Despertar

so a turkey flies into a bar

I can't wait to have in-laws. They're going to love me. I'm the biggest suckup ever, with authority figures.

*

I was under the misconception that I would feel like an adult by now. I was not only wrong, I was, like, enormously wrong. I moved into my first real apartment yesterday. Signed the lease a few weeks ago, actually, but as I don't own a bed, I decided to rough it at the dorm through the end of exams, till they put us out. Yesterday, they put us out, so after about a million trips back and forth between the dorm and the apartment complex, I officially live here now.

*

Chris insisted on staying here last night. My first night here. It was less insistence, actually, than passive-aggressive circumstance contortion, but so totally obvious that it annoyed me as much as if he had duct-taped my front door shut from the inside. Val and I were in the process of unpacking, moving a million things from boxes and bags into their rightful places in the kitchen and living room, and verbalizing plans to do the same when we woke up, because we want the place to be immaculate when our subletters move in.

While we were working on the kitchen, he was in my room, my room that is completely devoid of furniture, stretched out on the floor, watching Pirates of the Caribbean. Intermittently I would pop in and stretch out beside him to watch a favorite part; every time, he nuzzled and cuddled me and wound his arms all around me so that it was physically difficult to get up again. I don't like that. I don't like that suffocated, restrained feeling. I asked him, firmly but gently, to let me go, over and over again. He wouldn't stop doing it.

After Valerie went to bed, I watched the second half of Dead Man's Chest with Chris, and then started trying to plan my Sunday. I'm supposed to be bussing to New York to see Tina today, and I wanted to get a solid idea of what time I would be leaving, which bus line to take, and so on. It was, like, after three o'clock, and I told him I was going to work on logistical stuff till I got sleepy and passed out, and asked him whether he wanted a ride home. He made sort of a half-assed offer to just walk it, because my car was parked far away. I said okay, and he kept lying there, spooning me as I awkwardly adjusted and readjusted my laptop.

A little while later, I realized I didn't have any toilet paper. I said, "Okay, I need to run to CVS anyway, you really don't have to walk, why don't you come with me and I'll drop you off on the way back?" Not trying to be standoffish, or anything, I just, I wanted some space, last night. My room is a disaster area, full of boxes and blankets and no bed, more like a dog basket than ever, and I just wanted to clear a Shannon-sized space in the wreckage and fall asleep without harassment.

He agreed to come, because I have no business going to CVS alone at that time of night, anyway. He acquiesced to my offer to give him a ride and put on his shoes. We went to the car. We went to CVS. It was nearly three-thirty at this point, and I was so sleepy, I almost fell asleep at the wheel on the way there. I downplayed my sleepiness tremendously, though, because I didn't want him to use it as an argument against my driving him home.

After CVS, we walked back to the car. I said, "Thanks for coming with me. What's the quickest way to your place from Fourth and Massachusetts?"

He gave me this totally fake, wide-eyed look and said, "Oh, did you want to go straight there? Because I actually left my keys and my wallet in your kitchen."

Fucking fuck. It was almost four o'clock and I could barely keep my eyes open, so he had won. He came home with me, laid down with me. I made a big deal about setting my alarm to go off at eight in the morning, about having things to do, about wanting sleep. He ignored the whole thing and started hitting on me as soon as my bedroom door clicked shut. I finally said, and I have never spoken these words before in my life, "I really don't want to hook up right now. I'm really tired, my room is a mess and I'm all discombobulated from the day--I'm just not in the mood. I don't mean that offensively, so I hope you don't take offense."

He of course took offense. He rolled over and got really quiet, drew his knees up to his chin like a wounded child.

I spent twenty seconds talking myself out of just letting him pout himself to sleep. Convinced, I struck up a conversation about past hurts and insecurities, sort of implicitly rationalizing my hesitation, and he came around. By four-thirty he was all over me again, kissing my neck over and over, whispering what he thought were helpful reassurances.

I told him I don't know where I am right now. I told him I'm "not over" the last person I dated, and that I don't feel ready to commit to anything when part of my heart is still invested in something else. I told him emphatically that I need a lot of space generally, not to mention romantically, and that I don't respond well to being oversaturated with favors and compliments like the ones he is famous for. I told him I need, at the very least, time to figure out my feelings, and that I understand if he doesn't want to wait.

Nothing I told him was untrue, but couched in all of it was a plea that he at least just back off a little bit.

I don't have a problem dating two people. I don't have a problem being honest with Chris, now that he better understands the details of what I'm dealing with. I don't have a problem sticking this out to find out whether I'm capable of liking him as much as he likes me, because I know that he is inherently likable. I don't even have a problem with being a little unfair to Chris in the process, if he insists on ignoring all my warnings.

I do have a problem with being kissed all over, for hours and hours, by someone I just asked to please not kiss me.

The irony isn't lost on me.

*

There's my assumption-turned-misconception. I really thought it would feel good to be liked this much.