Melancholy were the sounds on a winter’s night. ― Virginia Woolf

I started the new year the same way I started the last, not knowing if I was going to make it through the next twelve months. January was becoming a time of year when I stood and took stock of just how scared I was about surviving in the world that was still so strange and new to me. I was left to fend for myself through all of life’s twists and turns; I was sure I was bound to lose my footing one day and fall off the precarious balance beam to my death. Even the money I inherited did little to alleviate my fears. Once the money was gone, that was it. I was on my own without a family, stable home and whether I wanted to state it directly out loud or to myself, without someone I could count on if I ended up on the streets again. Being homeless has a way of leaving you with a sense of financial PTSD forever.

I was filled with dread but at the same time a big dose of apathy. I was so fed up with everything. You know how at the end of the movie how Ferris Bueller turns to the audience and says “You’re still here? Movie’s over. Go home.” That’s how I felt about my life post-apocalypse. I wondered if there was such a thing as Survivor’s Apathy. What was I still doing there when everyone and everything I once knew was gone?

I felt like I was the last known survivor in my world. My father was gone, mother was gone now and many friends had moved away. The last family member I had was currently trying to get everything she could from my parent’s estate as the executrix, even if that meant screwing me over in the process. Depression clung to me like a shroud those long winter nights.

After getting pushed past the breaking point one day, I decided the adult world sucked and built a fort in the middle of the living room. My fiance watched curious as I constructed the childlike architecture, with all the pillows and blankets I could find. I stomped my foot and declared my intentions, right before hiding under my new safe zone. “I will be in here until the world decides to play nice.”

“Can I come in?” He asked a minute later, picking up the side of my fort.

“No boys allowed!” I pouted and stuck out my tongue, pulling the blanket back. “Besides, you’re too big! You won’t fit!”

He ignored my pouting and managed to squish his 6’3” frame under the blankets with me. I frowned and pretended to pout but he ignored it completely. “You’re adorable. I’ve never met anyone more fun in my life.”

He was pretty fun himself, I thought as I smiled. That was what kept us going, we were like Peter Pan and Tinker Bell and totally, completely against the adult human world. Together against the world, two lost souls fed up with the rest of humanity.

He made me laugh, watched Top Gear with me, cooked me whatever I wanted to eat, taught me how to play the WWE video game, laughed as I ogled Gordon Ramsey on the television, and sometimes he would come home with Chinese food just to say, ‘I bought you wontons because I made it through the work day by thinking about coming home to you and knowing I had a wonderful woman waiting for me at home.’

We also had many fascinating debates. One of which I can recall involved whether or not the reason that I was born a decade after him was because when we reincarnated, I was on the woman’s line back to earth and he was on the men’s line. And we all know the men’s line is always quicker– at stadium bathrooms and apparently at being reincarnated.

“How much do you love me?” I asked as I laid against his shoulder that day.

“Sooooooo much!” He raised his arms and held them as far apart as possible. His voice took on a childlike tone, which it did whenever he was in a goofy, happy mood. I liked him that way, this was the other side of him that held me captivated. “There is sooooo much love for you that my love for you makes me nauseous.”

Throughout the winter, we watched movies off the AFI 100 Passions in 100 Years film list. I wanted to watch all of the romantic old films with him. We both loved the old classics. There was a great quote from The Awful Truth which described us perfectly:

Leeson: Are you sure you don’t like that fella?

Lucy Warriner: Like him? You saw the way I treated him, didn’t you?

Leeson: That’s what I mean. Back on my ranch, I got a little red rooster and a little brown hen and they fight all the time too, but every once in a while they make up again and they’re right friendly.

Shane wanted us to have a good relationship from then on and did so much those first weeks of the new year to prove it. He apologized to me for always putting his family first and putting me second. He said he did want to build a family with me and that I did a lot for him and he told me he was really happy with me.

I knew if I didn’t work on our relationship, I could lose him. Things were always rough and patchy between us, but I wanted so much to see the year through by each other’s side. He was all I had but I thought at times that that may be just enough.

When all the stuff with my family started happening, and all my friends started ditching me, I felt more lonely than I ever had before in my life. That was starting to pass now though, since I was never alone except for when he went to work. I always wanted someone that I could talk to and hang out with when the parties were over and all the other people had gone home. When we were lying in bed, snuggling up– or unable to stand up because we’re laughing too hard in the living room– this was what he brought me.

