Night in the Ruts

All Right--But I Guess the 'I'm Cheating' Fact Kinda Cancels it Out - Steven

I know I fucked up, but I couldn't be happier right now.  Waking up next to Charlie made me the happiest I've felt in a while.  I didn't want to get up.  I wanted to lay next to her forever.  I was comfortable, content, and happy.  In love.  I'm in love with Charlie.

        I'm in love with Charlie.

        Oh, shit.

        What about Annie?

        Oh, God, Annie.  Gorgeous, wonderful, Annie.  Annie that's in love with Joe and not me.  Annie that's still with me.  Annie that I'm in love with.  Or was in love with.  Am I still in love with her?  Can you fall out of love that easily?  What is happening to me?  I feel like a confused teenage girl–

        Holy shit; I completely forgot about Annie!

        Okay, paradoxical, I know.  I was just thinking about her, but I wasn't thinking about the fact that she fucking lives here.  Charlie needs to leave.  Like, now.

        God, but I don't want her to.  I want her to stay.

        Who knows, maybe I'm lucky and Joe and Annie didn't leave Hopedale yet.  And the sad thing is, I know that Joe didn't go to his apartment.  I know exactly where he stayed, and it was in quite a close proximity with his 'best friend'.  Yeah, best friend my ass.

        Fuck, I'm no better.  If my life were one huge analogy or metaphor or whatever the fuck other grammatical phrases you can think of, I would be Annie and Charlie would be Joe.  And I bet Charlie knows this too.

        So why is she here?  If she knows I'm with Annie still, why did she want to stay last night (I knew she wanted to stay all along, by the way.  I simply pretended not to know so that she'd keep kissing me like that)?  Or maybe she doesn't know.

        No, she knows.  She told me so, back at the gig last night...

       Oh man, last night.  Just the thought brings a smile to my face.  And the fact that I remember most of it–for once–is a near miracle.  Maybe that's some sort of sign that we're meant to be together.

        But that sounds too bullshit to be true.  Too fairytale.

        But to contradict that, like I mentioned before, I could just lay here forever.  And I mean, I'm cool with this whole 'laying here forever' thing, obviously, but–and only on some days, it's not everyday–I get bored.  I dunno why.  Maybe I'm not tired enough or something.  Are you putting two and two together?  Okay fine: What I mean is that on some days I could 'lay there forever' with Annie.  But I don't, usually.  Because I get bored.  However today, I am not bored.  Like I said, I am content.  I could in fact go back to sleep, but I don't want to.  Because then I'd be unconscious.  And I don't want to miss any of this... This peacefulness.

--

Okay.  Now I'm bored.  I got back from taking Charlie home about an hour ago (she's like ten minutes away now, so it's not that big a deal), and now I've got nothing to do.  Well, nothing except get hounded by Joey, Tom, and Brad, that is.  I ignore them and try to come up with some sort of lyric for the next album.  A tune, a rhythm, anything.

        But I got nothin'.

        "We're back!" Annie yelled.  Jesus, can't a guy just work on a song?!  It usually takes more than ten minutes to write one, you know.  She found me on the couch and said hello while I watched Joe glower at me from the corner of my eye.  I gave him a shrug like, Hey, you can't win 'em all, and his scowl deepened.