Nothing New

“I am the one destined to be alone.”

It stood out. Prophetic, intuitive, whatever it was – this written phrase was a cold study of intimidating pen-blue scrawl on shredded, mangled miniature lined paper. If a diary could be threatening, this diary would both terrorize and mystify. The statement bared its teeth like a beautiful, radiant tiger leaping out of a dead, desolately charred jungle. Sam sighed and tore her stare away, resting her gaze on the soft, headache-inducing rapping on her bedroom door. She tossed the diary aside.

“Yes?” In walked her mother. With a scowl, her mother flung the phone at Sam. Sam hesitated for a minute. Not a word. Sam translated her prolonged, tense silence into one word – Jackie. 
“Hey babe. Coming over tonight?” Yes, it was Jackie. Her girlfriend of three months. Three months – at times the equivalent of three years, at other moments, it was way too short, like three days.

“Yeah. I guess I’m not sleeping tonight. Should I do all my yawning now?”
“Yawn now. Don’t even try to yawn during the movie. You can’t knock the awesome movies I’ve got.”
Sam smiled and continued to speak.
“I love you,” she finished.
Jackie hesitated. “Love you too.”

As Sam hung up, she glanced around for her diary. Silently swearing at her persistent sloppiness, Sam admitted defeat and packed a bag. She didn’t ask permission – she knew the answer would be yes. When her mother walked in to retrieve the phone, she eyed the bag and knew. Again, not a word. Sam smiled to herself. Her mother was muttering in the next room.

*******

I met Sam not too long ago, after she had first broken up with this girl named Ana. Crying at a lonely high school lunch table and surrounded by teenaged machines not programmed to handle difficult situations, she was quite miserable. When I approached her, she introduced herself as a trashy misfit that was incompetent when relating to anybody, especially someone as wonderful as her ex-girlfriend.

 I marveled at her oral dissertation on the lovely Ana, whom she described as a “beautiful, talented lezzie ditz,” not to mention a “selfish user.” At nauseating length, she told me everything. I learned about Ana’s mastery of countless instruments and languages, and just how good she was in bed. I could almost see Ana’s glowing smile before me, as though Sam were a chameleon taking refuge in Ana’s soul; I could also feel the tears dehydrating my heart through my eyes – only they were not my own, but Sam’s tears of mourning over her break-up. I rigged the safety net for Sam, and Sam jumped. She confided everything in me thereafter.

I wonder, if she feels destined to be alone, what that would say of me?

*******

She was so different from Ana. It was obvious how flawed Jackie stood, in contrast to Ana’s obnoxious perfection – yet that rendered Jackie human. It was Jackie’s imperfection that exalted her, somewhat illuminating her large form with divinity. Sam lay on Jackie’s comfortable arm sprawled across the pillow, a more fluffy comfort beneath Sam’s neck than the pillow itself. Jackie smiled a strangely familiar smile at Sam before reaching for the light-string, causing Sam to mentally force irritating memories and nostalgia out of the forefront of her mind. 

The darkness was a laxative. As Sam settled back into the warm softness that was her new lover, surrendering her body to this solid keeper while her mind occupied itself with the movie, Ana was temporarily purged from the room. As the lovers in the movie passionately kissed, Jackie remained dead weight beside Sam. A squeeze on the thigh did not arouse her, nor did Jackie move to even hint at affection. Sam reluctantly gave up her efforts. She knew Jackie was not asleep. 

*******

“So, what did you think of the movie last night?” Sam smiled at Jackie, half seductively, half in conflict of playful and serious.
“Actually, as hot as it may have been, it reeked of typicality. Trite! Trite!” Jackie tried to rant with cynicism and criticism, but failed miserably before Sam’s perpetual pseudoserious look. 

