“I’m so glad you have confidence in me,” I said.
“I really don’t,” Gabe said. “I don’t mean that in a bad way, it’s just that you got hired in over me, and we’ve known each other for all of, maybe two hours today. I’m just trapped by society into being an Emotional Support Gay.” He put a finger up to his mouth, and said “Shhhh. Don’t tell anyone else.”
“You want to come with? I guess there’s no time like the present, and I’m pretty much caught up on my department planning. Your templates looked great, by the way.”
“Well, clearly. But you know, I can’t right now,” Gabe said. “I was going to take a self-care day after busting my ass so hard on those, well, I don’t know, I heard the phrase ‘great templates’ thrown around.” He waved finger quotes.
“What is it with you Chicago urbanites and self-care days?” I asked, and Gabe shrugged insincerely as I headed off, purse on my shoulder.
* * *
After some moaning about it, Tamara came and picked me up, and we chatted on the way there.
“So we’re going to a place called the Night Market in the daytime,” Tamara said.
“Probably safer this way,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“I mean, yes, but is safety really what you’re after? You know as well as I do, this is an excuse to catch the trail of the dick that ran away.”
“Tamara, that’s unfair.”
“Is it?”
“Tamara, I know I haven’t been talking about this often, but you know. Everything that happened at home—with Mark—“
Tamara scoffed at his name.
“PLEASE tell me you are not losing sleep over that loser,” she said. “Still.”
“You don’t understand,” I said.
Tamara hit the steering wheel.
“No, you don’t understand. You should not lose sleep over a man who cheated on you and left you high and dry like that.”
“Tamara, nobody gave him a chance.”
“Girl, don’t sit here in my car and defend that man.”
“You don’t know what it was like to date me. I feel like I turned him into this monster. He was just so kind and sweet, and I just feel like I sucked all the joy right out of him.”
“You know that’s not how it happened.”
“He waited for me so long to get my head together, and then I just flaked on him. By the time I was serious, I just. I can see how frustrating that might have been. At any second, I could have just flaked again. And why should he have expected anything different?”
“I want to enjoy this trip with you, instead of turn this into a sermon, but at some point, we are going to have to sit and talk about defending yourself instead of seeing the good in everyone.”
“I can’t help my nature,” I said.
“It gets exhausting being your emotional repair person,” Tamara said. “Maybe start thinking about this relationship, you know, with your best friend. Every time this happens, I swoop in to rescue you. I love you, but I feel like it’s this pattern we’re in. You overextend yourself, you get all wrapped up in your head, you take a chance on someone you know better than. And then it happens, and you don’t expect it, somehow, and then you just shatter. And there I am sweeping you up and gluing you back together. And you can’t even seem to say ‘hey, he shouldn’t have broke me like that.’”
“I know it’s hard, being my friend,” I said.
“Being your friend isn’t hard. It’s seeing you hurt yourself, over and over again.”
We rode in silence for a while in the car. Tamara’s words were well-meaning, but it hurt. I knew how hard it was for me to go through it—after all, I was going through it—but I didn’t realize how bad the effect had been on her. It was a weird mixture of self-loathing and empathy that caused a pity cry. I blinked water back, checking my eyeliner in the visor mirror.
“Look. I guess I was trying to say. I felt something. With him. Eddie, I mean. I haven’t felt that way in so long. I can’t describe it.”