He also gave me a sense of home that I hadn’t known in a very long time, so even if we did fight a lot and even if we didn’t always understand each other perfectly, and it was still worth building on and working on for me.

I tried so hard to keep him happy back then. Even more than I tried to make my own self happy. I thought that if he was there with me, happy and laughing– that I would never lose that thing that made me happy, his company. I didn’t realize at the time how codependent that sounded.

I didn’t know what would make him happy though– and despite all my better knowledge, I still thought that was my job. I didn’t understand how he could switch from happy-go-lucky to so mean and nasty so suddenly.

One night, for instance, after he got home from work, after having the time on his schedule confused because his manager was an idiot, he asked me if I wanted to take a walk because he had extra time on his hands. He was still pissed off that they wouldn’t make him assistance manager when he had only been working at this job for a little over two months. I thought a walk would do him some good. It was cold, but I accepted the invitation.

I thought it was going to be a fun little walk around the neighborhood– what it turned into was him fuming about how he hate his job, how his life was shit, how I wasn’t doing enough to get a good paying job, how his life was just the result of bad karma and then he finally turned to me and asked, “Do you really think we even have anything in common?”

I stood there, out in the cold of Deer Park and starred at him. He was finally ready to let me get a word in edgewise after berating me for the last half hour about how he hated his life, and apparently me. Instead of opening my mouth, which I thought would have only led to an argument, I turned and walked away. Besides not wanting to get into an argument, when he got this way I also didn’t want to talk to him because I was so over it.

“You are seriously selfish, do you know that? Everybody thinks so.” He called to me as he watched me walk away. “You need to respect me more. I just asked you a question and you walk away like that.”

“I don’t know, Shane, maybe you need to respect me more and not talk down to me.” I retorted, dipping down to his maturity level. We never fought fair. “Ever think of that?”

Instead of waiting for him to say anything back to me, I turned and started back to his house.

“You know, you can’t outrun yourself!” He called to me. I was never trying to outrun myself though. Even when I was depressed, I still knew who I was in my core and I was okay with it, mostly. It was his mood swings that I wanted to escape instead, all those angry words and the way he was so eager to abandon me so quickly. I was only a target and he was a battering ram– knocking and knocking and knocking at my fortress walls.

“I’m not running from myself.” I told him as I turned to face him. I walked closer to him, daring his anger with my disobedience. Even when he was downright nasty, there was still a rebel heart in me that wasn’t going down without a fight– I like to think it has something to do with me being Scottish. “I’m running away from you because, if you don’t realize, you’re being really abusive right now.”

He shrugged. Whatever.

Then he let me walk home alone, through the darkened streets of a rather not-so-good neighborhood. I finally got back to the house, feeling rather proud of myself for being capable enough to brave the dark streets alone without him. Only then, I realized that I didn’t have my key with him. When we went out for our walk, I hadn’t thought about the chance of us getting into a fight and him leaving me to fend for myself. I sat at the doorstep and waiting for his return, feeling all the more stupid.

When he arrived, he put his key in the lock and told me, “I would look for another place to live if I were you and I want you to keep your distance from me while we’re still living together.” And that was it. He just about brushed me completely out of his life because I wasn’t willing to stand there and be yelled at and made to feel responsible for his life.

I fled to the guest bedroom downstairs, keeping away from him. I started talking to people on Facebook, which was always my problem when we had a fight. He didn’t like that I couldn’t keep my mouth shut but I needed to talk to someone. And a bit of me needed to announce people’s stupidity to the world.

There’s a term in Urban Dictionary called ‘vaguebooking’ which is described as “Writing a Facebook status to/about someone without mentioning their name. A tactic typically employed by 15 year old girls, however one that has become an alarming trend among grown men (and adults in general) who display an apparent lack of testicular fortitude.” I know this term well. I used to use the tactic a lot.

I typed out my message angrily, so tired of dealing with his nonsense. “Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, simply surrounded by assholes.” and “Yeah, I’ve gotten to the point of ‘if you don’t like me, there’s the door’ anyway, so it doesn’t really make much of a difference to me. I’m really starting to turn my life around and I don’t need negative energy blocking the positive things that the universe is going to give me in the coming time ahead. I was thinking the other day about how I’m the only one who made it out of my house alive. A good friend once told me that that alone makes me a miracle. I’m the Girl Who Lived. And fuck it, I’m gonna start acting like my time here is a miracle. I’m not going to let people talk me down, or take their own problems out on me, I am NOT a doormat. I’m pushing ahead and making something of this so-called miracle. I’ve been having a bit of Survivor’s Guilt, but pushing ahead and running towards love and towards people who care about me is a great way to alleviate that feeling.”

