Why I Hate the World.

Ex-Boyfriends

         Ex-Boyfriends cannot be friends. Especially the assorted low-lifes that I let into my life. I don't even know which one to start with because they are all equally bad for the same reasons. I shall start with the one that hurts the worst. (My writing professor in college always told me to write from somewhere that hurts)
         Stephen
          Where to even begin? I first saw Stephen when I was maybe 11. He was walking down the middle school hall with the "Behaviorly Challenged" class. He always hung to the back of the line and walked with his head held high. He always wore white t-shirts and jeans. Even back then, he stood about 6 foot two and weighed maybe two hundred pounds. Something about him caught my eye. Looking back now, I think it might have just been that he was freakishly old-looking.
          The first time I actually hung out with him, I was 14. I was dating Dustin another one on the list of winners. Dustin and I were fighting and we were with Steve's younger brother, Josh. We were going to walk Josh home when Steve came walking up the road. "So which one of you is dating her?" Steve asked, eyeing me like I was a piece of steak he would have liked to devour.
         "Dustin says he is." I said. I shuffled the snow underneath my feet.
         "I see." He said.
          A few days later, Steve called me. I have no idea how in hell he got my phone number. (To this day, I could be living in Egypt, inside of the Sphinx's head, with no phone, and Steve would find me.) When I answered and asked who it was, he seemed genuinely surprised that I did not know. Dustin and I had broken up a few days before, shortly after the aforementioned walk. Steve asked me to go for a walk with him that evening and to meet him at his house. My best friend at the time, lived 4 houses up the road from him, and I had made plans with her. He agreed to meet me at 7:30. When I went to Jessica's house and told her what I was doing with who, she promptly handed me a condom. I was rather naive and had never seen one before and asked why in hell I'd need one of those. We were just going for a walk. "He's a charmer. He'll have you talked out of them clothes and in the snow in no time." I was hyper-ventalating by the time 7:30 rolled around and I headed up the driveway. At 7:35, with snow falling in buckets around my head, I walked to the front door of his house and knocked. His little brother answered, "Stephen or Josh."
         "Stephen."
         "He ain't here, said something 'bout walking with some female." I murmured at thanks and turned to walk home. I turned around about  a block later and saw Steve walking towards his front door. And that's when I became schizo.
          Part of me was saying: "Motherfucker was late, let's roll." and the other part was saying "Yeah but look at him. He's fucking amazing. How many more shots will I get with him?" So I called his name.
          He yelled back and asked who it was calling him. When I told him who it was he said "Come here." in a tone that I didn't like and back then I told him so. He said he was "just joking." That was and is his favorite phrase. That is probably why I fucking hate being picked with.
          We walked to the middle school that I went to and went down on the football field. The school itself was downhill from the main road and the football field and surrounding track were behind the school and surrounded by woods on 2 sides. The backside of the football field faced the ritzy neighborhood, which you got to by climbing downhill from the field.
          I remember as we were walking down the sidewalk to the football field my heart was pounding in my ears. I pulled out a cigarette and he almost died from shock. "You smoke?"
         "Yep, if you got a lighter." He handed me a red Bic and we walked down to the hill that overlooked Emory Drive. and stood under the goal post. I finshed my cigarette and looked for some place to stub it out. I could find anyplace.
         "Just throw it in the grass and come back here." I threw it in the grass and felt guilty. But I walked back to where he was with a feeling that the cigarette in the grass wasn't my first sin of the night.
         He stood behind me. I was 5'5 at the time and he towered over me. But not so much that he couldn't lean down and kiss the back of my neck. I looked up at the goal post and caught my breath. My hips were on fire and I thought I might melt into a puddle. Hanging from the goal post was a lone icicle. Steve caught me staring at it and continued to kiss my neck around to my ear and whispered."What does that remind you of?" He pulled me back to him and I could feel his swelling erection. "Hmm, Mary?" From there somehow we wound up on the ground making out. I had never had a guy lay on top of me before and I was freaking the hell out. He started to dry hump me and I pulled away."Are you nervous?" He asked. Nervous I thought.I haven't breathed since Falconer Street!
         "No." I said an octave higher than I usually spoke. He leaned his legs off to the side and I thanked God. As I was kissing him, I looked over his shoulder at my watch."Fuck, I'm late for my curfew."
         "So? Aren't you having a good time?"
         "Well, yeah but my parents are gonna kill me."
         His mouth covered my objections. "Spend the night with me." He said a few minutes later after I convinced him that I had to go and we had walked up the hill to the main road which I lived on. 
         I'm not sure what exactly happened to my heart at that moment, but I think I died.
The only thing that recesitated me was hearing him say "I don't want sex just someone to hold."  For half a minute, I was ready to go with him and get grounded for the rest of my life. But thankfully, the Catholic upbringing kicked in and I said that I wanted to but I had to go. He pulled me to the bulge in his pants and kissed me again. "I'll call you at 7:30 in the morning."

