The rickety red shuttle bus stops at the corner. It is completely dark outside but you can see the white snowflakes dotting the surroundings. The buildings are familiar; I have seen these for three years now, more than three years. They form the complex called Science Center, where most science lectures and class sections are held and computing resources are available to students. There is a cafe inside offering food for those who don't wish to venture outside to get their meals from the dining halls, if they are on a meal plan. There is also a library for scientists. In the basement level are the rows and rows of computers. It was among the rows and rows of computers that I revealed my love to her, this woman, silent and distant, sitting next to me. It was in the early days of email and we were still using text-based email programs, nothing with a window to drag, not even a mouse, all keyboards, all command-line based. It was with the command-line and key strokes that I sent her the missive saying I wanted her, that I wanted her body and soul.
It was also here in this science complex that I first met her. Ironically it was not for science. The lecture hall where I first laid my eyes on her was used for French exam for determining which level you were in. I saw her and her big smile and felt there was something incredibly attractive about everything she carried in her eyes, in her face, in her smiles. And her accent just added to the exotic nature of her demeanor. We would later joke again and again that I thought she was trying to copy my answers so I had to be extra careful with covering my answer sheet. Such was the attitude of someone very competitive. Little did I know that she was completely fluent in French and had read more French literature than I did English ones. And even more, she was even more competitive than I have ever been.
The shuttle opens the door to the outside. We are now seniors. I could have graduated a year earlier, but I wanted to be with her. Besides, what was I going to do? I was so lost. I've always been lost in many respects. I felt attached to her, or as the older of my younger sisters said, I was co-dependent. I need her presence to feel whole, or at least to feel more complete than when I am alone. We have had many fights and many tears and even some violent scuffles, but we have been too co-dependent on each other to let go. Actually, we did let go once. Last summer, just when the semester was ending. She finally found someone else to be co-dependent on. It was not an easy separation as she still had feelings for me. In fact, she even included me in the discussion of her desire to break away from me. It was a civilized discussion in front of my dorm. I believed it was for the best to give her space and let her go so that we could both see how strong our relationship really was. She would still come visit me. One time when we were getting ready to leave my room, she kissed me, then felt guilty and said, "I wish the world would let me have both people." Although I was ready to let her go as a test of the strength of our relationship, I soon started to miss her, and more so everyday. Strangely, we planned to meet in Paris that summer, despite the breakup. Such were the symptoms of two co-dependent people not ready to let each other go, however necessary it was. During the trip in Paris nothing confusing happened, but I was becoming more frustrated at the breakup. Nothing rational was admitted anymore, just frustration that I had lost someone. I was no longer afforded the intimacy we had, the openness, and all the while we still got on each other's nerves the same way we had when we were still dating.
She continued to stay in Paris for her internship there after I returned to New York for the remainder of the summer break. Then shortly before the fall semester started, she came to New York and we both drove to school. It was the first time I got my car to school. Not surprisingly, we got into fights, at least in the beginning of the roadtrip as I was trying to get out of the confusing streets of New York. (This was way before Google map existed, before even Internet Explorer showed its face on computers.) I can't remember if we were still in a bad mood when we arrived in Harvard Square. But there I had a strange feeling something dramatic would happen, and up to this day I am still not sure if it was a coincidence or planned. Since neither one of us had cell phones back then (which were only in the hands of business people), I can't imagine she had arranged things the way they were without a phone. When she got out of the car, I had this strange feeling that her boyfriend was around. I turned my head and there he was on his motorcycle. I could not have recognized him because he now had a big beard; I only knew it was him because she had a warm, big smile when talking to him. She thanked me for the ride, but I said nothing and just drove on.
I don't know how I survived that day, or the days afterwards. To have seen the woman you want in your life, in however irrational a way, go off to someone else (especially on a motorcycle), must have been dreadful. I had no other friends to console with, and that very summer I had lost my best friend from high school after a fight over what would be called "snail mail" now. What a way to start a semester!
And now here she is again, next to me. She has been "back" since a few weeks after I sent her off to the motorcycle, bearded Sikh. She was unhappy with him, but for reasons I still don't know, escept that he was not understanding, arrogant, and mistreated her. He wasn't the person she thought he was. So instead of being alone away from the complications of the world, she came back to me. On this ride to the corner where we are stopped now, we were just arguing who took whom "back". Since we are such proud people, we both said we took the other person back.
The last few months have been worst in all the three years I had known her. There have been even more arguments, some violent, humiliating, and less and less, of course, the intimacy I so missed when we broke up that summer. It's strange why two people insist on sticking together in a relationship where they abuse each other almost as if they enjoy it. We can vent our anger about the world on the other person while testing to see how lonely we will end up. This little mechanism works until either someone decides to leave or finds a different outlet. It is the same case as the previous time, before the summer breakup.
And again, she decided to leave. And tonight, here in this rickety Crimson shuttle, our relationship, part II, ends. It is a strange feeling. A feeling that I should be relieved that it's over, especially now that I see there is nothing good at all about being together, not the connection, not the sex, not any future to look forward to; this second try served that simple purpose of showing that there is no future and the present is extremely nonsensical. The feeling that despite the obvious I am unable to say good bye. At least I don't want to. She gets up, we are both in a rather bad mood, and I see her descend from the dimly lit interior of the shuttle into the dark, gray exterior blanketed with snowflakes. She's going back to that same man, who is now clean-shaven, I've heard, and who has sworn to change his ways for her.
The door of the shuttle bus closes with a creak, and the rocking starts again as it sputters its engine and puts itself in motion. Suddenly, I feel an acute desperation. I don't care that being with her is poisonous, that like my Mother she has done nothing to make me feel good about myself but everything to make me feel worth far less than I am. It also doesn't matter that I have likely hurt her immensely, just in different ways from her means of torment. I saw her silhouette disappear towards this complex where I first laid my eyes on her and where I confessed my love to her and where we spent so much time together dawn because being together was far better than alone in this dreadful world of competitiveness, lovelessness, and cruel acts by strangers. It's somehow better to take all this evil and nurture it inside this relationship.
I don't pay attention to the buildings that flash before my eyes in the darkness. I wonder what others in this contraption of a moving vehicle are thinking. What are their preoccupations? When was the last time their hearts have been broken over and over again for the most ridiculous reasons? I can't mourn. There is no one to mourn with. But I don't want to be alone tonight, even though the inevitable awaits me like death for everyone. I will be back in my dorm, in my room next to the pot-smoking, sex-crazed, and rancorous "sink-mate". And whatever level is my anger, my pain, my disgust with life will go unheard. Again I am left alone and have no evil relationship to hang on to. I wonder how I will get through the night, and I wonder how I will get through the next, and the next. Life suddenly becomes an immensely long road, one I am not looking forward to making accomplishments like we here within these ivy towers are told to feel, but one where the rest of the road is even more dreadful than the previous 21 years.