He took it as an attack on him, which maybe it was.

His email came a little while later that night:



If I see one more passive aggressive post about me I am going to unfriend you. I would like to keep this break up civil & friendly but you are again pushing buttons. You love to tell everyone else about all their horrible habits but never look at your own.

I want you to really think about the fact that this came about because I asked you a question that you have asked me numerous times in the past. I was a fool to believe you cared about me. I was a sucker to let you beat me up emotionally & verbally. I was an idiot to believe you wanted to try and work things out. I had my head buried in a pile of shit when I went against my word & gave you that ring back. I am going to refrain for peace sake to elaborate on what I really think of you, but I will again say put that keen sense of character on yourself and be careful who you surround your self with because in the end you will only be hurting yourself. I have changed my status, & will never be changing it back for you.

“I was going to simple post that regrettable things didn’t work out between Julie & I. We are still friends.”

However with your post about being surrounded by assholes & being a door mat I can see you would rather have a lot of mud slinging & drama. I hope that is the last of those posts, & the last of the drama. Lets end this with better wisdom & dignity then we started it.

Balls in your court.

I said ‘fuck it’, unfriended him myself and blocked him. He had been saying since we first met that the ball was in my court. It was always my doing and my decisions, only I was sure that I wasn’t making any. I was reacting, which is not much better– but this certainly wasn’t my game.

He could take his ball, take his game and grow the fuck up.

“I’m sorry, Julie.” I got a message from an acquaintance that night as a comment to some more Facebook things I had ended up writing. I told them all about the fight, what he said and how he wanted me gone now. “He seems to have a really sweet side and a really aggressive side, it seemed from my end that the sweet side was primary. :\”

At least someone saw it.

At least I wasn’t going crazy to believe that he was both of these things. I could never quite compute that both of these sides existed in one person and I wondered at times what it truly was I thought I saw. I felt a sense of validation, which meant a great deal at the time.

About a week later, I was at a birthday party for one of my friends– Shane was still pissed at me, so he didn’t want to come. I had my second taste of validation that night though. Mark, a friend of ours that we knew through Emberhalls, came up to me in the backroom of the party, asking me where Shane was that night because we usually attended all events together. Honestly, albeit bluntly, I told him that Shane was mad at me so he didn’t want to be around me.

Mark just looked at me curiously, “You guys are confusing. I can never tell if you’re dating or if you’re enemies.” He just shrugged and walked away as I thought to myself that I was never quite sure either. That made two of us.

While I was gone that night, Shane had invited his friend Chris over our house. I came home to the two of them sleeping and beer cans littering the kitchen and living room. I cleaned up a bit when I finally got home, thinking idly about how I always had dealt with my mother’s drunken nights the same way– I came in afterward and I cleaned up. Most likely, Shane and Chris had spent the night bitching about me with Shane telling him all of my many sins he kept cataloged in the back of his mind.

Chris woke up mumbling that night. “Julie, you’re home… Shane, he, he really loves you– you know that? He loves you sooooo much, he said that. Can you teach me how to get him to like me too? I really want him to like me. I wish people liked me. Do you like me?”

I shook my head, Chris got really self-conscious when he was drunk and ended up on rambling tangents just as much. Still, if he was looking for someone to tell him how to get on Shane’s good side, that information couldn’t come from me. Instead of explaining something I knew I unqualified to help him with I simply said, “Go to bed, Chris. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Yet, despite all the arguing and backbiting, I remembered that our one year anniversary was coming up. I had never dated anyone for a whole year before. This was special, even if he was in one of his moods recently. I did not want to look back on this day when we were married and think about how we didn’t celebrate it because we were both too stubborn to stop fighting. Neither of us is even sure if we’re still together anymore, but by god, we were going to have a good anniversary!

My plans began to come to fruition. I ordered custom magnets with photos from our favorite vacations together, found a picture he had drew of us and had a colorist finish in all the color on it, made a video set to music of some of our best photos from our year together, bought come cannoli cake and then I got down to making my big present for him. When he went to work the week before our anniversary, I cut out 365 hearts from red construction paper and on each one I wrote out a reason why I loved him, funny in-jokes and great memories from our year together. I was going to paste them on the all, so he could wake up on our anniversary and see them all. I wanted him to know how much I loved him because maybe then he would finally understand that there was nothing to fight about. I knew he was scared of committing, and that he fought me so often just because he was scared. At least, that’s what I told myself– I’m still unsure if that was just simple rationalization.

