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My roommate always forgets to lock our door. Whenever he goes to do laundry or microwave something, he
never remembers to lock it when he gets back.
“It’s
not safe,” I repeatedly tell him.
“Anybody could walk in and take something.
It’s a breach of privacy.
We might as well just not have a door.”
He always nods and promises he’ll try to remember.
So
when Elizabeth barged into the room like a tornado (and
without knocking), my anger initially focused elsewhere.
She let the door slam shut behind her, stormed over to
my bed, and flopped down on it. Grabbing my stuffed dog, Smudge, she held it to her chest and
burst into melodramatic tears.
I
gave a small sigh and set aside the studying I that had
occupied my past few hours.
Once, I’d continued to work, this had resulted in
her, “Keith, you’re such an ass-monkey” dialogue. I
could recite the litany from memory.
“What’s
wrong, Liz?” I asked, sure that our friends did not want to
hear, again, how badly I treated her. Her friends knew the monologue as well as I did – she gave
it any time I did something she found unacceptable.
She shook her head and buried her face – and
Smudge’s – into a pillow.
That meant guy problems, and I sat a moment deciding
how to approach the situation while I felt a stab of internal
relief. Boy
problems were nothing compared to some of Liz’s other
traumas; the most recent coming in her insistence that a box
of laundry detergent wanted her to eat it.
“What’s
Jeff done this time?” I asked patiently.
As I expected, she rolled her face towards my side of
the bed and glared at me with puffy, wet eyes.
“Eeargh!”
she screamed, and buried her face again.
“He’s such an idiot!” I managed to decipher from
the sentence grumbled into my pillow.
I sat for a moment, waiting for her to finish her usual
soliloquy so that I could get her to talk intelligently.
“I think he should die.”
These sentences traditionally accompanied Liz’s rants
about those members of the human race that had penises.
I
got up from where I’d been working on the floor and sat in
my tall director’s chair.
Elizabeth lay sprawled on my bed, facedown. Her short hair fell against the pillow, hiding her ears.
I knew how to handle this situation; I’d done it
often enough. If
I tried to force her to talk, she would simply spout her usual
tirade about how bad her life was.
Instead, I sat patiently, waiting for her to get
something of a grip on herself.
She’d talk when she wanted to talk, and I could do
nothing to make her talk before she was ready.
Finally
she sat up, wiping the tears from her eyes.
For some reason, the girl loved to cry at the slightest
provocation. “Okay,
you know what he did this time?”
I shook my head. “Okay,
get this. I asked
him to drive down this weekend, because, you know, I have
nothing to do this weekend and I really want to see him.”
Jeff lived in College Station, where he was a senior at
Texas A&M. “But he was all like, ‘I have a test Monday, I really
need to study for it.’
And I’m all like, ‘No, you ass-monkey, you’re
coming down here to see me.’ ‘But I can’t, I have a midterm and I’m already doing
bad in the class because I never get to study.’
Like it’s my fault he always talks to me on the
phone?”
“Well,
you are the one that always calls him, Liz.”
“Oh
my god, NO,” she snapped at me.
“You know what I finally told him?
‘You can just bite my ass.’
Then I hung up.”
I
struggled to avoid the mental image she’d conjured up, even
though she used the expression at least twice a day.
“Don’t you think that was a little rude?
He probably wanted to sort things out.”
“No.
I didn’t want to talk to him, so I hung up.
I didn’t want to deal with him.”
For
the hundredth time, I had to remind myself that Liz thought
she sat at the center of the universe and didn’t think about
other people’s feelings.
“And do you think that makes him feel any better?”
“Dude,
I really don’t care.”
After
trying, and failing, to talk sense into her, I did my best to
defuse the situation. As
usual, I thought the male side more justified, but I played
along with Liz, convincing her she should keep living, that
people still loved her, and that her boyfriend was indeed an
asshole.
* *
*
I
didn’t see Liz again for a few days, until one of the two
classes we had together during the week. She wore a big grin, her lips splayed across her face and her
eyes radiant with joy. Even
her freckles seemed to be smiling, I noted.
“Dude,
ask me how I’m doing,” she said, bouncing up and down in
her chair.
“How
are you doing, Liz?”
“I’m
wonderful.” She
ducked her head and grinned even more – I had a mental image
of her skull hinging at the jaw and her forehead toppling
backwards. “I
talked to Jeff last night.
We’re pretending it never happened.”
“That’s
great, Liz.” You’ll pretend half the relationship never happened,
I didn’t add. “So
is he coming down?”
“Naah,
but I’m going to drive up and visit him.”.
* *
*
Later
that week, with a group of my friends (but without Liz), we
discussed her relationship with Jeff.
In the end, we set up a pool – whoever guessed
closest about how much longer they’d stay together won the
pot. It was a
mean game, certainly, but it had a basis for being played.
“I
give it a week,” said one of my friends.
“No,
they’ll make it the rest of the semester,” said my
roommate. The
semester break would not arrive for another twelve weeks.
“A
month,” added my girlfriend.
“I’d
give them seven weeks,” I said, and threw in my dollar.
In the end, I gained ten bucks, as Jeff and Liz lasted
seven weeks and three days.
With the money, I took Liz out for ice cream.
*
*
*
“So
what happened?” I asked over my double scoop of rocky road.
“Oh,
I dumped him,” she said, her Dutch Chocolate melting down
her hand. She
licked it off, and then attacked her cone again before
continuing. “I
don’t know, he just seemed like he had more important things
on his mind than me.”
“Well
Liz, you do have to realize that he’s got to have a job by
the end of the semester.
He is graduating, after all.”
“So?
He should make time for me.”
And
to think that I once had a crush on this girl,
I reminded myself in disbelief.
