February 2022

You’re standing outside Neptune Theater on the corner of 45^th and Brooklyn at a quarter to midnight after a Goth Babe concert and she’s yelling at you. You know her. At least, you think you did but this is foreign territory. Terra Incognita. Anger you didn’t know she was capable of. You realize that you’re on the dangerous side of the sidewalk and you wonder if she is mad enough to push you into traffic.

You’re telling yourself right now that she is wrong. That she is in the wrong. That rational people don’t do this. That this woman, who brought you a cupcake on your first date even though it was a week after your birthday, who made you chicken soup and a blueberry galette in your kitchen when you were sick, who you’ve seen naked more times than you can count, is out of her mind and out of her lane.

You’re probably telling yourself that you meant well. That you had always meant well. You said you were sorry. It wasn’t like you were ever together, you’d been dating casually, was it your fault that she was more into you? You told her how much you learned from knowing her, how she helped you realize that maybe you are kind of a piece of shit. But not like a HUGE piece of shit.

No, you don’t deserve this.

Stand straight, focus. She’s still yelling. What is she saying? Her eyes are red, crazed, but not in the good way, not in the stoned, seductively way that you had liked. Full anger. Big Mad. And look, your friends, and your friend’s friends, they’re standing behind her at a safe distance. You hardly know some of them. What are they thinking?

You back it up in your mind. You stopped seeing her in September and, after two failed conversations to end things where she convinced you to keep trying, you broke it off via text. It reminded you of how another woman, Rose, had planted herself on your floor for hours and refused to leave until you changed your mind about breaking up with her. You’d broken up with her on a call at Snoqualmie Pass. Was that your fault?

Are you just a coward?

In the Neptune Theater, while Griff Washburn sang his beachy danceable tunes, this woman was like thirty feet away from you and stared daggers in your direction. You didn’t make eye contact. Instead, you kept her in peripheral like a caged animal watching the movements of a predator. Boy, did she look in your direction. Like every thirty seconds. She danced her heart out. She elbowed you during intermission—nearly knocked over your one of your buddies. You didn’t know she was that strong. That was aggressive, your friend had said.

 Outside, on the corner of 45^th and Brooklyn, she’s running out of steam. She’s stopped telling you and everyone in a twenty-foot radius how terrible you are. Now she’s saying you should have acknowledged her. She’s telling you how invisible you made her feel. After all the things she’d done for you, she asks, after all the things you’d done together, how could you be so cold?

She’s crying.

You wonder if it’s worse to be yelled at outside the Neptune Theater after a Goth Babe concert or if it worse to be sobbed at. Being able to make someone sob outside of a show that was such good vibes is not a good look. What are people thinking as they pass by? Do they think you’re a piece of shit, too?

You think maybe you should hug her. Maybe after everything it took to get to this point right now, that it might all be solved with a little kindness. And you’re a kind guy, right? That’s what guys who go to therapy do.

You tell her you’re sorry but, because you also want to be honest, you tell her that she wants something you can’t give. She pulls away. She wipes her tears.

She says she wants an apology for her, not for you. She calls you a narcissist.

You tell her you’re going now because you’re assertive.

You walk away.

You hope your friends still think you’re a good person. You know that was over the top, but you can’t deny that some of that was your fault.

You wonder if you deserved that.

You’d always meant well, but what does that even mean?