As I sat there listing out reasons on the construction paper hearts, I wished someone loved me enough to do something this big for me. Shane was always buying me things but he gave financially like my mother did– without much caring, just going through the motions. Maybe that was just his way.

I frowned at one of the hearts, wondering if it was not romantic enough to write the truth. ‘You would probably care if I was dead. Maybe.’ That was something, wasn’t it? Was it enough to live on? I put the thought away and continued to write out the more romantic reasons. He was funny, he took good care of my cat for me, he drove me places that I needed to go, he did not get jealous of my love for Gordon Ramsey, he usually shared his cannolis with me– there were reasons. I loved him.

I sang along with the romantic love songs I was playing on the internet and felt the true weight of the singer’s words, “What’s the use of wonderin’ if he’s good or if he’s bad.. he’s your fella and you love him, that’s all there is to that.”

When he woke up early on the day of our anniversary, I was still posting the red hearts all around the room. They were every where, on the walls, the entertainment center, the windows, all over the living room and reaching into the kitchen. His eyes grew wide when he saw them all. Then I told him to read them and his mouth dropped as he went from one to the other, reading all the reasons that I loved him so much.

He looked sad and told me he didn’t get me anything. He didn’t expect to be celebrating our anniversary together since we’d been fighting so much. I told him that as long as we weren’t fighting anymore, he didn’t have to get me anything. He refused to accept that though and told me that for my anniversary present, he was going to take me down to see Charity in Virginia the next time he could get time off of work. I missed my friends a lot and that pleased me so much.

We cuddled together on the couch, watching the movies Where The Wild Things Are and The Exorcist, the other two presents I had bought him. They weren’t great movies, since I bought them from the Dollar Store discount rack, but as we laid there surrounded by all of the reminders of our love, all the reasons and memories, I was happy. It was the first one year anniversary I ever had with someone and it was spectacular.

Then Shane admitted to me that the reason The Exorcist was one of the only horror movies he didn’t own yet was because he found the little girl creepy– so I pretended to turn my head around backwards for the rest of the night. Taunting each other was always our specialty.

Winter continued and snow began to fall.

The first big storm of the season found me and Shane outside, shoveling snow in order to clear his driveway. I had forgotten to buy new shoes before the snowfall though, so all I had to work in were my mesh sneakers. I tied plastic bags around my feet in order to keep the snow out, looking like a little pauper. This was okay, until I started running down the sidewalk, slipped and fell. I tried to get up but I slipped again and we ended up giggling and throwing snowballs at each other.

It hadn’t really snowed much the year before, so this was a nice experience. I loved sharing new adventures with him. He decided that he was going to go for a drive in his truck and asked me to come with him to take a look at how the neighborhood looked when it snowed. I agreed and we set off in his truck for a nice break from snow-shoveling.

It started off nice, with each of us pointing out how pretty the scenery was in the winter. Though, at one point somebody cut him off on the snowy road. He fumed and sped up, trying to catch up to them. The roads had not even been plowed yet, but ignoring all safety to himself and me, he began to speed along the road, trying to get around the guy in the other car. I grit my teeth, buckled my seatbelt and held onto the roof handle.

I felt us slipping and sliding all over the road, nearly careening into other parked cars in his effort to show the other guy that he was the boss of the road. How dare anyone try to cut him off! How dare they not respect his complete authority to drive wherever the hell he wanted to drive! It didn’t matter that the other guy probably didn’t even know he cut Shane off or that he was scaring me– it only mattered that he got a little bit of the respect he thought he lost back. He swerved and slid until I was sure we were going to crash. I closed my eyes and finally shouted, “I’m in this car too!”

He finally stopped when I said that. He pulled over to the side of the road and I caught my breath. He turned to me angrily, as if I was on the other guy’s side– as if there even were sides. He scoffed and said, “Fine! We’ll go back. You’re such a goddamn fucking baby.”

So much for our fun snowy afternoon.

I decided not to let his outbursts bother me as much. He was still a good guy. He kept me laughing, fed and protected my cat. He even let my cat sit by an open window in the winter because he was sure that she liked it better when she could smell the outside. He even protested when I told him that I was cold and maybe we should shut the window, “But how will Shilo smell the outsides?”

