what is it that you really want?

part two

“Did you come back tonight to see me or him? Be honest.” The Man at the Front looks at me in the reflection of the bathroom mirror. 

It’s 20 minutes later, and it’s getting close to 3 AM. I’m half asleep, wrapped up in the white covers of my hotel bed. Tonight’s outfit is…everywhere, I think. I feel around for my clothes beside me. Crewneck. Check. Crumpled tights. Miniskirt. Check. Check. 

I get up too quickly. New purse? I put it underneath the desk for safe keeping. A smart drunken move.

I sigh. “Do you feel like I’m stringing you along? Because I’m really not.”

“I feel like you use me. To make him jealous.”

“Where is this coming from?”

The Man at the Front sits on the edge of the bed beside me.

“Tell me one thing you like about him. One thing.” 

There’s a sadness in his eyes. And it’s off-putting, considering his height and demeanour. 

“I feel like he was the first guy that…ever understood me. Every guy I had been involved with before him…it was like they were putting on this macho facade. Trying to prove something. With PN, he was just kind of…raw. There was a sadness to him, too. But he was…open about it. He led with his feelings. I don’t know. I can’t describe it.”

We never believed he was the perfect love. But he was the perfect muse. My best friend texts me.

“So he understood you. But that doesn’t have anything to do with who he actually is.”

I’m getting annoyed at the 3 am cross examination.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Emily. I’ve never heard you say one good thing about him to me. But then all I see is you talking to him. It doesn’t make sense.”

3 AM is when I get unfiltered. And apparently, so does he.

He lays down next to me and puts his arm around me. I can’t help but lean into him and intertwine my fingers with his. He makes it easy.

“Do you think I wanted this?” I look up at him with tears in my eyes. “I had no choice.” 

“You can cry. It’s okay.”

Everything that I had been holding inside my heart over the past two years comes pouring out. 

“I felt like I had no control, no say in any of it. I couldn’t help how I felt. I just did. I didn’t know he had a family until after he was already inside my apartment. Everything had to be on his time. On his schedule. And you can’t say anything when you don’t hear from him, because you know what you got yourself into. So you drive yourself crazy, talking yourself out of a situation that you feel like the universe placed directly on your lap, like some fucked up joke. And there were so many reasons why I came back that didn’t have to do with him. I felt safe at that bar. I knew everyone there, everyone knew me. He makes the best dirty martinis that I’ve ever had. I was getting attention from everyone else, and you know what? All of it started to feel great. To feel like I finally had control over my own life again. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a fuck you behind it all. Because there absolutely was.”

“It was like you were the one interrogating him for years. Holding up the mirror. Making him realize, again and again and again, how unhappy he really is.”

The Man at the Front is silent.

“But do you want to know the worst part about this entire thing?”

He knows what I’m about to say. “That you still love him.”

I close my eyes and nod. “And I think he felt the same way. But he was never going to leave. And I had never asked him to.”

He’s still holding me, but is staring directly at the ceiling. 

“It’s the most frustrating thing. Isn’t it? To be in love. And to never be able to see what would come from it.” 

-

“Final shot?” 

I smile and nod. I’m standing, leaned up against the counter. The bar has died down. We’re the only two left inside. I hold my long black coat in my hands. But I’m not as sad as I thought I would be. I watch as he places two shot glasses in front of us and pours the chilled vodka into them.

How many times have I watched that furrowed brow and those tattooed forearm pour?

The summer of 2023. When everyone started calling me baby. That’s when everything changed.

Those two shot glasses sit in front of us. And I think about all of the conversations, stories, and chapters we’ve toasted to over the past two years.

“To new perspectives.”

“To understanding.”

“To acceptance.”

“To writing by the sea.”

“To home.”

I think about all the women who came here before me, and all the women who came after me. I wonder about their conversations. Their relationships. If they gave their love so easily and so freely to him, just as I did. 

But who do you really love? What do you really love? I want to ask him. He’s looking for something. To feel something, from so many different people. Which makes him, in reality, look for nothing. It’s an endless cycle.

“The rollercoaster no one is choosing to get off of.”

And how long did it take you to forget him? I want to ask all the others. 

We lift our shot glasses to each other, one last time. The eye contact. But I don’t break it this time. Instead, I stare directly into those brown eyes. They’re trying to say something to me tonight. They’re holding on to mine. They’re trying to tell me something. But I can’t read them. 

“To life, Emmy.”

I tilt my head to the side and take one last look at him. The last time I’ll see him behind this bar.

“To memories.”