If You Knew Then What I Know Now (20 page)

A year later, when Geoffrey and I finally moved from that apartment to another state, we took Rufus's old stones with us. I'd always planned to do something with them, and still thought I would, so we packed them into a shoebox stuffed with wads of newspaper. At our new house, on the day we moved in, Geoffrey unpacked the stones, and piled them in the front flowerbed in the spot under the mailbox. He cleared out the weeds, and the smooth dark rocks sat there like the marker of something. We unpacked everything else and made the stuff of our life fit this new place. That first night, we fell into our same bed in our different room, and when I switched off the lamp, I said, “Look.” On the ceiling was a sky of glow-in-the-dark stars, leftovers. “Wow,” he said, and we kissed, and slept.

Months later, it was somehow over between us, and I lived in the house alone and he moved to his own city, and we had crossed through each other's names in those Emergency Contact boxes. And I spent a lot of time thinking about how you can be sure of something and still always be wrong. In the front flowerbed, the weeds grew and I didn't keep up with them and eventually, I noticed they were taller than Rufus' pile and I just let them go. I decided then that I would leave his stones there, even when I moved from the house to any future place. I like imagining someone pulling weeds one day, revealing the pile of them again, and this person thinking the stones odd and beautiful without having any idea of what they really mean.

T
hat I've had a crush on you for a long time. That besides your name, I don't actually know you. That the first time I saw you I didn't think you were as cute as I think you are now, and this is a good sign. That the first time I saw you, I just thought you looked nice, and I thought if we went on a date, we'd probably have a nice time. That I also thought, He could be one who gets me over my ex. That I even thought, He could be
the
one, but not like the other one, my ex, who I used to think was
the
one—until he broke up with me, and then became just the last one. That I don't understand how you can think you're with
the
one only to find out later you are not. That I've Googled you.

That, like a sixth-grade girl with a pink notebook, I've thought about how our names go together. That, unlike the girl with the notebook, I've never written our names next to each other to see how they look, though I've considered it. That I am thankful your name isn't the same as mine, which is probably the biggest disadvantage gay people have in dating—the chance of
dating someone who has your name. That I could never, never date someone with my name. That I think this is so creepy, I can't think of a man perfect enough to be the exception to this rule. That I'm also thankful my name isn't Michael or something as hopelessly common because then my already shallow dating pool would be suddenly drained. That in high school when I was obsessed with 1960s Warren Beatty movies, I wanted to change my name to Warren, which is embarrassing to admit but would have helped with this no-same-name policy because I've never actually met a Warren.

That our first date will be my first date in eight years, and counting. That our first date will be my first first date since my first date with my ex. That I don't know what to do on first dates. That my first date with my ex is a blur because I was thinking, This is my first date with this guy I like so much! It's happening right now! the whole time so I won't have much to compare our date to. That I didn't date much before my ex and then when he came along, we were together for eight years. That other than a two-week thing with this too-beautiful and too-young guy whose idea of dating was to stop by my house whenever he wanted to make out with me on my sofa and then leave about an hour later, I haven't dated since my ex and I broke up a year ago.

That for a long time after my ex broke up with me, I thought I was fine because I always think I'm fine. That I'd pretended I was fine all of spring and summer until one afternoon I was talking to him on the phone. He and I are trying to be friends,
which is sometimes hard because when I first saw him, I didn't want to be his friend, I wanted to be his boyfriend. That I don't want to be his boyfriend anymore, though this hasn't always been true since the breakup. That when we were talking on the phone and he finally told me the name of his new boyfriend, even though I already knew he was dating someone else and thought it was way too soon for him to be doing so, it was hearing the man's name. That we talked a bit more and then he had to go and it wasn't until I tried to aim my fingertip at the END on my cell phone that I noticed my hands were shaking. That his new boyfriend's name is not Warren or Michael or the same as mine.

That I wasn't fine. That I had been ignoring how non-fine I was. For example, I had chosen not to notice the fact that I hadn't really slept since he broke up with me. And if I ever slept, I'd wake in the dark as if out of a nightmare, breathless, my heart knocking hard like an angry landlord. And my hands didn't only vibrate after hearing the names of new boyfriends—they shook all the time. My stomach was stuck on simmer, and all I ever ate were spoonfuls of peanut butter
and
jelly straight out of the jar. That I was usually wearing only underwear when I ate these spoonfuls, and afterwards, I'd lie down in the middle of the afternoon and take long naps on the hardwood floor and wake up sweating. That I hated turning so easily into the jilted sad-sack cliché. That I finally understood the point of clichés—they feel comfortable.

That I should have known something was wrong because I was writing a lot of breakup poetry. That when I searched for “gay breakup” books at
Amazon.com
, the first result was
Cowboys: Erotic Tales
.

