Prime

3 o’clock on a weekday and I’m sitting in my room, for the third time in two days, sucking the coating off chocolate covered raisins while an able-bodied shirtless man digs trenches in our yard. Of the two times I’ve met him, it’s the first time I’ve hidden upstairs, watching Say Anything with the speakers on low. It’s the second, however, that I’ve been wearing pajamas.

            I managed to spit out a “hi” as he walked in the kitchen. A friend and I were huddled over the counter, shoving pieces of cheese-smeared bread into our mouths and cackling over one another, when heavy steps announced a presence behind us. Turning around, I watched him melt into the room, subtly drinking in its color. Abs and face. “Hi,” he smiled, wiping gravel from his brow. “Can I have some lemonade?”

            And I forced myself to wonder, flapping there like a reed in the wind: could this be the way it works? A gorgeous man wanders into my kitchen, asks me for a cold beverage; and at best, I’m left with a flash of Desperate Housewives and a handful of halfhearted stabs at harassment? “Seeeeeeeriously,” she cooed, balling her shirt in her hands. “It’s soooooo hot in here, I just haaaave to take my shirt off.”

            “Reaaaaaallly,” I echoed, wondering how I could flick off my glasses without trying too hard. “Do you guys need me out at the pool?”

            To his credit, he took it like a champ. Scarcely one ropy muscle moved out of place as he cut us up thick slabs of watermelon, nor did he bat an eye as I shamelessly photographed it. Could be he didn’t notice. Or perhaps I just don’t care.

            Click.

            “We’re primers,” my friend said after he walked back outside, leaving us to our counter of sticky-sweet juice and compound conversation. “You and I.

            “We’re the ones who spend time with these guys right before they end up in relationships. They say they’re not ready, then BAM! Long-term girlfriend right after we’re gone. I’m betting my ex is married this year.”

            I stared at the fridge, a mosaic of paint samples. I wanted to peel them away. “So basically, we do all the work, let these boneheads repair in our light, and then don’t get to reap the rewards?

            “Precisely.”

            And it’s true. Of the widespread experience of her please, not you, a disproportionate number of men in my life have tacked on a But After You Fix Me. Pretending I hadn’t sought out the pub where he’d be, somehow knowing he wouldn’t be calling me back; the work had been done, and he’d met her. Splitting hairs over soft nights in Bali, accepting the tragedy of one whose religion condemns making love before marriage, then sighing the huff of the damned when in four months, he's taken. There’s the guy who didn’t want commitment, who’s so grateful for the kindness I shared, who suddenly dives into life-partner realm with a girl whose parade of bright photos are captioned with songs: yet all I can manage to say is, “that shithead.”

            Shithead.

            And what does one do, anyhow? You can allow yourself the luxury of small he’s too dumb for mes, but ultimately, you’re still the person Googling “my toe hurts” and reading nutritional facts on a bag of Hot Cheetos. At the end of the day, you’re still the one wondering why the first coat never feels like enough.

            The key to the equation, of course, is each man’s seemingly wondrous capacity for withholding the truth: for whispering, “I just can’t be with anyone,” not admitting, “I don’t want to be with you.” This reality, while brutal, is an awesome release; if not from the tape of insecurity, than at least from the pond scum that accompanies such blatant selfishness, the exhaustion of resources that leaves nothing, nothing, but a measly handful of pine needles and a bewildered Cindy Lou Who. Which I accept, every time, because he “just can’t be with anyone.” Because he wants to be my friend: be my friend, which is only a cop out, and a pass to redeem any time she does something annoying. Just in case I have anything left.

            The other night, I went on a bad date at a bar. Though his voice said twenty-seven, his face said forty-five; creased with worry, his eyebrows stayed low. I thought that the rum made him dull, that the thrum of the crowd was preventing a genuine spark; and perhaps, could we try it again?

            “So wait,” he began, eyebrows dangerously close to disappearing inside his nose. “Am I like, gonna call you? Or are you gonna call me? Because I don’t really get this at all. Like… I dunno, I don’t need your attention. To be honest, you seem kinda mean.”

            It was then that I realized—crowd or no crowd—that I hadn’t a droplet of interest in seeing this person again; and if forced to meet up, I would probably re-watch a season of Friends just for something to do in my head. I asked to raincheck out of shame, out of wanting so much to be liked; and ironically, seemed “kinda mean.” What relief, then, to watch him walk off; he locked eyes with a friend, gave a violent shake of his head, and was gone. Because he didn’t like me, not one bit. And the clarity of it was bliss.

            So I’m waiting. For what? For this moment as frustration melts into love, and I can be genuinely happy for each time I’m let go: happy for them when, indeed, they find her. It’s not like I wish I could be her; even with those impossible mornings, the ones where I feel most alone. For the moon on a soft July night, snapping thoughts of each moment before; then a new friend arrives, and he casts a long shadow against the fine grooves on the wall. We danced like that; puppets of light and lack thereof, staining the brick with our hunger for change.

            “If I knew what I loved, I’d be doing it,” he told me, our shadows growing taller as their distance increased. “Because this is it. I’m in my prime.”

And me, I’m in mine. Even here in my attic, watching John Cusack wait out a rainstorm, payphone pressed to his ear as the cold water runs down his face. I gave her my heart, Corey. I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen. Outside, they’re still digging up trenches; tonight, I’ll make shadows again. There’s this hunger, this hunger to feel.

All the priming I’ve done is an ode to that crave: the first glaze, a deposit of color. Even when other layers get seen. “Whatever,” Julia said. “Every canvas needs gesso. Otherwise the paint would just sink right through, and it’d be harder to get the details right. We essential, baby girl.”

We begin.

And regardless, we stick.