Awakening
This was part of my final portfolio for Fiction and Poetry Writing II with Amy Eisner.
Carlos Macasaet
7 December 2004
220.106 – Final Portfolio
We were watching television. The two of us sitting on the floor with our arms behind us, to prop up our backs. Lili got up and asked me if I wanted anything from the kitchen. She came back with a glass of water. No ice. She sipped while we watched videos on VH1. They were showing the most popular videos of the 1990’s. We were on 1994. She leaned over me to place her glass on the side table, then settled back down right next to me, leaning her shoulder into mine ever so slightly. I put my arm across her back and she rested her head on my shoulder.
This was odd. She never flirted with me and whenever I tried to get close to her, she would move away. When I was still trying to gain her affection, I consulted my friend Katherine for advice. She explained to me that my flirting needed to be more physical. The witty and insinuating things I said were not enough. She told me that I needed to manifest my feelings in a more obvious but less explicit way; otherwise Lili may simply disregard the profession of love that I conveyed to her in person, and then later articulated more eloquently with pen and paper. She gave me suggestions to decrease my awkwardness and to better elicit a response from Lili. Katherine even had her boyfriend – whose two years of persistence eventually won her over – write me a Flirting 101 tutorial, complete with his irresistible hugging technique.
So, gradually, I applied Katherine’s suggestions, making my flirtations more obvious and gaining confidence as the days passed. One day, I was particularly satisfied with the advances I had made. It was not quite to the level that Katherine would have recommended, but I was proud of it nonetheless. Lili responded this time, but not in the way I had hoped. The next day she said to me, “we should talk.” Fuck. We would talk later that evening, but I already knew what she was going to say. Sometimes you wish you were wrong, but know that there’s no way you can be.
I had a whole afternoon to prepare for our conversation. I chose my words carefully and rehearsed them in my mind. When she told me that she was happy with our friendship the way it was and that she wanted to keep things the way they were, I wanted to tell her how important that was to me too. I felt the same way. After meeting her, our friendship had developed so quickly that by the time I realised how I felt about her, I chose to keep my feelings hidden so as not to jeopardise what we already had. I wanted to tell her that when I first asked her if she wanted to be more than just friends, I was afraid that she would say no and even more terrified that she would say yes. I wanted to tell her that I understood how much easier it is to avoid an issue such as this altogether. I wanted her to know how sad I had become when the semester ended and we had to part ways for the summer. I wished I could have told her how I had tried to get over her then and how my efforts were undermined when the summer ended and I saw that she had become even more beautiful than I remembered.
Instead, after she told me how she felt, all I could say was, “well, thanks for giving me an answer.” I am never as eloquent as I wish I could be. And then we just sat around, not knowing what to do next. So we filled the grey silence with forced conversations on topics such as life and the future. But we were not really able to devote our full attention to whatever it was we were talking about. Maybe it was just me. It was as if we had to prove to ourselves that we were still good friends and that there was nothing awkward at all. In the end, I made up some excuse to leave. She did not see me to the door. I would like to think this was because our conversation was even more difficult for her than it was for me, but I have been known to read into things too much.
Now, two weeks after our talk, snuggling is what Katherine would have prescribed while the two of us were alone watching television. And I would have followed her advice except that I had resolved to put an end to my advances out of respect for Lili and her feelings.
Yet here we were, sitting closer than two people would sit if they had decided to just be friends. I was relieved when the video for Aerosmith’s Cryin came on. Lili’s face lit with excitement as she told me how she used to sing along to this while imitating Steve Tyler’s outlandish gestures. “This I have to see,” I said. Now it was her turn to play the flirt.
She did a brief imitation while singing, “All I want is someone I can’t resist.” But she cut herself short. “No, it’s too embarrassing. Wait until If by Janet Jackson comes on. Then I’ll show you my moves. When I was little, whenever I had a crush on a boy, I’d sing it on the playground while dancing like Janet – hoping that the boy would notice. But now that I think about it, I may have driven away more boys than I attracted. What about you,”she asked, gently nudging me with her elbow, “what did you do to hook the girls that you liked?”
“I never really had a technique,” I explained while gazing deep into her eyes, “I rarely find any worthy candidates.” At this, she smiled coyly then leaned her head on my shoulder once again. Cryin was followed by R.E.M.’s Everybody Hurts. “Ooh, I love this song,” she said, grabbing my arm.
“Oh yeah?” I asked while shifting my arm around her waist, gently pulling her into my embrace. To my surprise, she only leaned in closer and smiled. I thought of all those times we had been watching television or movies together and all I could think of was how I wished I could have had my arm around her like I did at this moment. I could remember asking myself how I could stand to be so close to her when I could never work up the courage to tell her how I felt.
We no longer spoke as we continued to watch the television. I breathed in the scent of her unperfumed body. My heart started beating faster and I could feel her breaths intensify. She turned her head and pressed her lips to mine. As she caressed my tongue with hers, I guided her body down until we occupied the length of the sofa. It was the perfect kiss.
This was everything I could have imagined and more. But something didn’t feel right. I think it was the perfection of everything that tipped me off. None of it was real. I realised that the woman whose firm breasts pressed into my chest was not Lili. And the man who held her in his tight embrace was not me.
One of my favourite characters from literature once told me that she hated stories that ended like this. They always left her feeling cheated . During the intermission, there would be a change of scene and new characters would prepare to take the stage, except for the protagonist, who would be lonelier – this was meant to be a melancholic work.
It occurred to me that I could spare myself love’s sweet misery by leaving the theatre of my mind just then. But during this brief period of consciousness, in that place that separates the dreams from the waking world, in that place that can separate pleasure and pain, I know all I need to know by the way that I got kissed . The uneasiness I felt was not from the perfection of the fantasy, but rather the artificiality that it represented. But I did not feel lonely or cheated. This dream will be a vessel for all the things I could not express before. I’ll stay for the next act. When I wake, I’ll tell Lili that I understand. The true perfection lies in the love we already share.
