Zach.

Hey. Are you ready for another dose of ‘name that beau’? No? Well, sorry. It’s coming ‘atcha whether you like it or not.

ZACH! Yup. Zach. I don’t feel compelled to change his name. I’m not sure why except that I just don’t need to or want to.

He was beautiful. Are you sensing a theme? The thing is, I’m not sure if these men were objectively beautiful (well, except Bobby) or just lovely to me. They had all of these broken bits and parts pasted and taped together in one clump of man that appealed to the deepest and darkest parts of me.

Zach had thick brown glossy hair that swept across his forehead and also, a self-assured manner that made people squirm and also, love him. I loved him. He was the assistant to the assistant dean. He was magnificent. Powerful. He was mine. He opened the kitchen drawer and pulled out dog-eared Chinese food menus buried in cash. Literally.  I had to push crumpled, dirty, and worn dollar bills aside the few times I went digging for a post-it pad or a pack of matches.

I asked no questions. I smoked spliffs and stopped watching television. I showed him my paintings and read him Rumi whilst resting my head on his lap. I asked him what it was like to be a proper grown up. We skipped parents visiting weekend and went on a bar crawl. I wrote a profound paper on the difference between the alcohol and drug cultures on campus. I felt clever and brave. I was fucking clueless. I went home for Thanksgiving and my father raged. Not the sort of anger that was dangerous or unwarranted. More in the ‘you are fucking up and you need your parent to set you straight’ kind of way. It was utterly appropriate and I was only mildly self-righteous as I knew. I knew I was off-base and out of line and playing with fire.

I wasn’t tanking in the traditional way that most undergrads do. I didn’t unravel or come home with a 1.9 GPA. I was careful. I knew how to work the system. I kept up the grades required for my scholarship. I attended classes. I studied for quizzes and tests. I towed the line. And thus, I told my father that he couldn’t do anything because I was following all the rules. I did what I was supposed to. But I didn’t. At all.

I was a rail. My plump face, my trademark, was sunken in. My eyes were tired and suspicious. I was in love, so was this merely my body’s response to true love? Ha. Nope. This was not the first time I had a delusional sense of what love was or is and it would not be the last.

As was my trait, my trademark, I had come to love someone who loved himself more than he could ever love me. He loved his drugs. He loved his kitchen drawer filled with outdated and grease spotted menus and money. He loved everything I was not and wouldn’t be. And for that, I loved him more. I wasn’t trying to be skinny, I explained. I was just trying to be someone to love.

I was sitting on an old and overused couch. The ratty upholstery gave off an odor of grimy bodies every time I shifted and was haphazardly spotted with Kool-Aid and pizza stains, visible even in the dim lighting. I felt decidedly uncool in my crochet embroidered tank and flare jeans, but I was determined to fake it.

Hey babe?

I looked up. Zach’s eyes were already glassy and far away. His button down was crookedly connected and somehow his sandals had disappeared.

Yeah?

Any interest in candy flipping? I think you would fucking love it. Seriously.

In that moment I realize a few things almost simultaneously, as follows: I don’t know what candy flipping is, I don’t have too much of an interest in knowing what candy flipping is, and I don’t think I would love it, fucking or otherwise.

Oh yeah, probs, but I have class early tomorrow so it’s probably not a great idea, you know?

Oh shit. Yeah. Cool cool. Do you mind if I do it?

I mean how the fuck do I opine when I have no idea what he’s talking about. I breathe long and deep through my nostrils, feeling the burn of drug use surrounding me.

Of course not. Have fun.

That’s the thing. Zach always had fun. He didn’t need anyone to tell him to enjoy himself. Ever. He was the king of living his life to the fullest, or so he thought.

When we broke up, it wasn’t even a proper break up. Not really. I hadn’t heard from him in a couple of days so I just showed up at his apartment. He lived in the same complex as some good friends and I was perpetually excited and terrified to run into them. I had to knock on the door no less than twenty times. I profoundly remember my knuckles stinging, red and angry.

Finally, the door swung open. Behind Zach was the inky outline of what I knew of his place. It was the middle of the day and he was sitting in the dark. I could barely make-out anything a foot or so beyond the door. That’s not even the crazy part. I know, I know. The insanity of the situation is that he looked right through me. I honestly feel like I could have been delivering food or mail or been a concerned neighbor wondering why he hadn’t emerged in days on end. This is the truth, so help me goddess. It was painful and also mind-boggling. How was this possible? He didn’t know me? Did he just need a minute to process? No recognition. Zero. He smiled, a goofy, wide smile and before he could say anything at all, I walked away. Somehow even the fractured parts of me knew when to fold.

A few years after college a friend mailed me Time magazine. The main story was the continuous rave culture in Washington, D.C. and Zach was featured on the front. Floppy hair, giant orange sunglasses and that smile. That same smile I was presented with at the door that day. I laughed because it was so insane, but also felt the magnitude of the moment deep within me. Once again, I thought it was me. I just hadn’t been cool or flexible enough. I was too adverse to risk taking. I couldn’t keep up.

It never occurred to me, not once, that maybe Zach was stuck in a revolving door. Maybe he chose to stand still and let the world flow around him and people like me just got caught up in the twirl with him from time to time.

I saw Zach years later, but I’m not ready to tell that story. Not yet.

The part that matters right now is that I had not so proudly established a solid pattern of picking people who were very incompatible with my soul and then destroying myself beyond recognition when alas, things fell apart. The truth is that I needed to fall apart twenty times before I started to figure it out.

I know that’s brutal to read but if you are in this for real, you are going to have to warm up to the pain part before you can rejoice in the progress.

Happy Monday y’all.

L.