The Last Drop

Ok, so I'm sure that this is not the last word on Narc forever, but it has to be the last word for now.

Here's what happened next:

I spent the remainder of Sunday on Long Island with my parents. Mid-afternoon, Narc sent me a text: Brett meets the parents...!

Obviously, he was watching Rock of Love.

I didn't answer.

I got back to the city at around 7:00 PM and didn't know quite what to do with myself other than cry. I talked to my sponsor for a while; I tried to finish fixing my iTunes; I took a shower; I crawled into bed exhausted; I sent him a text.

I am back in the city now. Did you want to talk?

Narc: I guess we should, but don't know if I have the energy for an extended phone conversation just now. Been in all day, probably need to get out or what not.

Hyde: Ok. Well have a good night, then.

Narc: Will talk soon.

Hyde: If there's something to say...

Narc: Just need to get some air now.

Hyde: K.

Narc: I guess I just can't believe that you want to end our friendship because I won't committ to you as a traditional boyfriend would...

Hyde: I'm definitely not going to talk about this over text. Will be downtown tomorrow & can meet for lunch or coffee @ 2 if you want to try to discuss one more time. Seems we can't quite understand each other & it may just end up that way-- that you won't understand why I made a bottom line. You know I love you. You have to know that I'm doing my best...

Narc: Have MA at 3 tomorrow, can meet but must be little earlier than 2.

Hyde: Was gonna go to AA til 1:30 in W Vill. Let me check the mtg book and see if I can find an alternate mtg. Will let you know in a few min.

Ok. There's a 3:15 mtg in midtown I can make. In that case, can meet you at 12:30. Where should we meet?

Narc: Not sure, few options. Will think about it and call tomorrow.

Hyde: Ok. But we're on for 12:30 for sure?

Narc: Yes.

Hyde: K. Have a good night. Hope getting some air helps. I'm gonna catch up with Rock of Love...

Narc: Staying in after all. "Tudors" then sleep early.

Hyde: I'm exhausted too. If I can stay awake to get in the Tudors after this, it'll be a miracle. Enjoy. :)

I don't know how I slept.

The next morning, I woke up, put on something pretty (including some dramatic makeup), and headed downtown to meet Hammer and LilHammer for brunch in the West Village. LilHammer is here visiting for a few days. It was my first chance to see Hammer's engagement ring, which I have to say is absolutely gorgeous. It was nice to chat with the girls and to just feel a little sane for a little while. (Is temporary sanity too much to ask for?) Hammer asked me what I'm going to do differently this time around with this breakup. I still have to think about that, but the primary difference is that I can no longer stand the conditions of my relationship with him. In the past, I've always had a little juice left in me.

Anyway, after brunch at the Cafe Henri, I went back with the Hammer sisters to Hammer's apartment. We said hi to the Alaskan and bummed around there for a while. I was starting to get anxious, as I hadn't yet heard from Narc. I sent him a text asking "Where to?"

He called me at about 12:10. His voice was low and thick (and I loved it). He sounded a little sick though.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah... I just haven't spoken to anyone in two days and I just got up, so I guess my voice hasn't warmed up yet."

"Oh."

We made a plan to meet at Yaffa's at 12:45. I got there first and smoked a cigarette outside. The front entrance was sort of roped off, as they were repaving the sidewalk or something. I saw him coming from about a block away. His hands were pressed against his sides stiffly. His hair was rumpled. My stomach was flipping over.

"Oh, is it open?" he asked.

"Yeah. We just have to go around."

I could barely look him in the eye.

We took two seats at the bar. The bartender knew him and asked him when he was going to LA.

"Oh, I decided to stay here another year," he half-laughed.

"I saw James' two babies," she said. "They're absolutely beautiful!"

Narc made chit chat with her for a few more minutes. I felt dead inside. I hadn't been to Yaffa's in a long time. We used to go there all the time in the Summer of 2005. It was a Sunday night spot.

