Broken Hearts Damaged Goods (4 page)

By

Jack
Webber

W
hen I was a child, I would have a hard time going
to sleep.  I slept for a while with a teddy bear.  I think it was supposed to
give you comfort just holding it and knowing that you weren’t alone in the
dark.

I don’t think I ever felt alone, but then again, I
shared a room with my brother.  I used to try to talk to him.  He then got mad
at me because he was trying to sleep, so I ended up talking to the moon.  My
logic was that the moon wasn’t going to have to go to sleep.  And because it’s
not a person, I could talk to it while still having my brother hear everything
that I wanted to say, even if he didn’t want to listen to me.

Somehow growing up, I outgrew teddy bears and
talking to the moon.  I, however, have not outgrown holding something close to
me at night and talking about my random thoughts that I consider somehow
important as I am trying to sleep.  It’s just that now instead of a teddy bear,
I hold a beautiful woman in my arms.  And instead of the moon, I talk to this
same beautiful woman.

Women are far superior to teddy bears and the moon. 
Women are warmer on cold winter nights.  They are also more receptive to being
held.  A teddy bear can only receive the love that you give it.  Women can give
love back to you.

Women are also greater conversationalists than the
moon.  You can actually talk to a woman and get her to respond to you.  I know
this fact might surprise some men out there, but it’s true.  Try talking to
that woman that is in your arms at night, and you’ll get some of the best
conversation you have ever had.

Here’s another little known fact.  Do you know that
we can see the moon because it is reflecting the sun’s light?  I know this is
pretty advanced science for some of you out there, but I think it important
enough to point out.  If you can find the right woman to hold in bed and talk
to while you are trying to fall asleep, you can actually have her reflect part
of what you are. 

When you consider that a woman in bed with you could
just be orbiting you in the dark, I think her being able to reflect a part of
you is essential.  Nobody enjoys a night sky when all we see is the dark side
of the moon.  We like the full moons that fully reflect the sun’s light.

Now, I know you think all of my glowing insights
just now have a point.  And you’re right about that.  Never tell a girl that is
in bed with you that you prefer her to that ratty teddy bear you had as a
child.  And be doubly sure that you never compare her to a giant orb in the
sky. 

Sept. 15, 2010

I’m starting to get a little horny.  It’s not that I
need a lot of sex, or am even looking for sex right now.  I’ve been enjoying
the cuddling with Jack these past few days.  I just need a little more physical
contact.  And I think physical contact was one of the things he promised me
when we said that we would be each other’s cocoon.

I talked to Megan today about how the best way to
approach this was.  She thinks I’m falling in love with Jack and want to make a
move on him when he is still in love with somebody else.  I’m not, and I think
that would be extremely insulting to Jack.  I care too much about him as a
friend to ever treat him like that.

It’s just that I’ve been sleeping with him since
last Friday.  I can’t very well help him get over Brittany by kicking him out
of my bed, so that I can pick up a random guy to satisfy certain physical needs
I have.  It would break his already fragile heart.

Plus it isn’t going to help me any if I hook up with
some random guy.  The whole purpose of me entering this cocoon rehab is to stop
a certain life pattern that I have found myself in lately.

So now I have to find some way to get more physical
with him.  I’m not talking sex.  I just want a little kissing.  A make out
session would be great.

It doesn’t have to be romantic or anything.  He can
just come to bed in his t-shirt and sleeper pants and start making out with
me.  He will have a little bit of five o’clock shadow, which is kind of sexy,
especially when you couple it with the fact that he still smells of after
shave.

He can start with some soft, tender kisses. I may
not be looking for anything romantic, but you don’t want to start a make out
session with full on tongue action.  Tongue is okay once you have gotten warmed
up and actually know the guy and his kissing style a little bit better.

I know that it would be easier to make out with him
if there was alcohol involved, but that seems like it would make things more
confusing for us.  I mean, we are just using each other to get over a break up,
even if I do enjoy spending time with him.  I think alcohol would make us
question why we made out.  I don’t want to give him the impression that I am
looking for a relationship or anything.

