24 hours
March 16, 2004 � 12:07 a.m.
First Entry Today
Today�s Weather: Moody with melancholy skies
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
Laying there afterwards, with him laying across my thigh I suddenly panic and blurt out I was sorry. He makes a noise but says nothing. I tell him I just told him because I wanted to tell him, because it�s how I feel but I don�t want anything from him. He mumbles it�s not true and starts to pull his clothes on. He reaches down and pulls the blankets up over me�sweetly�reverently�then turns his back to me and says he can�t say he feels the same and it�s wrong for us to continue. I ask him if it was goodbye. He says he�ll keep in touch and I fly into a rage, yelling I don�t want shit from him. I tell him I have loved him for years�before we started sleeping together�before he could ever think it possible for me to love him�and it�s my love and he can�t take away from me, he can�t change it, no matter how he feels. I�m starting to feel power in my blood as he stands over me�looking down on me and I blurt that I know he don�t give a shit about me and I know he don�t understand and I know that he�s going to walk away from me and not give a fuck about anything I said and I don�t care, because I didn�t say it to make him love me or trick him into something or anything like that because I know he don�t want me and I�m not his type. Still drunk from the night before I say I know that me telling him I love him will finally make his ass go away because it is the last thing he wants or needs from me. He scrunches his face up in anger and sarcastically calls me a swami and says I just think I know everything. I ask him what don�t I know just as sarcastically. He looks at me a moment and then turns his back on me and grumbles I don�t know anything and slams out of my door, runs down the stairs, and out of my life.
I don�t know nothing.
I sit there thinking about his last words and start wanting to cry as panic seizes my heart. I grab my phone and call Jenny�s cell. Then her house. Then her house again. Then her cell again, and this time she answers. She thinks it�s about my mom but I croak out it�s not her, it�s Swiz and I tell her the story. I know she was sleeping but she didn�t sound like she really gave a fuck. She says a few words to calm me down, but nothing really, and then I am angry and apologize for calling her. I hang up and I feel worse than I did before I called her, because for the first time, I really feel like the friendship is gone. I was a fool for calling her. I thought calling her would make me feel the bond again, that hearing her voice would just calm me and make me feel better, but it didn�t. I was wrong.
I don�t know nothing.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
I wake up, still fucking drunk and barely able to function and I stumble out into the living room, shocked as hell to see my brother must have come home sometime in the night. Meaning he was here when Swiz was there. Meaning my brother heard me screaming and moaning during sex.
Fuck.
I throw on the same clothes from the night before and start driving down to see my mom. The ride was unbearable as thoughts and words haunted my mind�as I tumbled constantly between being relieved and being regretful�as I try my damnedest to keep from calling him or her or anybody and trying to make heads of my life. I just drove on�barreling my way into the future with the radio blaring�screaming along to the music at the top of my lungs, fighting back the panic and fear bubbling inside.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
Still drunk, I pick my dad up and we go to see my mom. The hospital she is in looks more like a swanky hotel than a hospital, and I find myself looking around in awe as I trail behind my dad towards my mom�s room. I walk in and there she was�The Queen. She didn�t look bad, just tired, but her voice was a little weak. She said they just gave her some morphine for the pain. She told us about the procedure and about the diet they will be putting her on. She told us about her new medicine and how she had had another minor heart attack the night before. Then we fell into a comfortable silence. I watching the TV, dad reading the paper, and mom trying to conversate with her estranged father, whom in a panic she had called�and to all our chagrins, he actually came. Sat there feeling scared and powerless, angry at myself because I couldn�t stop thinking about Jenny and Swiz instead of concentrating on my mom, and then when I did think of her and things to say, tears would fill my eyes and I would have to think of something else to keep from crying, to keep from falling apart. She looked so small in her bed, and suddenly so sick lying there, barely able to breathe, the fear creeping into her face as she started to worry about the procedure the next day. I had nothing to say. I was afraid to speak. We just looking at each other and smiling. She was happy I was there�and that was enough. She knew what I wanted to say, I could feel it. When it was time to go, I reached over and she held me real tight and thanked me for coming. I stood back and stared at her�The Queen�and then turned and left.
