Temporary Oblivion

As soon as she knocked on the door she knew this was going to be horrible. She wanted to run away but the car that had dropped her off was already speeding away from her. A dark haired girl answered. "He just went to go get more beer. He knows you're coming and he ... " The girl's voice trailed off, or something to that effect. Maybe whatever the girl said was blocked in her memory for a reason. Her brain cells filled in the ambiguous parts -- he's nervous; he's anxious; he doesn't want to see you.

Every recent reunion was so jealous and bitter and haughty. Why couldn't she remember this? Why did she spend the whole day doing her hair and thinking about her clothes when she knew that nothing she did would be good enough? He was groomed for hating and destroying and ripping her apart. He saw all her weakest parts reflected back onto himself and he couldn't stand her, in front of his face, while he lusted after her supposed success.

But it had all fallen apart for her, much in the same way it had a million times before.

And maybe that was it. Maybe that was the selling point to his disgust. Shit always went wrong for them, sometimes in pairs. They both had brains filled with dictionaries but he liked to pretend his had been all shredded up. When the bad times came in doubles his were usually more of his own making and hers were usually made of ... of something else. Of dumb luck and slippery things.

And she never spent more than a few days curled up into a ball. She would sit in her room with the lights off and music on and the drinks steady for a few days but she would search for answers in the back of her mind, even when she was drunk. She would lie still but think hard and things always seemed to pick back up again. She could not say that the horrible things that had shaped her life had changed her for the good. She could not say they had made her a better person or a stronger woman. But she could say that she had seen her way through them.