“Of course it was ‘typical.’ But I bet it wasn’t when it first came out.”
Jackie smiled at Sam’s play on words, but countered her argument. 
“Yes, it was indeed revolutionary when it came out. But it was accompanied by and succeeded by a wealth of media like it. Homosexuality is the zeitgeist now, Sammy. Same old, same old.”

Sam sighed and calmly stated, “Of course it’s ‘same old.’ What would be a lack of typicality? ET? The Matrix? Do you think people can really identify with creatures from outer space or people fighting in a futuristic computer virtual reality? There’s atypicality. And for the rest of us, there’s romance. And yes, it seems trite on the surface. And maybe romance seems trite to you anyway, because you sure seem to go out of your way to avoid it.”

Jackie swiveled with such force at the implied accusation, Sam was honestly unsure whether or not she had smacked her girlfriend across the face. As Jackie stared at her slack-jawed, Sam feebly continued, “I mean, I love you. And you said you loved me. It’s pure. But I don’t think you want to go there. It’s… too new for you.”

Dignity crept back into Jackie’s countenance, then swelled into a sneer of righteous irony.

“Right. Too new. Every time you touch me, there’s recollection of another’s touch. And I’m sure it’s the same with you, so don’t act like you’re the Holy Virgin’s sister. We’ve already lived. It’s over. There is no novelty, no originality… no purity. It saps the juice out of life, doesn’t it? Sucks the marrow from the proverbial bones. Some day all of humanity will rise and scream a collective, ‘What’s the point?’ And even if humanity is slow to realization, I’m screaming that now.”

*******

I admit it – I’m torn. At one extreme, I agree with Sam’s insistence on unfettered intimacy, and thus can understand her confrontation with Jackie. On the other hand, although I understand it, I cannot completely empathize with Sam. Jackie’s argument was strong, and obviously touched Sam with the unyielding finger of logic. What, indeed, was the point of faking purity, when the dirt in the relationship was so obvious? Sam couldn’t quite answer this question Jackie had posed, but something in her spirit that had not quite assimilated with the cold soul of Ana yearned for true love – what Sam and I consider to be the point of life. 

I drove Sam to school the day after her discussion with Jackie. Although we did examine the event at great length, Sam refused to allow me to call it a “fight.” It was a mark, a flaw in their union. The last thing Sam wanted was a record of hostility so early in the relationship. So she did not refer to it as such. 

My new blue Firebird, the sole gleaning of a one-year fling with my rich last flame, merged onto the highway. Sam was leaning back on the fuzzy faux-leopard fur seat, with her hand resting on the window. 

“I think you should stay with Jackie, but you should also respect her ideas and values.”

“Why? Why the hell should I say with somebody who obviously doesn’t care about me, and who practically swears she could never love again a pure love? All because of an ex? She thinks life is over because of what? A loss of innocence? It’s bullshit! Ignorant, cliché bullshit!” Sam screamed, clawing at the rubber around my window. I winced as she yanked large tufts of fuzz from my seats, marring the shimmering smoothness. 

“Sam, calm down.” I turned onto a country road, my favorite shortcut to school. Placing my hand on her knee, I sighed, “You can’t expect everything to be exactly your way. Give it time.”

In emotional agony, Sam began to paw my floormats and car rug with her muddy sneakers. As I pulled into the senior parking lot and got out, Sam jumped out and angrily asserted,

“It drains my mind. It drenches, extinguishes that damned ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. There is a serious sense of desperation when a teenager expresses sorrow at the imagined premise that life is over at sixteen, and the prime of life has passed already. Sixteen. Jesus, I thought life’s only begun.” She let out a grunt and watched with clenched fists and face as her anger shot through her leg, then dispersed across the surface area of my shiny car door in a vicious kick. Had I not hugged her, she would have collapsed from the sudden loss of energy. Sam gathered and composed herself, grinned at me, and took my hand, preparing to gallivant into the school. Glancing back at my sulking, newly abused car, Sam smiled again and said, “That Firebird you’ve got is so nice. I bet everybody envies it. Such perfection…”