That I saw a therapist, another cliché, which felt comfortable. That when my therapist said, “Why don't you start at the beginning?” before I could make the first syllable of the first word, which was going to be something simple like, “Okay,” my voice came undone, and I started crying. That I hate crying in front of people, especially men. That crying in front of him felt embarrassing but also oddly consoling
because
he was a man. That once I started, I couldn't stop talking and crying, and telling the whole story from the beginning while my therapist took notes on a clipboard. That once I stopped, he looked at his scribbles and said, “I'm just doing the math here, but was this your first boyfriend, your first significant relationship?” and I said, “Yes.” That my therapist leaned deep in his chair as his eyes turned to the ceiling and his head tilted back, and he said, with a big open mouth, “Ah.”

That I hate when I tell people we were together for eight years and now we're not, and they put their hand on my shoulder and say, “Oh I'm so sorry,” as if somebody died. That sometimes it feels like somebody died. That even my therapist said, “What you need to do is mourn the loss, to give yourself permission to grieve for the relationship.” That months later, I was teaching a poem about death and grief to a room full of nineteen-year-olds,
and I asked, “So how do we bring an end to mourning?” and one of my students said, “Eat lunch.” That I think this kid should be my therapist. That I never say the word “dumped.” That I always say it was my ex's decision.

That if he hadn't broken up with me, I would have stayed with him forever.

That when I see you, I don't know what to do with my body. That when I see you, my eyes just want to stay there looking at your face. That whenever you see me looking at you, I have to look away because of the not knowing what to do with my body. That I don't know how to walk across rooms and talk to strangers, especially male strangers who are cute, and who have seen me look at them and then look away, even if I think they want me to. That I also don't know how to arrange my body to look like someone who wants the cute male stranger across the room to walk over. That the first time I crossed the room to talk to a cute stranger, and tried to hand him a small square of paper on which I'd written my phone number, he didn't want it and said so in a nice enough way, but I still walked off vowing never to do that again. That I have never done that again. That I will never do that again.

That I realized my ex breaking up with me changed the way I thought about my body, which is why I don't know what to do with it when you look. That I once imagined what I must look like to you, and from this point-of-view, I understood I needed new jeans and to start doing sit-ups. Also, a haircut. That I stood
on tiptoes in front of my medicine cabinet mirror, shirt off, and actually said to the dog, “I
really
have to start doing sit-ups,” and when she didn't know what I meant, I realized how much I talk to the dog. That she used to be our dog and now she's just my dog.

That my body actually feels different now, maybe even unfamiliar, as though it was gone eight years and suddenly returned, like when a friend borrows a book for so long that when you finally get it back, you forgot you ever owned it. That it's because he knew my body better than any other man, and he told me he loved it while overlooking its certain flaws, and now that he's left, I feel as though I don't only have to meet a whole new man but I also have to convince him to think the same way about my body. And on top of it, I should probably like him back. That one of the first things I said to my ex when he broke up with me was, “I can't believe you're making me have to date again.”

That other than the too-young and too-beautiful two-week guy, and a stranger who grabbed me from behind in a public restroom, no man has touched me since my ex.

That I think you know you have a crush when the man you already think is cute is always cuter than you remembered each time you come across him in your day, and it's something about seeing him move around in the world which makes him cuter, not just his face. That sometimes I imagine what we'll do on a quiet Saturday afternoon, like get to-go cups of tea and take the
dog to the forest preserve and hook our index fingers together and walk the trails swinging arms, half-mocking couples that walk swinging arms and half-enjoying the swinging of arms. Or even if the sun is out and shining, we can lie on the bed, each of us reading separate books while sharing a bag of candy and not caring that we're wasting good weather because we'll both agree that books are better than anything. That small thoughts of you—even though I don't know you—sometimes interrupt what I'm doing; like if I'm stirring a pot of soup, I'll wonder if you love tomatoes as much as me. Little things like that. That I try to assume this is what everyone does when they think about a crush though I've never confirmed this. That I do not want to confirm this.

That part of the weirdness I feel when you look at me is the sensation of having a crush, and it's because I haven't been on a first date in so long that I've forgotten this feeling. That I wonder if you can keep having a crush on a man you know and love.

That the truth is, even though I thought my ex and I were mostly happy, or happy enough, I could still always imagine loving another man one day. Not any man in particular, and I don't mean a UPS man sex fantasy either, but some other future love that wasn't him. Even when we were together. That sometimes I believe in
the
one, and sometimes I don't, though most of the time when I believe in
the
one I think we've never been guaranteed we'll actually meet this person, or if we
do meet, that it can work out—maybe you're moving in two months, already have a boyfriend or wife, are named what I'm named, or maybe I'm just too heartbroken to pay attention to the fact that the guy standing in front of me is you, my one. That, at some point, I realized my imagining another man as a possible future partner, even when I was satisfied with the one I had, meant I was going to be ok. That, at some point, I also realized most of the time when I thought I was talking to the dog, I wasn't really talking to the dog.