Did he really say what he said he said? Did she even hear what she heard him say. Did I want to believe the truth he told me he told me? Doesn’t a little lovin’ really go a long, long way.
He called at 3:30 a.m. I was getting some online shopping done, purchasing only the important things. I knew he’d just gotten back from a wedding, so I told him he was drunk. He wasn’t, but it was still fun to insist. We bantered a little about nothing. Then, he invited me over. At 3:56, I told him to give me an hour. At 5, he was buzzing me in. We said our ‘hellos’ quite quickly and got right to it. The kissing, licking, sucking, (not choking this time) just standard fun. The sex was okay, but the post-sex warm-down was interrupted by his most recent ex-girlfriend frequenting his text message inbox, and voice mailbox soon after. It was an admirable capability of hers: the ability to drive him temporarily mad when his temperament was relaxed only five minutes prior. He seemed embarrassed when she threatened to come over, but the hilarity that inevitably ensued was all too much fun.
Upon her much-awaited arrival, she wildly buzzed the bell to his apartment and, while crying hysterically, proceeded to throw rocks at his window. (God bless the girl for multitasking in the midst of heartache and mental breakdown.) This was all terribly romantic, so I found it appropriate to whisper Shakespearean prose into Scott’s tiny ears: the typical “Romeo, Romeo” nonsense, for those who are wondering. “She’s fucking crazy!” was all he kept saying, to which I replied, “Be a fucking human being.” He hated my sarcasm. He refuted my insistence that he have a heart and defensively made his argument. And he was right, little Marcia Brady did this to herself. She trekked through the treacherous tundra (the light flurry) all the way to his place in an attempt to undo their recent romantic liberation. She cried her borrowed sorrows away in front of his apartment building, and for God’s sake she searched New York City’s cement sidewalks for free standing rocks to throw at his halfway open window. She screamed his name into the depth of the early morning, and after being “fuck you” buttoned a few times, probably delved her pretty mind into some self-thinky gibberish, all because she’s terribly in love.
But in retrospect, are incidents like this ever really worth it? Ten years from now, when she’s his age mind you, will she look back on the early morning of Aug 7th, 2016, and feel that her hysterics were justified in their heartbreaking entirety? Probably not. Silly stunts like that are what consistently drive us to call each and every ex-girlfriend “crazy,” whether you’re a guy or ‘the new girl.’ Hell, if I were in her position I would’ve made the commitment to being ‘crazy.’ There were just too many options: ringing another bell, throwing something bigger at his window, or climbing the fire escape (he only lives on the second floor). But in reference to my circumstance, keep in mind that I was on the other side of the window, the side that faces the inside of his apartment as opposed to the side exposed to the cold air that wafts along 33rd street. Quite honestly, pardoning my jaded interpretation of her hysterics, I wonder if anything she did can really be considered wrong.
A part of me tells myself I should have asked him, “What the hell is she doing here?” If I were that petty and insensitive, then yes, questions like, “Do you still have feelings for her?” would have been legitimate. But I was the new girl, the younger girl, the “hot-crazy, not crazy-crazy” girl, and the girl that was very far from feeling the way she felt about him, so quite honestly, what the hell was I doing there? I wasn’t the one crying my heart out, verbalizing my passions, and disregarding all sensible inhibitions (assuming that they existed in the first place). I don’t know how long he expected me to sit there and half-heartedly mock his disarray while she exasperatingly and whole-heartedly made clear that she was intensely in love. I was armed with the self-interest and coquettish glances; her presence was jam-packed with selflessness and hungry screams. I evaluated the situation with all humility I could possibly muster and realized that, clearly, she wins.
He “didn’t want me to leave,” but I insisted. After he disconnected the buzzer and shamelessly screamed at her over the phone (surprisingly not directly out the window), it was the only appropriate thing to do. So I packed up my laptop, threw on my waistcoat, slipped on my Ash Bowie’s and left Murray Hill. But not before letting her into the apartment building as I let myself out. It was 7 a.m., and that meant it was time to bask in complacency, laugh a little at the situation I just walked away from, and sip the chilled macchiato teasing what’s been described as my colder-than-ice-cold heart.