I don't remember how the conversation got started. I ordered some tiny grilled shrimp appetizer because Narc told me it was good. I can't rehash everything that was said. We talked for a very, very long time.

It was the first time that the truth was on the table and both of us were sober and ready to hear it.

I told him my experience of our relationship-- starting with the days when he wouldn't even take me to brunch. I told him it made me feel like a whore.

"Maybe I was just tired and didn't want to get up," he said.

"It was disrespectful. It hurt."

I told him that it hurt when he never invited me out with his friends. I went through every girl that's ever floated around in our orbit. Even when he came back from Europe in '05 and brought everyone souvenirs and showed them to me, but brought nothing for me. I reminded him how at that very bar in Yaffa's that he told that woman that he "met me a year ago, had a couple of one night stands with me and got me pregnant."

"It hurt!!"

"We weren't supposed to get this involved," he said. "It felt weird to cross over our lives too much. If we act 'together' when we're together, it couldn't be that way with my other friends."

"Yeah, but just keeping the label off it doesn't change the relationship," I explained. "You are still just like a boyfriend to me. I see you almost every day. We have sex. We tell each other that we love each other. By not giving it a label or a commitment, all you do is deny my reality or disrespect me or hurt me."

"You didn't invite me out with your friends either," he said.

I insisted he was wrong and pointed out that he was invited to my party the very first year that I knew him, in 2004.

"I don't remember that. Maybe I was out of town," he said.

"No, you weren't. You were at some friend's thing up in Carnegie Hill and you said you'd stop by on your way home, but you never did."

"I'm not the historian like you, Hyde."

"That's not the point. None of this matters anymore," I said. "I'm just trying to tell you that I've been stretched very thin for a very long time now and I've finally broken. This thing with LA-Girl was the straw that broke the camel's back."

"Funny, considering there's nothing going on there," he answered.

"Funny that you think I'm so dramatic when I've held everything in for so long. When I used to drink, I could drown it away until every now and then it would erupt and I'd go running out of the Patriot crying about something. I don't know what to do with my feelings now. I have nowhere to put them. I'm done."

"I've spent my entire life in pain," he said. "I've been in love with friends countless times and still not abandoned the friendship."

"Maybe I'm too healthy for that now, Narc. Besides, this is not just me having a crush on a friend. You're not just a friend. You've been my lover for years. You tell me that you love me. I love you so intensely, I can't tell you..."

We started to talk about the nature of pain and people's capacity for pain. He took out a napkin and made some point about how if one's capacity for pain was the size of the napkin, removing something painful would make no difference, as something else would just fill up the space.

"That's not my experience," I said. "I've been working so hard to get my life to where I want it to be-- I got sober, I lost so much weight, I'm starting to feel good about myself. I have eliminated pain. My napkin has shrunk."

"That's not how it works, Hyde."

(Was this an argument for why I should stay in a painful situation?)

"In my experience, it is."

"Maybe you're doing this now because you have gotten sober and lost the weight. Maybe that's why you want to move on," he said.

"I don't know," I sighed.

That thought made me feel very confused and very guilty, I don't know why.

The conversation moved in a few different directions after that. I asked him why we couldn't be together.

"And don't give me some bullshit answer like you always do-- that I drink too much, or my house is too messy, or you didn't know I was available, or you're not the knight that I deserve, or I'm not in film. I mean, come on! It's laughable, Narc!"

"Those aren't really the reasons," he admitted. "Those aren't deal-breakers."

"I know that. So, what is it??"

"I don't know... it's not the kind of passion that I am waiting for."

"You don't think we have passion?"

"Yes, but... I'm comfortable with you Hyde."

"Really? I'm not comfortable with you."

"Well, I am... And I want to feel that super intense passion. You don't make me feel like I have to rise to an occasion."

"You and I have very different ideas about love, Narc."

"What is love, if not that feeling?" he asked.

