Self Help

Part 2

Maybe my relationship with Jake made sense in the overdramatic hormone fueled mind of a sixteen year old, but to say the same for its second go in my twenties would be impossible.

It was my twentieth birthday and I was in Jake's car, parked just a few cars down from my own driveway, making out like teenagers. "In my twenties," I said matter-of-factly, "I will make better choices". This of course was in reference to the messy "relationship" I'd just ended with James, but no statement could have been more ironic. 

I'd learned from Jake that love could, and would, hurt me.

I was drawn to Jake like a moth to flame. Back in my sleepy town for the summer after my second year of University, I was bored and looking for something, or someone, to pass the time with. Jake had heard I was back in town and asked me to meet up with him.

The last time I'd seen him had been almost six months earlier, when he'd shown up at my aparment in Ottawa. He'd brought his on-again off-again girlfriend to the city for a hockey game. Even though they were technically off. Again. They'd had a huge blow out fight and he'd left her in their hotel room and headed out to see me.

I felt terrible that I was helping him do something as rotten as leaving her alone in a hotel room in a strange city for the night, but for some reason I couldn't resist. We went and played pool with some friends and then headed back to my apartment.

We talked for hours. We talked about everything that had gone wrong in our relationship, and everything that had gone wrong since. We laughed and we cried about everything that had happened as if no time had passed. There was still a spark between us, but I shoved it down inside me. I was seeing someone else and it felt wrong to even go there with his ex sleeping alone in a hotel down the street.

Finally at about three in the morning I said goodbye to him and he headed for his car. There was only one problem - there were no cars on the street. 

Jake had missed the city signs warning that all cars would be towed when the trucks came by for snow removal. The sky was black and snow was falling lightly in the orange glow of the street lamps. Bundled up with scarves and mittens, we headed out to search for someone to help us. We walked for about twenty minutes until we found a city worker. He made a few calls and directed us to the lot where the towed cars had been moved. 

It was four am. when Jake finally said goodbye. We hugged, and he left without turning back.

For months after this I didn't think much about him. After James and I called it quits, Jake would call from time to time, and we would lose hours talking on the phone. I felt like I was sixteen again. 

It had begun innocently enough. We'd been spending time together as "friends". Ironic, since I realized we'd never been just friends. Outside our relationship, we'd only ever existed together in the tension that begins a romance or the aftermath that it leaves behind. 

During these weeks, I still maintained limited contact with James. I'd moved home for the summer after failing to find full time work. Before I'd left ottawa, I'd watched 46 movies in four weeks, and begun chronicalling them in a detailed list. You get the picture.

Mostly James would call when he was drunk, or lonely, or the killer combo - drunk/lonely. He was crumbling under family pressure and struggling to fit back in to the group of friends he'd left behind, who had all attended the same university without him. 

I'd been staying at my sister's house when my phone rang. It was 1 am.

"Vic, it's me", he breathed into the phone. 

"I know it's late, but I needed to talk to you. I need you here with me, no one gets me like you do babe..." he sounded almost desperate. 

So I found myself sitting in the dark of my sister's living room, comforting James for the next hour. 

Finally, his attention turned briefly towards me. 

"Can I see you?" he ventured.

After all, our home towns were only about 45 minutes away, with buses to and from every day.

"Well, my birthday is coming up, so maybe you could come for that. You could meet my friends..." I trailed off. Against my better judgement, I felt hope rising in my chest. 

And then the excuses began. I had become so accustomed to this from him, I didn't even hear the words he was saying. I didn't need to. It would always be the same.

His last offer - "maybe you could come here, I mean, that's really more convenient for me."

"I'm sure it is," I was annoyed now.

"Goodbye James", and I hung up.

I'd finally given up, tired of his excuses and tired of being available, on call, to comfort him and revive his ego when he needed it. 

I realized then that he would never pay me back, he would never be there when I needed him. It was, and always would be, all about James.

And after all, he'd warned me.

What attracted me so much to Jake was how much he wanted me.  For all James' shortcomings it had been his indifference to me that had been the hardest to swallow. And now here was Jake, at my feet, begging to be taken back, eager to show how much he'd changed and repent his past wron-doins.

As always, I couldn't say no.

The more time we spent together, the more I felt him trying to get closer to me. He wanted to be more and I could feel it. We started spending more and more time together and before I realized it, we'd begun dating without the romance. We saw eachother a few times a week, we talked on the phone and texted all the time. 

All it took was for him to lean over and kiss me, and eventually, he did. 

And then reality hit me - or at least swatted at me from a distance.

In the back of my mind, I knew this was a bad idea. After all, we'd broken up years ago for a reason. Several reasons, in fact, and good ones at that. But like I said, I was addicted to the attention and I didn't want to be on my own. 

I told him I wouldn't date him. I vowed we'd never be together again. But I couldn't stop seeing him, and I didn't stop him from slipping back into the boyfriend routine we'd had as teenagers. At this point my word didn't mean much.

So that is how I found myself in that car, on the brink of adulthood, promising to do better, but knowing I wouldn't.

And I was only getting started.