huitzil

This is meant to be read after reading Falling Out and Falling Down, I'll post both, though the new one is going second.

Falling Out and Falling Down
“You try to impress everyone, all the time. It gets annoying.”
Sometimes I wondered if I was doing the right thing. There were only brief moments this summer I spent being myself. It never really bothered me until then.
“Oh.”
I had no response that wasn’t a lie.
She was sitting uncomfortably close to the ledge. Precipice, I called it. She shot me a look that said, “See what I mean?”
Our friendship seemed impossibly easy before then, like every other relationship. I was enclosed in myself, and I liked it that way.
In the weeks before our friendship had somehow lost it’s footing and now I saw it sliding away, and I wasn’t going after it.
“Sometimes it seems like you’re embarrassed by me.”
I stopped myself from saying ‘oh’ again and kept staring at the ocean. It was more beautiful than I had ever noticed it, like it changed when I looked away. A fleeting pang of nostalgia rolled over me as I thought about leaving for the east coast in the fall. I’d never say it out loud, but some part of me would always miss southern California.
“Well, yeah, no, I mean, can’t we still be friends even if I think you act weird sometimes?” My words sounded lame, but I got the feeling that at this point silence would be worse. I hated knowing that the conversation would continue this way, stuttering and incomplete and never really saying what it needed to, which was, I don’t exactly know. I was embarrassed by her, by the way she acted, the way she talked, by this point I even started to cringe at the way she ate. The worst part was I had no rational reason. But it wasn’t all the time. There had been a point in my life when she was the only person I could have an honest conversation with, and now, we were reduced to fractured, general statements and neither of us could explain why our friendship had broken so completely and so quickly.
Far away at the base of the cliff the waves rolled in and couples and tourists wandered through the restaurants and gift shops that lined the harbor. Everything felt heavy and insignificant. And at that moment the combination seemed to make sense.

Before the Ledge

Being friends with Jean meant anticipation and dislocation. Carrying a conversation with her meant remembering what had been said anywhere between five minutes ago to last week. It would come up unexpected.
“But how do you think he really felt?”
The last thing I had said was something about the surly ticket agent.
“Who?”
“The guy in the movie. When he left the apartment, in the stairwell.”
“What?”
“You know, before he got hit by the car.”
“You mean the movie we watched last night?”
We were rarely on the same page. This was never really a problem, or our problem I guess.
Jean was one of those people genuinely fascinated by everything. We sat outside and watched the birds flapping in the fountain.
“I wonder what it’s like to have knees that hinge backwards.”
“Normal I guess, if you’re a bird.”
She stared intently at the water. There seem to be a lot people who go around pretending to be like her. Pointing at sunsets, saying “wow, how gorgeous” and “aren’t we lucky” loud enough for everyone nearby to be impressed at how natural and aware they are. Jean did try, or care if anyone noticed. The bird splashed in the water.
“I’ve never seen a bird do that,” she laughed. I was sure she had, but decided not to say it.
“Oh God, my mom’s calling again.” She let the phone ring. Jean might have been easily amused, but that doesn’t mean she was uncomplicated.
“She thinks it’s completely ridiculous. You should have heard the way she was laughing, it was sickening.” I was lost again. She explained that her mom took unreasonable joy in mocking her brother’s plan to be a professional poker player. I made the mistake of saying it’s not really a job.
“While why not? He’s good at it, he won’t lose money, he’s really careful.”
“It’s just,” I shouldn’t have said anything, but I did, “it’s kind of jerky you know, one of those things where you have to be rich in the first place to get into it and not really care if you lose money which really isn’t your own.”
“I don’t think so, he makes a lot of money, and it’s not like he’s addicted.”
Loving, for Jean, meant complete approval.
“Sorry, just because I said what he did was jerky, doesn’t mean I think he’s a jerk.” He was. We sat in silence. This was becoming more common.
I was caught somewhere between jealousy and disgust. I could never understand loving and not judging, she didn’t seem to know how to separate the two.