There was a slight problem with the pecking order there, but I didn’t say anything. As much as I loved my cat, I wondered if he realized I was a human being and Shilo did not always need to smell the outsides. He loved her so much though, so I let it go.

Another night, we woke up to the sounds of Shilo banging her head against the shut door of our bedroom. She was going to give herself a concussion if she kept it up, but damned if she was going to be locked in this bedroom when there were night time adventures to get into. Shane whispered to me in bed, “Our child is really weird.”

I smiled at that. Our child. We were a family.

I made calls for things the house needed fixed, just like my mother used to do for our family. I called up electric companies, heater companies, plumbing companies, the Plumbing Division of the Building Department of the Town of Babylon, chimney people to come fix the chimney– we had a lot of things break that winter, but I was able to impress Shane with my ability to be on top of stuff. He was so stressed about financially being able to afford some of the renovations his home needed when things kept breaking, but there were times when I would make a phone call, get the right people to fix the right thing for the right price, and he would come home from work and swing me up in his arms and tell me that I had hit one out of the park. He wanted someone to take care of him and I was happy to oblige. I just wished he could see that.

I was pretty sure he found reasons, purposely looked for them, to disbelieve me when I told him that I was there for him. I felt like he was putting out relationship in jeopardy and sabotaging any hope of a future together when he got into his moods. Despite helping him out with phone calls, meeting and explain to the workmen who came to the house, he would still find problems with me.

One night, he wanted to take me out on a traditional dinner and movie date. We got all dressed up to the nines. I did my hair, got all dressed up pretty and wore my favorite dress shoes that were completely nonsensical in the rain and puddles we were walking through.

It was going to be the first time we got out and had some fun on the town in a long while. I was so excited and we were flirting the whole time to the Country Buffet.

Then he started talking about how he missed having parents around since his father died a few years ago and his mother had moved to Florida with the rest of his family in August. Unbeknownst to me, he was saying this– he later told me– because he saw a daughter with her elderly parents sitting right behind us and he remembered what that was like. He said he had no family left anymore, which I found silly since he talked to his sister on the phone nearly every single day.

I told him that he had family. I reminded him that if he got into trouble in life he could always fall back on them because they were a really good support system. I was kind of envious, it was something that I sorely lacked.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Julie! I have no one to help me anymore. No one!”

I told him I did understand this, because I don’t have what he does and that he would never end up in a shelter because his sister would never allow that, even if he didn’t give her the credit she deserved when he was feeling pessimistic about life.

“I might end up in one if things got that rough.” He gasped.

“Your sister would never allow that.”

“I don’t want my sister’s family to have to do without just because her brother is a loser!” He nearly shouted at me in the restaurant. My eyes glanced around the room, making sure no one thought we were the crazy diners at table 3. Eventually, he added. “Fine! Let’s just drop it, okay?!”

I agreed, not knowing what was wrong with him or how I could help. I tried to have a nice meal with him anyway and just pretend that everything was okay.

We ate in silence, finished and left.

In the car I tried to put my hand on his hand, but he didn’t hold it. I eventually took it back and just starred out the window.

He didn’t drive to the movie theaters like he had promised. Instead, he dropped me off at home and said that all he wanted to do was talk to me and I wouldn’t talk to him and that I never talk to him. He said I never talked or wanted to bond with him and it would just be better if I packed my things and moved out. I still had no idea what his problem was but I agreed since I couldn’t think of anything more to say.

We ended up talking the next night, though I was half sad and half sarcastic when I told him I hoped he found a woman who did all the things I didn’t do someday in the future. I was so tired of doing everything for him, not getting any credit for it and ending up with him telling me I was aggravating him after misunderstandings like this. He told me that his only problem with me was that I don’t talk to him. I doubted that was everything.

Whenever I tried to talk, he would quite often tell me I was lying or I was only trying to hurt him. I often had conversations with him where he would just talk over me when I tried to get my point across. But somehow I wasn’t talking enough and I wasn’t opening up enough for him. I sometimes just wanted to split my skull apart so he could see the insides of my brain, make sure I wasn’t lying and so he could see just what was in there because it was always him. It was always how to make him happy, how to appease him so we could go back to just being two people in love, going on dates and laughing at stupid things on television.

I wanted him to know me deep down but whenever he looked he said I was worthless or full of lies.