I will have to think about how the best way to
approach this is.  I don’t want to come off desperate and lonely.  And I don’t
want to make him think that I am falling for him when I know that he isn’t over
Brittany.  I need him in my life right now, and I think I am good for him in
some ways.  I just don’t want to betray him as a friend.

By

Jack
Webber

I
have heard about love hangovers, but I have never
really understood what they were.  If they are anything like a regular
hangover, then I would assume that they happen when you ingest too much love. 
You feel fine as you are taking it all in.  It’s fun and intoxicating.  And
then you wake up with a splitting headache, wondering what happened the night
before.

I’ve been a love alcoholic now for four years.  I
thought I was having a good time with the love of my life.  I couldn’t have
been happier.  But looking back on it now, the time was a blur.  I don’t
remember a lot of it.  I just remember that I was enjoying myself and felt good
about life in general.

If I had any problems, I would just go to her.  I
talked my problems over her like I would with a glass of beer and my best
friend.  And she made my problems manageable.  She made my problems go away.

If I had anything to celebrate, she was right there
with me.  I thought it was because I was celebrating with her, but I think it
had more to do with the fact that I could find an overabundant supply of her
always in my hand.  She made the good times better.  She made me forget what I
was celebrating.

If I didn’t see her for a day, I started to go
through withdrawal.  I didn’t know what to do with myself.  I couldn’t make it
through the day.

After a four year binge, I am starting to sober up. 
I actually entered rehab the night of the breakup.  It seems that alcohol isn’t
really the answer for a love hangover.  I tried that first.  It dulled the
senses when I still wanted to know that the last four years were real. 
Altering the senses to try to cure your altered senses puts you in a state
where you don’t know what is real anymore.  There is also the problem with
drunk dialing.

To avoid this pitfall, I checked into a room at the
Heartbreak Hotel.  Some people might think this is sad and pathetic.  The ones
that think this are the ones that are still drunk on the elixir of love.  They
can’t see that they are the sad and lonely ones.

Do you know most people in a couple are in a couple
because they are afraid of being alone?  A relationship is insurance against
spending time alone with yourself.  As much as you would like to think that you
are a marvelous individual, a lot of people find out that they don’t enjoy
actually spending time with themselves.  But if we can get somebody to enter a
relationship with us, we think that somebody else must like us other than our
family.  And let’s be honest.  We all know that our family loves us because
they have to.  If we hadn’t been born into our families and had just met them
in the normal course of life, we wouldn’t even be friends with them.

So being in a relationship is a confidence builder
that will eventually lead to inflicting a family upon some other person that is
born to you.  That is more sad and pathetic than me staying here at the
Heartbreak Hotel.

My eyes have been opened the past week as I have
spent my nights with a girl that I hardly know.  Before you judge me in your
self-righteousness, way up high in the security of your relationship, please consider
that I have experienced love from both sides now.  I am a fairer judge of the
merits of both.

Although I was with a girl for four years and
thought that she was the love of my life, I can’t tell you what I loved about
her.  I don’t know what attracted me to her.  There were physical things, but I
can only seem to think about her personality and all of the things that she did
to annoy me.

But now that I have been staying at the Heartbreak
Hotel, I can tell you that meeting a girl that has also had her heartbroken is
vastly more interesting than any girl I have ever met.  And it has nothing to
do with her physical beauty.  It has to do with the fact that she has a
personality that is fully formed and not part of some couple.  She has her own
thoughts and opinions.  We can actually discuss things.

Sure we are both recovering from a broken heart, but
we are spending time together because we are complete individuals that enjoy
each other’s company.  We don’t need the insurance of a relationship to keep us
from feeling alone.  And while you might think that we are sad and pathetic, I
feel sorry for you.  You have never been free enough of a relationship to find
the beauty within you and within another human being.