"In my experience, that feeling doesn't last. Love for me is a really deeply rooted care for another person, wanting to take care of that person, wanting to be with that person all the time, a spiritual connection and a physical attraction. That's it."

"Then don't you love all your friends?"

"No. I don't feel like that for all my friends!" I laughed. "I only feel like that about you."

He didn't answer.

I kind of couldn't believe that he said that. In my experience, all we had was passion. In my experience, the passion and the insane attraction was the core of the relationship.

"I don't want to push you into a relationship-- into anything, Narc. I just didn't want us to stop seeing each other."

"I don't want that either," he interjected.

"I know. So, I was just trying to find a way to make it doable. I was just trying to figure something out that would give me some peace of mind. I can't go on feeling anxious and insecure and sick all the time. It's interfering with every other area of my life. It's self-destructive. I just thought that a commitment in the here and now might make it possible for me to stay."

"I just wish you wouldn't go, on the one in ten thousand chance that I might start seeing someone else! Or sleep with someone else!"

"Well, I just wish you wouldn't let me go, on the one in ten thousand chance that you might sleep with someone else..."

We talked for a while longer, but the conversation really got us nowhere. It was nearing the hour of departure. I wanted to touch him. I put my hand on his knee.

"Can I have a hug?" I asked.

"Sure."

I stood up off my bar stool and leaned into him and buried my face in him. He held me so tightly for a long time. Then the waitress brought the check.

"What time do you have to be at Martial Arts, again?"

"3:00."

"Hmm..." I smiled.

"What's so funny."

"No-- I was just going to say something, but I shouldn't."

"What?"

"I don't know, Narc."

"What is it?"

"Well... do you want to go back to your place and have sex one last time?"

(I couldn't believe I just said that).

"Do you think that's a good idea?" he asked.

"I think it's a great idea."

"Um... Well, yeah, sure. Ok."

We paid the check and walked outside. I lit his cigarette. Neither of us said much on the walk home, except that he pointed out the doctor's office where his blood clot was misdiagnosed a few years ago.

Back at his place, I sat on the couch and unlaced my boots. He drank some Gatorade out of the fridge and then walked into his bedroom and started to undress. I followed him.

They're not kidding, what they say about "breakup sex." It was absolutely insane. So much joy and so much pain at the same time.

We lay in bed for a while after that.

"I don't want this moment to ever end," I said.

"Shh... We have a while longer."

Then we had sex again. Obviously, he skipped his Martial Arts and I skipped AA.

After a little while, Narc got up and said he had something for me. I've been asking for some of his photos for a while (he has taken some really gorgeous landscape pictures) and he tried to print out two of them for me-- a sunrise and a sunset. But the printer wouldn't print the photos exactly right, as they kept coming out with borders. Eventually he just emailed me the files so I can get it done at Kinkos. But he gave me two 8x10 frames for them. I was starting to feel my panic rise as the clock ticked. I was starting to get weepy.

"Narc, I'm sad," I said.

"I'm sad too," he answered, not looking at me.

"Narc..."

"Hyde..."

I swallowed hard.

"We won't get to watch the rest of Jem together," he said.

"Or Lost," I added.

"Or Idol."

"Or Rock of Love."

"Or get tickets to Colbert together. So much for all our plans!" he laughed.

In the bathroom, my toothbrush was back under the sink.

"I've been demoted?" I laughed.

"Well, you said it was over."

"Are you going to throw my toothbrush away?"

"Yeah... well, do you want it?"

"No. I just don't want you to throw it away."

"I don't save stuff like you do, Hyde."

"I know, but..."

The tears were welling up again.

"I'll leave it under there for a little while," he said.

He jumped in the shower and then got dressed for his Tarot class. I had a can of red bull in my bag.

"Do you want it?" I asked. "One more can from your red bull fairy?"

"Ok," he extended his hand.

"If you ever need me, you can call me," I said.

He didn't answer.

"I mean-- if there's ever an emergency, if you're sick, or it's an emotional emergency or something-- I still love you. I'm still your friend."