I took my father home, and I could see the worry on his face, as neither one of us knew what to say to each other to comfort the other. I dropped him and kissed him goodbye, telling him to call if he needed me. He looked so afraid as I backed away from him, and again, the tears threatened, so I turned and rushed out of the door and to my car, driving off into the night. He didn�t come to the door like mom always does, and I was suddenly saddened by that memory of her the last time I had left, wondering how any of us would survive if anything were to happen to her. Reality fucking sucks.
I don�t know nothing.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
On the ride home, I called Leenie to give her an update on my mom. She had been furious with me for not calling her when it happened and wanted the number to call my mom. She said my mom had accepted her son and she loved her for that�loved her. I thanked her and told her about Swiz. She told me she knows he cares about me, but he doesn�t want to admit it. That either he is afraid of hurting me or getting hurt, and I was like yeah right, that�s why he was trying to screw her, too then huh? She said him being stupid has nothing to do with how he feels about me. She said she knows that it�s not done with us�maybe for awhile, but not forever, and he�ll be back. She knows he�ll be back. I wanted to believe her, but I don�t, so I thanked her again, and she made me promise to call her if I need to talk. Leenie. For years she has been there for me, but I thought we had drifted and just become drinking buddies, but I was so wrong about that. She came through more than anyone else.
I don�t know nothing.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
I lazed around the house when I got home, worrying about my mom, regretting how things with Swiz had turned out, and mad at Jenny for not checking in on me. Even when I told her about my mom she hadn�t called me. Jenny. Leaving me in a lurch. When I heard her ring on my phone, I didn�t answer it in time, and when I heard the message, I was shocked as shit.
It was Cowboy.
He asked me to call him back at work. So I call him and he throws me by asking if I had seen Jenny, and I scoff and say no and ask why. He said he hadn�t seen her in a few days and thought I knew where she was, or that she was at my house. I laugh and say no, I hadn�t seen her. He asks me what I was doing and I told him I was worrying about my mom. He asked me what was wrong with her, and I became furious, because that meant Jenny hadn�t told him. So I told him, and he became sad and I heard his confusion and hurt as he gave me �comfort� and told me if I needed him�for anything�to just call or come over�that he was there for me, and I was too surprised to say anything. I just laughed and reminded him that he was either never home or sleeping and he said it didn�t matter. If I needed him�I should call, and we hung up. Cowboy. Coming though and being a decent guy. I found it disturbing though, that I wasn�t worried about Jenny or where she might be, since I knew she got out of work early, and it seemed strange that she hadn�t been home when he woke up. I wondered where she was and then shrugged it off. She�s always too tired to deal with me, but she goes to the movies with Sassy and talks with other folks and apparently goes out to see people but, not me. Not me. And that shit hurt like hell to think about it, so I didn�t.
I went to bed and tossed and turned, exhausted but unable to sleep. I kept hearing Swiz, kept feeling him inside of me, next to me�kept smelling him on my pillows. But the tears did not come. Finally, Morpheus crept into my room and kissed my eyelids and rocked me into dreams that I can�t remember.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�
I woke up the next morning around the same time Swiz had left the morning before, and as my eyes focused, I saw something lying on the pillow next to me. I reached over and picked it up. It was my heart bracelet that has my name on one side of the heart and �unbreakable� on the other. My unbreakable heart. My unbreakable heart is broken. I sat up and stared at it, unable to believe the site of if gleaming in my hands. I love that bracelet�the symbolism of it. It was the only heart I had that couldn�t be broken. And there it was. Broken. My unbreakable heart is broken.
It was then that the tears came. I cried, cried so hard I started to dry heave. Cried so hard that the stars shattered. Cried for my mom. For Swiz. For Jenny. For the world.
For me. I cried until it was time for me to get up and go to work. I got up and put my broken heart on my dresser and left it there, slick and hot from my tears, and went on to work. I left my heart sitting there and didn�t even look back, believing when I came home it would be magically fixed and everything would be alright.
When I came home, it was still sitting there. Broken.
I don�t know nothing�
except that I am glad that I made it through the last 24 hours in one piece.
My heart was the only thing broken.
Tick, tock�tick, tock�tick