Taylor Wollen
15 February 2015
I like you, Greg. Or maybe I used to. Maybe Past Me decided that letting you in while you wore your pathetic dangerous smile like a romantic weapon in my quarters meant that you got to rule not just my island, but my head and my heart. And you did, Greg Anson, you did.
"Taylor," you said to me on the phone, as calm and as collected as the seashell you dug up, forcibly if I may add, as seen with my own eyes down on Siloso Beach and given to me as an anniversary present last month, which you thought I hadn't seen and you thought that I loved. "I think it's better that we break up."
"Again?" I replied.
I was sniffling. You couldn't hear that, could you? You couldn't even hear me through those machine gun bullets pelting out at demons in those headphones everytime I came by and said hi. All you did was wave me off. Not once, not twice, but if I had decided to count I might have gotten lost through the thousands of times.
"Yes, for real," you said.
"This isn't a game, Greg," I said.
"I know, and it has never been for me."
"And would you care if I said the same?"
You sighed, and somehow I can see you doing that expression again. The droopy eyes and head hanging low. I let you win. I always do. Because you're Greg Anson, and I'm Taylor Wollen, and when it comes to us, you're through the door, come and you go, easy as you like, as if you were scoring another goal on that football simulation game that you always pick up and play whenever you were bored with sponging bullets at zombies, fist in the air, dry-humping the blue pillow I sent you as a birthday gift as if it was a signal for something or a terrible joke.
Greg, certainly you didn't think that love was a game, was it? Your girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend if we want to make it crystal clear) is under the weather, and from where I lounged, in my big-ass couch with my feet pointed up to the sky through the window like a turtle doing its best to flip over, I could see the disdain in the ocean of clouds.
"I'm sorry," you said, like you always said, as if they were the magic words to a Disney channel commercial with fingers sliding up across the screen to vanish all evil from ever existing in my now swollen heart. As if that was your superweapon and you were a superhero. But that would never be it, since that would make me a supervillain, and I don't necessarily wield all the powers to stop you from ever doing whatever you want.
"You're not." It's true, you were not sorry.
"I am," you said.
Trust me, Greg. You're not. Not then, not now, not never.
"Maybe you'll call me again when your head and heart is in the right place," I said.
You sighed, again, and then you stopped talking. I know, not because we've been together for two-and-a-half years, but because you do this all the time. Maybe I've cared too much and I need a break. A break from you.
"Maybe," you said, and you hung up.
Jesus Christ, Greg.
I wished I could have held you. I wished I could have told you, "Greg? Maybe you want to come over, talk face-to-face, maybe we'll be better off with each other, maybe we'll make better decisions. The right decisions." I didn't. Not because I didn't try. Not because I was sick, and certainly not because you were Greg and I was whoever the hell I was.
Because I knew that nothing would change if I did, so what was the point? What was the point in ever bringing up our next little escapade if you decided to drop it in a couple of hours?
"We'll take a ride on the rollercoaster the next time we're around," you said during that one time I decided that it was a good idea to put my heart in my mouth for a couple of darn minutes. All I said was "Just once" and you went off like you had struck the Powerball, or every country's equivalent of the lottery.
In the next hour you decided to drop it, thinking of something new, something 'fun', something extravagant, where you could show me off like a trophy girl, hands to the skies, appearing in every little one of your stupid Instagram post and story, putting me and you together up as a wallpaper on your phone even though you never needed my consent, showing it to whoever the hell that had half an interest in who the girl was.
"Taylor Wollen," you would say, sardonic smile and all. "She's my girlfriend," you would say, like the world owed you an ovation that you had claimed me, like it was fate, tempted and divine.
What was the point, Greg? Whatever was the point? If I showed you the door, you'll come running right back, keys in left chest pocket, but you won't ever say what I want to hear. In fact, you won't even see me. Well, you'll see me, yes, but not see me. You think that I'm willing to be pulled along, another one for the ride, sleigh bells and Rudolph and your fat sack of lies.
Did you know that I tried to call you? When you hung up, which I must be accurate in saying this that you did, and I tried to call you. I remembered your phone number by heart, which I realise in the digital age seems less important now.
You didn't know that I wanted to call. You weren't supposed to. I was just expecting my temporary flu to outlast every runaway decision to stop this break up, with an intention to fix it. I'm a silly little girl, right? The flu and the number of times I had put tissue up to my nose... Just like the angels above, they were probably sick of it too.
I wanted to salvage this relationship, or whatever the hell was left of it. What I saw when I had decided to put my phone down was the date, which if I were to remind myself of it again would be robbing Poor Old Me of a comfortable rest. And perhaps you needed to know: I didn't have a comfortable rest. In fact, since your Private Service Announcement, I don't think my next couple of hours lasted well. My flu was turning harsh, and the room was blistering cold. Then I thought of you, while holding the controller to the conditioner in the room. Next thing I knew was that I had thrown it as far away as possible, like a Wii remote at the television screen because I had made the mistake of placing you in my mind. Accidentally, yes, but again.
I will admit, Greg, that thinking of you did make me smile. Not the maddening kind, cause' that means I'm still in love with you. It was more like the partial kind, and the partial kinds are the ones I can't stand because they are always a step up to the next thing, and the next thing always gets me.
I'll go on to remember our special dates, our food-tasting spree all across Japan, our wasted efforts in trying to help this elderly woman translate her son's message into Chinese when we travelled to Disneyland. Not that they weren't good memories, Greg, but they were everlasting, like that stupid love song Selena Gomez keeps singing that she loves about. Anyway, I hated that song, and I hated you singing it.
Why couldn't you ask me, for once, what I liked? What I loved? All you do is play the music you want to hear. "Hear hear," I bet it's what you said whenever you decided to shuffle your playlist through the loud blue rings on top of the desk that you decidedly call 'amplifiers', following it up with "special selection from Greg Anson" and "for your ears and mine only," trudging through the distorted electronic dance music of today.
I don't hate the songs you played, but please, don't play it to the next girl. Show some decent act of, I don't know, awareness? If you could make memories everlasting to anyone, why not reflect them upon who you are? Perhaps it's too late. For you, it's definitely too late.
You know what? I don't care anymore, Greg. Live your life. Take your sensations and make it a hit. To me, you were the pouring rain just outside of my sparkling window. I won't let you in because I could drown, but I'll watch you from time to time, thinking of what could have been if I ever did.
That night I caught myself slipping away again. The flu was still strong, and the dark purple sky had been rather bright to a dull day.
I thought I would sleep, catch a different kind of break. The ones that don't simultaneously hammer your heart and rebuild it. The hours were rolling by, and for one second the drift had taken me in.
Then the Goddamn phone rang.
Who the hell decides to call at midnight with absolutely no reason why? Well, a reason I would be dastardly angered to hear about. If only I could put away this flu, or exchange this stupid nose for a new one.