You have sacrificed the freedom of your individuality
for the security of a relationship.  Ben Franklin was right when he said,
“Anyone who trades liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security.”

Sept. 16. 2010

Of all of the guys I
have ever known, Jack is the most mysterious.  I had planned on seducing him,
or at least discussing the fact that I needed a little physical contact.

When I entered the
bedroom, he was already in bed.  He smiled at me and watched me as I walked
over to the bed and got in.  He then started to play with my hair as he said,
“You’re really beautiful, you know that?”

I’ve had guys tell me
this before, but it was a move that they were using on me to try to get
something out of me.  Jack was sincere.  It was like he saw me enter the room
and noticed something about me that he hadn’t seen before.

I might have been
wearing one of my sexier night gowns due to the fact that I was looking for
some action last night, but...

I’ve had guys hit on me
because they thought I was hot.  They’ve told me that I’m beautiful, but they
always did so as they stared at my chest.  I’ve never had a guy tell me that
I’m beautiful while actually meaning something other than my physical
appearance and while looking me in the eyes.

Well, he didn’t
maintain eye contact the entire time.  In that extended moment of silence where
I couldn’t think of anything to say, he spent some of it looking at my lips. 
And he got close to me like he wanted to kiss me, but then he didn’t.

He just smiled,
gracefully backed away to a socially acceptable distance for two people that
have been sharing a bed while not dating, and said, “I just thought you would
like to know that.”

And all I could say
was, “Thank you.”

And then there was
another silence as we were there together, not even looking at each other.

Maybe I should have
helped him to kiss me.  I think that is what he wanted to do.  And I know that
he is having a hard time being intimate because of Brittany.  He thinks of her
all of the time.  I know that he is thinking about her when he’s holding me and
caressing me.

Maybe that’s why I
didn’t want to help him kiss me right then.  It was the first time that he was
actually going to kiss me, the person he’s been getting to know the past week.

Maybe my intentions for
kissing him were more than just a physical need that I had.  But as soon as I
knew that he wanted to kiss me, I wanted him to take the lead and kiss me.  No
matter how badly I wanted him to kiss me at that moment.  I wanted it to be
special and not just a make out session with another guy.

And in that awkward
moment of silence as I was thinking about everything that I was feeling and not
able to express, I started to cry.  If there was anything that I did not want
to do at that moment, it was cry, especially in front of him.

And being the type of guy
that he is, he noticed that I was crying and asked me what was wrong.  Why
couldn’t he have been like every other guy I have dated and just pretended to
be asleep or ignore me completely when I cried?  I cried after I lost my
virginity, and James didn’t even try to console me.  He seriously just rolled
over and pretended to be asleep.

But Jack.... Jack was
genuinely concerned about why I was crying, which made me cry all the more.  I
was crying so much that I couldn’t tell him that nothing was wrong, which only
fueled his concern, which fueled my crying.  As he continued to find out what
was wrong, I had to eventually roll away from him.

I then felt his slight
touch against my black satin night gown.  As his gentle touch caressed me in a
way to let me know that there was another human being there next to me that
would listen to anything I had to say without judging me, he started to
apologize for making me cry.

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t
mean to...  When I said that you were beautiful, I just meant that...  Having spent
the past week with you, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot more to you than I ever
saw when you were with Steve.  I don’t think he quite knew what he had in you”

And then I turned
around to face him.  I had to.  If I hadn’t, he would have just continued to
say things that would make me love him more.

“You’re fine.  I’m not
crying because you said I was beautiful.  I mean, I am, but just because I was
planning on telling you that I wanted you to make out with me.  I felt anything
but beautiful, even though you think otherwise.”

And that was mostly the
truth, at least at that moment when I was so confused on everything that I was
feeling, thinking, and wanting.  There were probably several conflicting truths
with none being more true than the others.

And before I could say
anything else, he kissed me.

