mo-NEEK-a . . . Luke, Pt. 5

People can be disgustingly cruel and evil. Take Kelly for example. Vile, vile creature. As I mentioned before, about the time I met Steven, she and I had hit the skids. As the autumn of my sophomore year wore on,our fights got more violent and more personal. Toward others we could be a couple of Mother Theresas, but toward each other we were Charles Manson. I believe Kelly was getting mental about it. You may wonder why we didn't just go our separate ways. That damn apartment ruined everything. I couldn't afford to kick her out and at themoment she had no place to go. We had to stick it out until December or die fighting.

One night in December, after Kelly had moved all her things out,a group of my friends and her friends showed up at the Black Rose to sort of celebrate our freedom. Everybody was happy and drunk, and somehow Kelly got my apartment keys away from me. I tracked her to the restrooms in the back corridor of the club and found her holding both sets of keys over the toilet. I started toward her, and her latest man grabbed me and pinned my arm behind my back. That's almost the worst thing someone can do to me physically; I practically cry. She probably told him. She dropped the keys with a chilling cackle. Then, one by one, her friends took turns voiding themselves in any which way in that toilet. It caused a slight commotion, which caught Steven's attention. So he got pinned, too.

When everyone was through, they left Steven and me alone in the corridor. I just stood there dumbfounded. I didn't move until Steven told me to hold the door while he went to get something to get the keys out with. I shuffled over a few steps and gazed in horror. In a few minutes he came back, apologetic. There we sat, excavating with cocktail straws for my apartment keys. That was the night Steven became my best friend, and the night he became my roommate.

Reminiscing is one of my favorite pastimes. I don't know how we get into the groove, but sometimes my friends and I can spend hours musing over the past. It's odd how things seem while you're experiencing them compared to how they seem months and years later. Looking back now on my five years with, and without, Steven, I am affected by the most insignificant things. Like the fact that he knew the exact proportions of sugar and creamer I preferred in my coffee. And the way his hand felt in mine. And the way he watched TV. I think about it all now in a new perspective. Perhaps I'm clinging to him. But it all seems so much more meaningful in hindsight. I suppose it always does.

I was such an asshole to him. I didn't really do anything blatantly wrong to him. I didn't put key scratches in his car or kill his cat. I didn't put lotion soap in his toothpaste. I just treated my relationship with him as I would any other. Only it wasn't any other. It was a commitment worthy relationship. Steven knew it. He was very content with me as his significant other, his one and only. I, on the other hand, just didn't know how to say no. If I saw someone I wanted to go out with, I went out with them. It was just the way I was. I didn't sleep around or anything. I just enjoyed myself

Sometimes I try to justify my behavior by saying that I didn't know it was an exclusive relationship. I try to blame Steven for not discussing this with me. That doesn't hold water at all. He was always getting on my case about dating other people. I guess he said it in such a non-confronting way that I convinced myself that he was telling me for my safety. I don't really understand why I refused to commit to him. He means more to me than anyone ever has. Many times I told myself, "He could be the one." Maybe that's what scares me. I really do get scared when I think of being with him. It gives me the same type of chills I get when I think of being forty years old, in a house, with a work-a-day schedule, trudging through waiting to die. My relationship with Steven seemed so, I don't know, final.

I broke up with him before because of my fear. It was the end of my senior year and I was stressing in a major way. Who wouldn't? Soon I wouldn't be a student. I'd be embarking on a career and supporting myself totally. I just freaked. When we got into one of those arguments again, I took the opportunity to just end it. I told him it was hurting me for us to be more than just friends and, of course, it would be easier on both of us if we lived in our own rooms and had our own little separate lives. Steven, being the agreeable person he is, agreed.

It was quite pleasant. We were best friends again, hanging out, passing the time. I made it to graduation, started work at the firm, and started dating a cute little intern. In the long run, she wasn't who I wanted, so I ended up crawling back to Steven. I make it sound like a bad thing. It wasn't. I was very happy with him. I just couldn't accept us being a singular unit.

We lasted for almost a year after that. Then Steven couldn't deal with my philandering anymore. He gave me what could be called the "Marriage Ultimatum" in more traditional situations. I freaked again. I just couldn't commit. The lease for my apartment came up for renewal this past December, as it always does. I signed it alone for the first time.