycles they’ve sort of come to represent, I maintained psychological and emotional distance. It was like the body of the problem was no longer there, it was just the residual shadow I had to deal with — and to my surprise I was, at the very least, doing better with respect to the dealing.

And then, on this day that is an anniversary of a tragedy that effected me quite deeply — 9/11 — I awaken, after roughly two months of haunting dreams and cryptic, unnerving imagery erupting during my daily meditation sessions, with a pleasant, beautiful dream, the mood of which followed me into my waking existence.

Despite my skepticism, I truly hope this is a sign that I am turning a new leaf, that this is a sign of better things to come, signs of a new and improved chapter in my life.

Time, waking life, and my dreams, I am reasonably confident, will surely come to tell.

Violations.

8/31/20

I hate training people.

Given my position as detail maintenance man, it doesn’t happen too often, thankfully, but it happens far more often than it should. Glen, the morning maintenance guy, has been here for some time, as have I, the night shift guy. For some reason we can’t seem to find someone reliable to cover the weekends, however.

I got along with the last two guys, both of whom were from Kentucky, although when I caught word that both were Trump supporters I made an effort to avoid political discussions with them. This was easy enough, at least for the second guy, as his accent was so heavy that it was, often enough, all I heard. I’m not trying to be a dick, but often what he said seemed like alphabet-soup-of-the-mouth to me. I’d often give neutral or ambiguous responses and focus on working off of what little I could understand. I didn’t want to tell him his communications were garbled to my ears — again, he was always polite, and I only wished to return the favor.

Both had a tendency to not do their fucking jobs, however, which got on my nerves — and which is ultimately why they don’t work here in our fast food grease palace anymore. This is also why they hired the new guy, who I’m tasked with training for the next two days, and who will then be trained in the mornings by Glen.

So far, based on direct, personal experience, he seems like a cool guy, and on top of that, a hard worker. He’s also not a white guy from Kentucky, but a black guy from here in Ohio — Cleveland specifically — and that’s a nice change of pace.

They went for something different in hiring this guy, and its infinitely better, at least in terms of his work ethic and general personality.

I was just beginning to like the guy roundabout mid-shift when Marjie, one of two assistant managers now, pulled me aside and gave me the news. Evidently, when store manager Kelly’s boyfriend came into the dining room and saw him, he claimed the guy was a child molester.

Fuck, I thought to myself: please don’t make this be true. Particularly because

As soon as she told me that, my mind flashed back to earlier in the day, when we were alone out by the dumpster corral. Feeling nervous in the awkward silence and feeling the need to fill the verbal vacuum with something, anything, I asked him why he left his last fast food job to come here.

“To be closer to my son,” he said, and, at the time — which, again, was before I heard Marjie’s news — I felt he said it suspiciously awkwardly, like he was hiding something.

I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in. I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in. I will not rush to judgement until all the facts are in…

Earlier, I caught Marjie in the office, behind a closed door, screaming into her phone. More than once, in a barking, threatening voice, she bellowed: “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE.”

Me and the trainee were nearby, and he turns his head to look at me. “Is she mean?”

“No,” I said with a bit of a laugh. “She’s actually pretty cool. She usually only gets like that with her boyfriend.”

The boyfriend she has had issues with forever, and finally kicked out of the house — only to let him move back in again. And she’s back to square one in that respect, as she’s been complaining about him again lately, saying how she wants him to move out.

And I personally like the guy, I should say — its just that she doesn’t seem to like him once they’re together again, but seems to forget that fact once they’re separated again. It just frustrates me. And that frustration wouldn’t be so intense, perhaps, if this wasn’t a recurring theme in countless people I’ve known throughout my life. This is such a tired, common, frustrating story to hear. And yes, not to sound sexist, but in my personal experience in most cases they have been women. I’m not saying my very limited sample represents the whole, but that has been my experience.

None of this I told trainee, of course, and all of it was true, though it turns out that this was not who Marjie was screaming at through her phone behind the closed office door.

No, it was her brother. Her brother by marriage, she later emphasized, and after she told me what she told me, her placement of that emphasis made a lot of sense.

Her and Kara had hung out. The girl has gone through a rough patch — I’m beginning to suspect her circa two and a half decades of life has been composed of nothing but a series of relentlessly rough patches, as a matter of fact — and she really needed it. A night out with friends. Some fun. Marjie brought her out drinking with aforementioned boyfriend and the aforementioned brother and she seemed to be having a great time. Marjie even complimented her boyfriend for helping her out to make Kara seem comfortable. They drank, they taught her how to play pool, and she was joking around with Marjie the whole time, smiling, laughing, and thanking her for bringing her out.

So then they go home and Kara elects to sleep over at Marjie’s house, which is evidently not something she typically does. A suggestion of trust building in her toward Marjie. And Marjie went to sleep, and enter: her brother.