"Hopefully there won't be any emergencies, Hyde."

I re-laced my boots. I thought I might die.

"Wear your scarf. It's windy," I said.

The door closed behind us.

They are putting scaffolding up in front of his building. And they added a new sliding door between the elevators and his lobby. I felt sick.

We had to wait a while for a cab. I clutched onto his arm.

That cab ride was one of the worst moments of my life. It was a true NY breakup though-- the back seat of a cab. I grasped on to the edge of his sleeve. He took my hand and held it hard. My whole body was shaking and there were tears rolling down my cheeks.

"The Millionaire Matchmaker," I said, pointing to the advertisement plastered across a passing bus.

"Yeah, I don't remember any of those people on the show, though," he said.

We were creeping towards his stop-- 30th and 6th.

"Narc, what if I can't do it?"

"Can't do what?"

"What if I can't be without you? What if I feel sick?"

"I thought you felt sick with me," he said quietly.

"I do. Sick with you and sick without you. What if I don't want to stick to this. Would you be mad if I called you?"

"Of course I won't be mad. You can call me whenever."

I started to cry harder. He squeezed my hand. We got to the corner where he had to get out. I couldn't breathe. He opened the door, his hand still in mine. I didn't want to let go of him.

"I love you," I said.

"I love you too, honey."

I started to cry even harder, my chest heaving.

"I love you," he repeated. "Just try this for a little while, okay? Just see how it feels..."

He pulled his hand away from mine and got out of the car. As he did, I really lost it. I was sobbing uncontrollably. He closed the door and walked away. My eyes followed him out the back window. He didn't look back.

"Where's the next address?" the cab driver asked.

"What?"

"Where to?"

I repeated my address, choking through the sobs. I was annoyed that he didn't remember it from the first time we told him. It felt invasive.

I was supposed to meet Bezoukhoff at my place at 6:00 PM to start watching Schtirlitz. I sent him a text and he was already nearby. Then StarGazer called me while I was still in the cab.

By the time I got to my apartment, I looked like a wreck-- my lavendar sparkling eyes now soupy and bloodshot, the black mascara streaming down my cheeks and drying in pools under my eyes.

"Are you okay?" asked my doorman.

"Yeah. Just a breakup," I said.

I smoked a cigarette and waited for Bezoukhoff to get back from Duane Reade.

I wanted to die.

Bezoukhoff and I went upstairs where I dried my tears and called my sponsor. Then we headed out for Mexican food-- to Mama Mexico where we found brightly colored lights, a mural by Diego Rivera and a live mariachi band. It helped to cheer me up for a while, until I insisted on eating a few bites of flan and felt really sick. (I'm supposed to be avoiding sugar). Guess I'm still plain old self-destructive Hyde.

We wandered back to my place, I sang "On my own" and cried some more and then we watched the first episode of Schtirlitz.

Bezoukhoff stayed until around midnight and promised to come back for me in the morning.

I cried myself to sleep.

When I woke up, it was 9:40 and Bezoukhoff had already been waiting downstairs for 10 minutes. Shit. I called him up, threw on some clothes, and we went to sit in the park with our coffee and cigarettes. He is such a true and caring friend. I'm so lucky. We talked for a while before I set off for teaching and he for the library.

And now I'm here at school, just having taught one section on the 1920's. When I taught WWI I was with him. And now, here we are, only in the '20s and he is gone. It's like he is a casualty of the war.

I want to undo this. I want to undo this. I want to undo this.

But I can't. I know I can't take it anymore as it was.

I am in so much pain right now that I am nearly numb. I really want to end things, want oblivion, want him to murder me, want to gut myself like a fish.

I want to be a gutted mermaid.
I want Marie's red necklace from Wozzeck.
I want a way out from feeling anything at all.

But, today I have to teach.

How am I going to do this? I don't remember who I WAS before Narc. How am I supposed to find that girl?

I hate this and I want to die.

I just want him.

I love him so much.

love,
h