I ignored the memory and tried to carry on the
conversation. “You
going to his graduation?”
“Well,
he invited me, but I don’t think I’m going to go.
I just don’t want to.”
We ate in silence for a bit.
She stared at her cone for a while, and then leaned in
close, as if to share a secret with me. “But I just met the cutest guy…”
* *
*
After
I had just broken up with my high school girlfriend of four
months, I’d considered dating Liz. Well, ‘broken up’ doesn’t do justice to the pain of
that relationship’s end – she dumped me.
I later learned that she’d been dating someone else
for a month before she actually cut the tie between us.
Liz
had finished a similar relationship the month before – a
month-long, innocent relationship with a mutual friend of
ours. The break
up devastated her, and I’d convinced her that life could
continue, that someone else could care for her.
She fell asleep on my bed at least four times, having
cried herself to sleep as I rocked her or stroked her hair.
Those nights, I slept on the floor.
We
went to a school dance together soon after both breakups.
Neither of us wanted to go, but I saw the dance as an
opportunity to start something, to see if Liz and I could have
a relationship. I
walked her into the dance on my arm.
I didn’t see her again until we left.
She spent the entire dance with someone else, a casual
acquaintance who thought of sex purely as a recreational
activity. I
walked her home, gave her a goodnight hug, and spent the night
on the phone with my best friend. Kristen had had almost as
bad a time as I did. Three
weeks later, she and I started dating.
* *
*
“He
gave me a hug last night, Keith!”
Liz had crept up behind me as I walked back from class,
and she bounced up and down next to me with glee as we
strolled to our dorm. “We
spent all night talking, and he walked me home, and then he
gave me a hug! Who loves the Princess?”
Anyone
that refers to themselves as ‘The Princess’ has problems,
I thought to myself. “That’s
great, Liz! It
must be true love!” I’d
spent the previous night talking and roaming campus with my
girlfriend, now fifteen months into our relationship.
Our night had ended with a long, passionate
kiss. Liz’s hug
paled next to that, but she wouldn’t care even if I told
her. “Next
thing you know, he’ll be proposing to you!”
Sarcasm tends to take over when I’m annoyed.
“Shut
up,” Liz said through her big smile.
She didn’t mean it; she thought I was just teasing
her. “I so want
him to bear my children.”
Dave Matthews and Harrison Ford would also bear her
children, if Liz had her way.
“He even wrote a poem for me!
I’m never going to let him date anyone else.”
“Liz,
is he even dating you yet?”
“Not
yet. But he
will.”
* *
*
Two
weeks later, he did. A few days into the relationship, Liz invited my girlfriend
and I to meet the ‘wonderful new man’ in her life.
Scott, we learned, had lots of relationships before,
but none of them seemed to mean anything to him.
In addition, he took over as rush chair for Sigma Chi,
one of the more rowdy fraternities, this year and had enjoyed
coordinating this year’s rush.
‘ΣΧ’, as the group was known around
campus, had quite a reputation around school.
Kristen and I both pinpointed him as a womanizer.
“Liz
is one of the most special people I’ve ever met!
I don’t know how she’s stayed single so long;
she’s a wonderful catch!” he proclaimed over his fourth
longneck of the night. He
wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.
Her alcohol tolerance sat far below his, and she
already showed the effects of the beers she had quaffed.
“How could anyone not want to date her?” Liz had used that particular line since I’d known her.
It firmly belonged in her ‘center of the universe’
mentality.
“I don’t know, Scott,” I replied, glaring at him.
His eyes had firmly attached themselves to my
girlfriend’s chest. Sadly,
only Kristen and I noticed.
Later on in the night, we also noticed Scott’s hands
wandering into inappropriate regions. Liz, who often
proclaimed her virginity noisily and swore she’d never sleep
with anyone, should have protested the actions.
Alcohol does odd things to people.
* *
*
“Keith,
are you home?” Soft knocking on my door accompanied the words.
“I need to talk to you.”
I peeked through the peephole to see Liz looking
surprisingly unenergetic.
Usually, Liz would only wait about ten seconds for the
door to be opened for her, but today she actually stood and
waited. Shocked, I opened the door and let her in.
“I’m sorry about last night, Keith.”
In
the two years I’d known her, Liz had never apologized to me
for anything. She
walked past me and I caught a glimpse of red, puffy eyes.
“Liz, what’s wrong?” I asked, not knowing what
else to do. Liz
and Scott had done everything they could to annoy my
girlfriend and I last night, from conversations with
Kristen’s chest to making out in front of us.
I’d never seen Liz an emotional state like this
before, and I shoved last night’s events to the back of my
mind. Liz, when
sad, would cry her eyes out; she would not walk into my room
with no tears. More
importantly: she would not walk into my room with no words.
She
lay down on my bed and curled into a ball.
She did not cry. She did not go into any of her typical rants.
She did not even talk.
All she did was sob noiselessly.
I listened to her strained breathing in shock.
“Liz,
talk to me.” Still
she said nothing. “Liz,
you’re my friend.” She
turned to look at me. In
her eyes, I saw the most painful expression I’d ever seen.
“Liz, what happened??”
Panic and confusion crept into my voice.
When
she finally spoke, her voice came in a raspy whisper.
“Keith…”
I
went to the bed and sat down next to her.
She sat up, leaned into me.
I put an arm around her shoulder, holding her close.
“I’m here, Liz.”
She
set her head against my shoulder and whispered, “He used
me.”
* *
*
So
many things had to be done.
We had to call the authorities.
We had to contact residential life.
We had to give testimony.
But first, I sat in my room, a fragile girl in my arms,
and rocked her gently. This
time, I couldn’t tell her that everything would be all
right.
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