I attempted to bring him a little more into my world when Wicked Faire rolled around that year. It was an annual convention I’d been going to for several years now– a place where a big group of my long-distance friends got together to see each other, go to some shows and shop and hang out in the convention hotel to drink the whole weekend long.

Shane had been looking forward to Wicked Faire and going to more of my conventions ever since he heard that was one of my favorite things to do. He had his LARPs, I had my conventions. I was looking forward to it myself because it was a chance for me to show him to another group that was my second family. I also wanted to give Viktor a chance to meet him. Viktor was like a brother to me and he had promised me when my father died that he would walk me down the aisle when I got married since I didn’t have any male relatives left.

Adam came with us that weekend and we would meet Viktor there, along with a few others. We arrived there after two hours of driving, got into the hotel room and I gave big hugs to everyone I saw in the lobby. We went into our hotel room, Viktor started pouring drinks for everyone and we just relaxed for a bit after the long car ride.

We shopped for a bit, looking at medieval items that would be good for Shane’s LARP in the dealer’s rooms. We saw some shows, chilled in the lobby and relaxed with the good atmosphere of the event as it started to kick into motion. Eventually, we headed back to a hotel room where one of Viktor’s friends was already throwing a party.

Everything was good that first day there. Shane was talking to my friends, seeming to enjoy himself and I was preening. I wanted everyone to see me with my new fiance. They had never even seen me with a boyfriend before. I never had anyone to show off or a relationship that made me feel special before– but now I was going to tell everyone that he was mine and make them take silly pictures of us. I was, after all, a bit of an exhibitionist at my core.

The weekend hit a snag when Mark arrived at the hotel. Viktor had rented the bunch of us in our eight-person group two different hotel rooms. I didn’t know that people were assigned to specific rooms or that Shane had asked for the quiet room or that Shane thought I had a crush on Mark. All I knew was that there was space in our room, so to help out the group I grabbed Mark’s bag when he got to the hotel and said, “There’s room with us. Come on!”

It was an innocent act. Something I had done dozens of times before. Whenever I was around Viktor’s group, I acted as part of the crew– if there were people without beds, I found them one. If there were people without food, I made sure they ate. I supported the team. I helped where I could.

I completely stepped in it this time though.

Shane started saying he had issues with our sleeping arrangement. He didn’t want people in his room that were going to be loud. He didn’t want people who were going to be up all night coming and going in his room while he was trying to sleep. He definitely didn’t want Mark in our room because he said I was only doing it so I could get with Mark. I was so confused I didn’t know what to think– I had never once looked at Mark like that before, he was just part of our crew and I was just trying to help.

Shane marched off and went to some events with Adam instead of sticking around for me to fix anything.

Everyone was trying to figure out what room they were supposed to be in. No one liked that I had switched things up and that Shane was now grouching at everyone. When I was trying to find Shane in the hotel, I passed by Viktor, who shook his head as he was trying to make sense of everyone’s bickering. He was the one who always rented the hotel rooms, our crew leader and captain. He looked as frustrated as I usually felt trying to fix things. “I’m trying to make everyone happy, Julie. I really am!”

“I know.” I frowned. I asked if he knew where Shane was off to; he did not.

It was finally late by the time I got back to my hotel room. Shane was already in bed and trying to sleep. Mark was nowhere to be seen and apparently had switched to go room with someone else. Adam was there though, one of the people that Shane knew and trusted who Shane would allow share the communal hotel room. I couldn’t believe that Viktor had gotten two rooms for all of us to share, but everyone who was allowed in our own room had to be approved by Shane. That was not how our group vacations usually ran and I honestly felt a little embarrassed by it.

Fred was in the room too, though I knew he wasn’t staying with us. He was making noise trying to gather up some items Adam was letting him borrow, but he was being really loud and kept laughing as he bumped into the walls. I shot a look at Shane, who was grumpily rolling over in bed trying to block the noise that Fred was making with his pillow. It was my job to fix this, I thought, as I started quietly yelling at Fred to get out of our room. Shane needed his sleep and I needed to fix the situation so he could sleep, even if it meant berating my friends and telling them to get the fuck out of our room.

I couldn’t afford to make Shane angry– so my friend would just have to get over the fact that I was trying to fix things by bickering angrily at him. There were dire consequences for me if Shane ever got angry, wheres my friends would usually just shrug it off and move on.

Once Fred left, I tried to curl up next to my fiance, but he was having none of it. He rolled over and left me cold.