Having had several
first kisses in my lifetime, I have found that you can usually put them into
two distinct categories.  The first is the slow, natural kiss where both
parties are thinking about kissing, so they just ease into it.  It never feels
forced, or like you are trying to get that first kiss out of the way, so that
your next kiss will be more natural.

The second kind of kiss
is more passionate.  A lot of times it is raw and animalistic.  This second
type of kiss is often associated with the guys that you have just met at a
bar.  This type of first kiss would often catch you off guard, but you’re
usually just drunk enough that you don’t really think about what is happening
at that moment.

My first kiss with Jack
was a combination of these two types of kisses.  It seemed natural in that we
had just had that moment where I thought he was going to kiss me.  And I had
even told him that I wanted him to kiss me.  But it still caught me off guard,
even though I slipped right into.

It was probably the
most perfect first kiss I have ever had, and yet I...  I think he’s still in love
with Britney.  So I don’t know if he was kissing me to try to get over her, or
if he was doing it because I mentioned that I had wanted him to.  He could also
have been doing it because he actually thought I was beautiful and felt like
kissing me.

I had thought about
asking him why he kissed me, but I enjoyed it too much to want to ruin the
moment.  Maybe I didn’t really care what his motives were.  Even if I could get
hurt later on, I still wanted this moment to be perfect with him. 

Anyway, we spent a good
portion of the night making out.  We also had a fairly deep conversation while
we were doing this, but I don’t really remember what it was about.  I was just
a little bit too relaxed with all of the physical stuff going on to pay
attention to what Jack was actually asking me.  I know that I answered him
truthfully, which I probably shouldn’t have done.

I think I wasn’t used
to a guy being able to kiss me and listen to me at the same time.  Of course, I
don’t usually have a guy that listens to me.

And it was nice to make
out with a guy without his hands being all over me.  He played with my hair and
caressed my arms, back, and side.  He never once grabbed my ass or tried to cop
a feel.  He didn’t even dry hump me.

And for all of the
great things that I can say about him and how much I enjoyed last night, I
don’t know where I stand with him.  I’m with a guy while not being in a
relationship with him as we try to get over our last relationships.

The only thing is that
I am over Steve.  He was easy to get over.  But Jack is...  He doesn’t ever tell
you what he is thinking.  He’s great at listening, but he doesn’t talk about
himself and what he is feeling.

Some nights he goes
into the living room to work on his writing, or he will just sit there
thinking.  I know that he is a creative writing major, but you would think an
artist would be able to express himself better in person.

I remember falling
asleep last night with his arms around me.  Okay, we were spooning, but he was
holding my hand.  Actually his hand kind of spooned my hand with his fingers
intertwined in mine.  We drifted off in conversation.

Then when I woke up at
four in the morning, I noticed that he was gone.  I found him in the living
room.  He was just sitting in the dark.  I tried talking to him, but he said
that nothing was wrong.

I didn’t know what else
to do, so I just put my arm around him and put my head on his shoulder.  I figured
that I would let him know that I was there for him, when he was ready to talk.

I don’t remember much
else after that.  I woke up this morning in my bed.  Jack woke me up when he
entered with the breakfast that he made me.  He seemed in an unusually good
mood.  He was like a guy that was in love, which made the entire world okay. 
He even greeted me with a kiss as he put the tray across my legs.

“Are you doing okay”,
was the first thing that came to my mind.  It might have been a little
insensitive for a guy that had just made me breakfast, but I was confused by
his behavior.

Again he said that
everything was fine.  And I let it drop because I wanted to believe that if he
was torn between two women, I was winning at the moment.  The more time I spend
with him, I should be able to get him to love only me.

I know I promised him
that we would be each other’s cocoon where we would heal each other so that we
could turn into these beautiful butterflies that will just fly off to find some
perfect love.  But I’ve been thinking that I don’t want to heal him to have him
leave to love somebody else.

I’ve decided that I’m
going to perform an exorcism on him.  I’m going to drive that fucking bitch
that broke his heart from his mind and heal his heart.  Once I drive the
darkness out, I will replace it with the light of my love.