Apparently he’s always joking around, getting handsy with Marjie, grabbing her boobs, which Marjie told me without shame and with a shrug. He’s not blood, she tells me. Still. Given that they were all getting drunk that night, Marjie told him specifically: do not touch Kara.

And so he touched Kara.

And she won’t talk to Marjie about it. Or to Kelly. She’s afraid they won’t believe her, that they’ll get mad at her. I feel a sinking in my chest. A knot in my gut. My blood begins to boil.

“It sounds like there’s history there,” I say to her, and then Marjie mentions Kara’s stepfather. Molestation. She told her mother, and she didn’t believe her.

This was the history I suspected. Traumatic, repeating history, where the past is always present and shows her no mercy.

I felt sick.

Later, I’m at the sink in the stock room, detail cleaning the filter boxes for the fryer vats — an activity that I know will take some time — when Ronald comes back to do dishes. This necessitates us being close in proximity, of course, and I don’t know if I had ever stood that close to him before, at least for that length of time.

That’s when I realize it. I can literally feel it. He’s one of them. I can feel the energy around and within his body drawing off the energy around and within my body, particularly on my left side. After a few minutes, it feels like energetic chunks are missing from that side, if that makes any sense (it probably doesn’t) and my energy feels uncomfortable, weakened, and lopsided. I feel violated, and I’m not exaggerating. I try to talk nice to him, but I don’t have to say much, as he just won’t shut the fuck up. I eventually have to escape the situation. I run back to the break room to check my phone, which is charging, and then go out the back door for a cigarette. All hoping this horrid feeling in my energy corrects itself given the distance, which was not happening, and to kill some time so maybe he’ll be done with dishes by the time I get back.

He isn’t. So I tell him I’m going to get out of his way and clean dining room and he should just tell me whenever he’s done.

As I’m cleaning tables, I see Paula outside, who is here off the clock, and is stoned, waiting for her curbside order. I ask her for a hug, which probably seemed weird, but my energy felt slightly better afterward. I only hoped I wasn’t leeching off of her as he was leeching off of me.

It struck me how violated I felt, as intolerable as it seemed, must be nothing next to what Kara has experienced. Continues to experience. For one thing, the energy violation may have been unintentional. Clearly that’s not been the case with the violators in her own life. Not merely has her energy been violated, either, but her body, and apparently again and again.

It constantly astounds me what us humans are capable of doing to one another. Kids being raped by caretakers or neighbors is a disturbingly common story I hear, and while it reminds me how lucky I’ve been in my own life, it doesn’t improve my outlook on our fucked up species. I constantly feel bad that I can’t grow close enough to Kara for her to trust me, but I’m not certain she can bear to trust anyone anymore given how often that trust has been violated, and I sure as fuck can’t blame her.

And what would I say to her? What could I do for her to make things better? What could anyone?

Vulnerable.

2/10/20

Before becoming the detailed maintenance man for night shift nearly a decade ago, I was a closer who worked in the kitchen. I grew to detest working back there, which was one reason why I jumped at the opportunity to get the new position when it was offered to me. Hence my frustration now, over a decade later, when they still throw me in kitchen when they’re short-handed, which is all too fucking often. So when I was just getting ready to collect trash after clocking in today and Marjie told me that she needed me back there for half an hour, my face betrayed my irritation.

“Just a half hour,” she repeated, promising.

They always promise. How long will the half hour be this time? Sixty minutes? Ninety?

“Oh, no problem,” I replied rather sarcastically. “I love working back there. Nothing in the world I’d rather be doing.”

“Liar,” she said laughing, “but look who you get to work with. Right beside her.”

Oh. Fuck.

“Shut up,” I said.

I hadn’t seen Kara when I’d come in, but I knew that was what she had meant. My initial irritation with having to work in the kitchen was immediately replaced by excitement and anxiety. As I walked back there, our eyes immediately locked. There was a lot of eye-gazing back there — and for what had to have been longer than thirty minutes, I might add.

We even talked. I saw what I thought was a hickey on her neck. She said it wasn’t a hickey; it was a burn to cover up a hickey. She had been in a polygamous relationship, she told me, got raped, and tried to cover it up because she knew they wouldn’t believe her. They left her anyway, she says. When she brought up rape, she originally referred to it as “the r-word.” What kind of hit me as strange was how casually she brought it up, how devoid of emotion. Her words, energy, body language — they seemed ominously dissociated with what I’d associate with rape. Then again, I’ve never been raped.

The constant eye-gazing seemed to keep heightening in intensity, the energy building in me nearly to the point that I didn’t think I’d be able to contain it. This didn’t escape her notice, either.

“You seem frustrated,” she said. “Anything I can do to help you with that?”