The next day, things went similarly awry. Shane and I got separated at one point and without a cell phone, I spent most of the day trying to track him down. I kept using other people’s cellphones but the calls were not getting through. A few times I did end up reaching him, he said he was off with Adam and that I should have fun with my friends and that all was good– only to find him hours later still pissed at me. I didn’t know what to believe. He was avoiding me and then telling me he was fine and then getting pissed at me. I didn’t know which way to even start a conversation with him.

On Saturday night, when a bunch of us were in Viktor’s hotel room. Amber, Viktor’s girlfriend, looked at me puzzled. “Where’s your– fiance– person– thing?”

“Uh, I don’t… actually know.” I tried to play it off like it was fine. All the avoiding and missed calls was messing with my head though. I just wanted to show him off that weekend, I didn’t know how to show him that I didn’t mean any ill will and wished he would come hang out with all of us.

Tasha, another friend of mine, turned to me and asked me if I was really engaged. She hadn’t heard about it before. I showed her my engagement ring and she looked at me like I had two heads. “Why are you engaged? Who let you get engaged? Why do you want to get married to someone? I thought you were going to be single forever.”

“I like him.” I said simply.

“But… why?! I hope this is a good one. Every time you introduce me to a boy of yours from Long Island, I always end up feeling like I need to take a shower.”

“He makes me laugh.” I told her, trying to point out his good qualities. There had been some people along the way of our friendship that I probably shouldn’t have introduced to Tasha in the past, but this was different; there had been some flings that went nowhere, boys I had crushes on that were narcissistic and who just wanted a good lay– but I was pretty sure Shane was different from them. He wanted a relationship, not a romp in bed. “I love him and I want to marry him. Why is this so confusing to you?”

“Honey,” she started, the blunt way she spoke about the truth as if I was a child and she was going to show me the way starting up in her tone. She could be condescending, but she often did it in a way that made me feel like she was looking out for me– it was a New Yorker thing. “The homeless man who lives on my street corner makes me laugh but I don’t want to marry him.”

It was a weird statement, but maybe she saw something I didn’t. Maybe there were other things I could have pointed out to her to make her see what I saw in him; the way he took care of our cats, the way he made me french toast when I asked for it, the way he loved taking vacations with me on spontaneous spurs of the moment. But then, he wasn’t really trying to wow anyone over during this particular vacation. There was a decidedly angry vibe was giving off to nearly everyone. I wondered if it was because my attention was not solely focused on him that weekend. That was too bad though, I thought as I began to lose my patience with him– when we went down to Florida, he spent ten days with his family and ignored me while I was there, surely he could do the same now that our roles had reversed and allow me to spend the weekend focused on my friends I only got to see once a year.

Shane never quite stopped being angry all the way up until Sunday when we left. He would go off on his own, pick little fights with me, angrily walk off when I wanted to do something with him– I was trying and he just wasn’t having any of it. He was done. We packed up eventually and loaded all of our stuff in the car before getting in. Adam took the front seat with me in the back.

Adam was delaying leaving though and made Shane stop in the parking lot to say goodbye to a few people we saw along the way. Meanwhile, I could tell Shane was getting more and more annoyed as the time rolled on. He just wanted to leave. Even when Adam finally allowed us to roll out of there, he blathered on about one stupid thing after another, talking gossip that Shane did not want to hear about the people at the convention and asking Shane if we could stop several places along the way. Adam was always hearing about after-parties that happened after the convention and was eager to go to a few of the ones he’d heard about that night.

“I don’t fucking want to stop there, Adam, so stop asking! I don’t want to meet anyone from the convention at the diner, okay?!” He shouted, shutting up the non-stop talking coming from Adam’s mouth. “I just want to have fun! How fucking hard is that? I wanted to go to the convention and have fun! After spending all that money, all I wanted to fucking do was go have fun! I didn’t want to deal with any of this bullshit! I just wanted to go have fun!”

I frowned from the backseat as the car grew quiet. We were always searching for the lighter, happier moments but they were few and far between, allusive things that we could never hold onto for very long. I wasn’t sure if Shane was blaming me for not allowing him to have fun, or not showing him a fun time– but as I sat in the backseat of the car, I was pretty sure he wanted something I couldn’t provide for him and he hated me for it.

For Valentine’s Day that year, we planned a picnic at home– but Shane ended up falling asleep and napping for most of the day. It was pretty safe to say, the fun was quickly evaporating in our relationship. I only wished I knew what to do to bring back that joy.