Worry

I’m worried.

Big surprise, Amy would say: I could hear her sighing at me in my head. She’d tell me I worried too much, that I was always worried. She’d say something flippant: “It’s depressing, how much you worry. Worse, it’s boring. I’ll have to start cheating on you, you’re so predictable.” I, of course, would be stunned at her brazen attitude, and that’s when she’d, laugh, then give me one of those sly looks and kiss me, deeply, honestly, and with every reassurance that she didn’t give a damn how predictable my worries were. I’d respond to that kind of attention, of course. That’s how it is with Amy.

Just as I know what would happen if I were to say something to Amy, I know what will happen for the rest of the day. I’ll leave the apartment and go out into the wide, wondrous world of a small college town. I half want to just stay in; I don’t want to be around other people, but at the same time, I feel obligated too, and I really wish that I could be among them more, though I’ll only admit this to myself, and then only sometimes. What’s more, I’ll be actually thinking out this series of convolutions, and many more besides. I’ll wander around a little, toy with the idea of getting another job so that I fit in, then I’ll decide I don’t really want one badly enough to bother looking for the damn thing. Somewhere around here I’ll give up and go see If Jake’s in.

He will be. We’ll bullshit for a while, hook up some game consoles, beat each other at whatever games the other isn’t good at, and generally waste the day away happily. I’ll head back, meet Amy for dinner, talk with her about her friends, her day, mutter self-deprecating disclaimers when she suddenly asks, guilt-stricken about my day, my friends. She’ll accept them, we’ll lapse into silence that I feel compelled to break with some story or other that I find particularly amusing, and then she’ll laugh, and I’ll continue to worry, feeling nervous and guilty because I realize that she didn’t find my story funny in the least; it was the fact that I found it funny that she’s laughing at. She’ll shake her head at me, and it’ll be written across every line of her body: “My boyfriend is an odd one, but I love him.” Then she’ll give me that look, and things will move on from there until we’re back at her place and finally falling asleep.

Sometime the next morning, the guilt will hit me again. The problem is this: I’m not a good fit for Amy. Or she’s not for me. Same thing, really. She wants to have, essentially, a normal life: I’ll finally get a real job, one that pays better than just shy of nothing, and we’ll move in together, and things will progress as naturally as things did last night when she mouthed sweet obscenities in my ear as we left the diner. We’ll have our share of adventures and wild nights, as soon as I’d figured out just what I wanted to do with myself. She’s patient; she can wait for me. I, on the other hand, go through the motions of trying to get a job, of enjoying going to parties, of looking at apartments, of not minding when she doesn’t want to talk about things we disagree on: religion, politics, other stuff that really isn’t a part of either of our day-to-day lives.

I don’t mention this to her though. Hell, even if I did, she wouldn’t believe me. She’s got more faith in me than I deserve, I’m sure. I wish she’d leave me. I mean, I’d hate it, I’d be miserable, but I wish she’d just leave. If everyone else can find a job right away, why am I still looking after two months? My excuses are okay, I guess—I’ve always been good at excuses—but seriously, how can she honestly think I’m trying? I’m obviously just using her for emotional and physical support; God knows we share little enough intellectually. What’s more, I don’t even hide the fact that I think less of people who don’t stop to think about things every once in awhile. I make it plain that I judge people based on how they argue with me: that I am disgusted when someone doesn’t even try to have a reason for their point of view. I think about these things, and I wonder why the hell Amy even bothers with me. Part of me says that she sees something in me that makes her want to stay with me even though I can be an asshole, but another part knows that’s bullshit, and that the problem is she just isn’t that bright, really, and honestly believes that I’m just going through some kind of phase or other.

Then I’ll look at her sleeping next to me and think about all the wonderful bits of being in a relationship like this; and I don’t just mean the sex. I mean the disgustingly sentimental parts too, the crap that we say and do that, when I think about it afterwards, I’m sure must fill cheesy romance novels. And so I’ll wake her up by kissing her softly on whatever art of her body that happens to be exposed by the sheets, and she’ll wake up groggily, tell me to cut it out, she’s tired, then I’ll do something else and we’ll start giggling like we’re stupid sickeningly romantic kids, which I suppose we are.