                                He Didn't Call

          Until a year and a half later. I was home from school because it was Martin Luther King day and the phone rang. "You have an AT&T collect call from an inmate at Chautauqua County jail. The inmate is:"
          "Mary's friend Steve."
         "Will you accept charges?"
          Will you accept the burden of what this is going to cost you? Will you accept the scouls that people will give you for being friends with an INMATE? Will you accept what your parents are going to say to you?

                                 I said yes.

         We talked about random things and he asked me for my address so he could write to me. I said sure. A few days later, my parents called me into the living room. I knew I was in trouble for something, but I offhand didn't know what. I sat down and smiled innocently. "What's going on?"
         "You got a letter from someone in jail today."
         "Oh"
         "A Stephen Nuse" My father scowled. "I don't believe I know Mr. Nuse."
         "Well, he's really more a friend of Emily's." I said, sensing that there was disdain in his voice.
          "Your Uncle transported him to jail and said that he was charged with drugs and an assault charge." My father said. "I just want you to consider how it will look to others that you are associating with a jailbird." He handed me the letter and let me make my own choice.
                      (b} I read the letter

         He sent me a letter and asked me why I wanted to lose my virginity to him. But later that week, my friend Emily showed me a letter that said virtually the same thing and I was crushed. I didn't write him back and I didn't hear from him again for another 4 years.
                     
                        I was all grown up

          I was home for Christmas break from college in North Carolina, which is how I ended up in Statesville today. I wasn't dating anyone and hadn't since Dustin and I had finally called it quits forever two weeks before I left for school. I was baking cookies and painting my toenails for a Christmas party that I was going to that night. The phone rang. "Is Mary there?"
          "This is her, who is this?"
         "You might not remember me, but the last time you saw me, you gave me a hug outside of the high school."
         "Steve?" I asked with my heart in my throat.
         "Yes." We shot the breeze for a little while and then got down to more serious matters. He was home from jail (again). He had recently had a son, that he couldn't see. He was looking to settle down, with someone who was "clean and white." I asked why white and he explained that he was part of the Aryan Brotherhood. (Like I knew what that was.) I politely said okay. He said, "I want you to ask me out."
         "Why?" I asked. "So you can say no and laugh at me?"
          "Come over here tomorrow and I will ask you."
          "Is this a joke?" I asked.
          "Come over and see."

                  In His House I Was

          The snow was crunching under my heels. I was nervous. I felt like I had that day on the football field. Breathless. Drunk with crush. Was it really going to happen this time? He sounded so different on the phone. So much older, so much wiser. I walked to the corner and he was standing on his mother's porch waiting for me. He walked up and hugged me and I noticed a fading hickey on his neck. I said I didn't figure he was serious and turned to leave. He grabbed my arm. "It was a mistake, last week. I've done some thinking since then."
          "Sure,I believe you." I smiled. I really didn't, but damn he was hott
           We walked upstairs and sat on his mother's couch. He was regailing me with tales of his most recent time in jail, about the recent birth of his son, and anything that kept him from talking about me and my doubts. I was listening to him talk, rubbing his neck, and wondering when he was going to put the moves on me and I was going to have to give him the brush-off. I was still a virgin and I planned on keeping it that way until I don't know when. I was still thinking that it was all a joke. So then he asked me, "Weren't you going to ask me out?"
         "Well, yeah."
         "My answer's yes."
         Well, then. I smiled and he softly kissed my lips. Something about that kiss made me feel butterflies down to my toes. So we saw each other the next few nights. My best friend Heidi had a car. We would ride around in it.
          We'd ride to the next county over and ride along the snowmobile trails. One day, he drove the car down a hill that was covered in major snowdrifts. He laughed like a kid in a Barney episode. It was then I started to see that this bad boy had a soft side. A soft side that was all mine.
                   I was so in love
          New Year's Eve we went to a huge party. I drank so much I should have had my own aisle in the liquor store. I was outside hanging over the rail puking and he was snickering and flirting with some blonde. My friend Amanda who was 8 months pregnant had to help me next door. I was so disappointed that Steve wasn't more helpful. I felt like he was ashamed of me. However, he did get a shirt from this guy for me because I had yakked all over my Coughlan's Pub shirt.
          He spent the night with me at Amanda's house. We laid together on her couch and something about the way he looked at me that night just told me that it was time. I told him that I wanted him, (okay it was sort of the booze talking but again I say... DAMN HE WAS FUCKING HOT) he asked me if I was sure. I said no. He said well you shouldn't say things that if you don't mean that you shouldn't have said it. Next thing you know we were naked it happened. He fell asleep and told me to quit touching him because I was all hugged up on him. I was all like--whoa. I had sex with Steve N. And after a few more days of fun I had to go back to school.
                   The beginning of the end
         We were trying to figure out how I was going to get back to school and we our first fight. Heidi's parents didn't want her to drive her car. My parents didn't want us to meet my uncle halfway either because it was over 300 miles away.