I was tongue tied. I said nothing. “Yes,” I thought to myself. “When an astoundingly hot girl with beautiful eyes and psychic-furnace energy says that to you, the answer is fucking yes.” Aside from being tongue-tied, terror rose in me as something rose in my pants. My mantra became: you will not get a boner in the kitchen. You will not get a boner in the kitchen.

Do breathing exercises. Down boy. Down.

“You’re going to have fun with me,” she said.

Gus clocked in, relieved me from my position in the kitchen — the only time since as far back as I can recall when I felt reluctant to leave the kitchen — and I proceeded to collect trash from around the store.

Within the hour, she left.

A day or two prior, I had been high and drunk, looking at her Facebook profile. I forget if I accidentally hit like or deliberately hit it only to realize what I had done and immediately regret it, as I had already reacted to two things on her profile earlier and feared it might make me seem like a creeper. Or betray me as the creeper I am. In any case, I promptly attempted to unlike it, though ended up reacting to it with laughter, and then finally eliminated any reaction altogether. I cursed myself, as I immediately realized she was still going to be able to detect those two reactions. Now, entirely sober, I was once again on her profile and gave the photo the heart reaction.

An hour or two went by at work and she suddenly messaged me a wave. Though I’ve accidentally waved to people before, now I couldn’t figure out how to do it, so I just messaged her, “Hey.”

She told me I looked pissed earlier, which is something I’ve heard from women before — long ago, of course; we’re speaking, after all, of those ancient times in which I actually got laid. Evidently pissed and horny produce similar facial expressions and body language when it comes to me. I assured her I wasn’t pissed, just frustrated — another form of aggression.

She said she liked it. And that she had never met someone that she connected with like she connects with me. I felt immediately suspicious when she said that, but I had actually felt that way myself, so I told her that I was glad she felt it, too. I added that I was also happy she didn’t mind the prolonged eye-gazing. She said she thought it was sexy. That it really turned her on, which was certainly how I had been feeling and what I sensed from her. She asked me how bad I had wanted her, and I confessed: painfully bad. And then she asked me what I would do to her if she was naked in front of me right now, and I told her, wondering as I was doing so, as I had with most of this conversation, if honesty was truly the best policy.

I blatantly asked her if this made me a sick fuck given our age difference, and she said of course not, as she was into older men. She asked if I wanted to know what she would do to me, and then said that, first, she would want me to fuck her face. And not that I would mind at all, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that this was something she wanted me to do to her, not something she wanted to do to me.

Then she asked me when I got off. I knew she meant work, though I had the impulse to answer sarcastically. When I told her 11 o’clock, she said she was going to come see me.

I smoked a cigarette and then dug the wintergreen gum out of my bookbag in my car. Despite having made it sound like she was coming to see me after work, I for some reason assumed she was coming in soon. I was right. In the midst of cleaning the dining room, Steve, Brodie and Kara stroll in the doors and head to the front counter. Brodie’s the first to come over to see me. He’s wearing glasses now, and I ask him about it. Evidently, he was always supposed to be wearing them. He looked kind of self conscious about it, but I assured him it made him look more sophisticated.

As I was talking with him, Kara walked up. My energy immediately changes. I can feel her energy, feel her eyes and I meet them. The ocular sex vibes are astounding. They’re like invisible laser beams shooting from her unearthly peepers. She keeps at it and I find it difficult to focus on anything else. Ultimately I grab her shoulder for a moment just to discharge some of the energy.

I hugged her before they left, and as I did so, she dug her nails into my back. I feel charged. I feel like I desperately want to do things to her now. Not later, now. I don’t know how I manage to contain it, but I do. I’ve had practice in this area — holding back.

Marjie, half-joking, yelled at her for distracting me. Steve laughed and announced they were leaving as he literally pushed her out the door. I’m so full of energy I’m ready to pop.

In passing, Marjie makes the comment, “Be careful. She knows you’re vulnerable now.”

When I encountered Marjie again later, alone in the dining room, I asked her to elaborate.

Allegedly, Kara had been trying to get with Steve — an idea which kind of disgusted me, I confess. And apparently the beardy guy who was working the back drive-thru booth the day I first saw her, who she seemed to be so close to, this was the guy who allegedly raped her. He insisted that she forgets shit when she’s drunk and in fact it was her who jumped him. Brodie also slipped recently and almost announced how she likes to do this when she’s drunk and she clasped her hand over his mouth and told him to shut up.

If something seems too good to be true, it probably is, and this? It had seemed too good to be true from the get-go. Downright surreal. The doubts and fears that were collecting inside of me as Marjie told me this, the paranoia and anxiety — it still didn’t put out the fire Kara seemed to be building in me, stoking in me.

I don’t think I can suffocate this fire — and sadly, this is the case even if all of this amounts to nothing, which wouldn’t surprise me.

It would kill me, but it wouldn’t surprise me.