text: So, it went something like this. I was staying with my parents for a few months, and I needed to make some fast money to move out at the end of summer. The nearest place I could think of that I could get hired on with no experience for good money was the warehouse, so that’s where I went. The shifts were long, and the work sucked, but it made me feel useful. It felt like I was doing something worth doing. On my first day, they paired me up with a guy to train me. You know, ‘put the boxes onto the belt. Don’t let one hit you in the head.’ That type of shit. He was younger than most of the other guys there (and I say guys because women were pretty few and far between), but he was still about ten years older than me. We hit it off right away; I was pretty reserved, wary of being in an unfamiliar environment surrounded by a bunch of strangers, but he pried, and I told him whatever he wanted to know so I wouldn’t come off as a cold bitch. I’ll call him Sam. Sam and I got to be pretty good friends. Actually, I got to be friends with a lot of people there just because I got along with Sam so well. I told him up front that I had a boyfriend living down south, and that I was going to move in with him at the end of summer. It kind of turned into a running joke where he’d tell me to break up with my boyfriend and stay on at work. I’d always tell him no, that I liked my boyfriend just fine. He asked me a couple of times if the teasing bothered me. I always told him no, that no amount of pestering could change my mind. I wasn’t super thrilled about it, though; I missed my boyfriend pretty bad. I have a thick skin and an even thicker head, though, so I just let it go so I wouldn’t make things awkward. By then, I was telling my boyfriend a little bit about what was happening. We talked over the phone once a week, at least. “Do you remember me telling you about Sam from work?” “The guy that trained you? Yeah, sure.” “I think that he likes me.” “Has he been bothering you?” “Mostly joking around, I guess, but it’s getting a little out of hand.” “Are you okay? Has he said anything...?” “Nothing to take to HR, if that’s what you mean.” “Well, a swift kick in the nuts would probably do the job if he gets too personal.” “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” “Hey. You know you can always talk to me, right?” “Yeah, I know.” As more time passed, I started hanging out with Sam outside of work. It started with parties, then graduated to just the two of us pissing the time away. The longer it went on, I started to realize that Sam wasn’t really joking about my boyfriend, and that he wasn’t really trying to be my friend. I think I was in denial about it because it stings a bit when you realize that someone only likes you because they’re trying to get in your pants. He even tried to kiss me a couple times, and I told him I couldn’t keep hanging out if he was going to pull that shit. He always promised he’d behave, but then the same shit again the next week. I tried to not let on, but it was stressing me out pretty bad. I’ll skip some of the middle bits here, because if I told you everything, you’d be here all day. I don’t let myself remember a lot of it, anyway. Some of it I just want to keep to myself, and I can’t really figure out why. I will tell you that I never cheated, that I never even wanted to. Just thinking about it still makes me feel sick. At some point, Sam started acting all weird. He skipped a few days of work here and there, he’d get kind of snappish at people, and eventually he started avoiding me. I was a little bit bummed, but I was also sort of relieved, you know? Like, I was bummed that I was right and that he got bored when I wouldn’t put out, but I was also relieved that the awkwardness might be over. No such luck. He was gone from work one weekend for a wedding, and when he got back on Sunday, he called me up. He said he wasn’t doing so great, and would I please come over to talk? I had work really early the next day, but I thought I could lend a quick ear if he was going through a rough patch. We ended up talking most of the night. He told me a lot of things that I won’t repeat, but he also told me that he was pretty down in his feels because he really liked me. Like, he loved me, he said. We kept going back and forth, like, “would you ever date me?” and, “I don’t know, I can’t even think like that right now. I’m with someone.” and, “yeah, but what if you weren’t?” and, “I don’t know, it’s all hypothetical.” I drove the short distance home around 3:30 in the morning, crossing my fingers and hoping that my dad wasn’t already up for early morning fishing. I ended up calling in the next day, I was so exhausted. After that, things were the same, but they weren’t. I mean, I still saw him the same, but he seemed to be... expecting something. One night, though, he asked me to come over to drink and watch some movies. I said sure, I could go for a drink. I went over, and we had some vodka/soda/juice mix that tasted like shit and watched some movie that I don’t even remember. At some point, he stopped the movie and said, “The sun is setting. We should go out and watch it on the porch.” I didn’t really want to, but I went on along with him anyway. That’s when he really started talking. “I know I seem like I’m doing alright, but really, I’m not.” “What do you mean?” “I mean, we’re always joking around, but whenever I ask you to stay and you say no... it actually kind of hurts.” I knew that. He’d said it already. “Stop joking about it, then.” “That’s the thing.” He looked down at his shoes. “I’m not joking.” I looked past him to the side of his neighbor’s house, through the window and past the curtains. I was hoping someone would be staring back so I’d have something else to talk about without obviously trying to change the subject. I was hoping desperately for something to break the tension. “I don’t know what you want me to say.” “I want to know why you won’t even give me a chance.” “You damn well know why, I’ve said it about a hundred times.” “I don’t buy it.” “What the hell does that mean?” “It means that I think that we should be together. Not like I just want it really bad, but like... I think that we’re *meant* to be together.” I scoffed. “What, like soulmates?” “That’s one word for it, yeah.” I sucked on my teeth and looked down into my drink. I wasn’t sure if I was wishing I’d mixed it stronger or wishing I’d never had it at all. “I don’t believe in soulmates.” “What?” “I think it’s a load of shit. I think that there are billions of people on this planet, and that any single person has thousands of other people that would make perfectly good matches for them. Maybe some more than others, and maybe one person most of all, but that doesn’t make them ‘soulmates.’ Nobody is *meant* to be with anybody else.” “Look, I’ve told you about my parents. They’re perfect for each other. And when they met, my mom was already engaged. If she had never broken off her engagement, I wouldn’t even be here.” “That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t mean they’re soulmates.” “But they are, though.” “Look,” I stared straight into his eyes. The things that had been simmering in the back of my head for months had finally gathered themselves into an actual thought. I just had to get them out of my mouth in the same order. “I could never break up with someone to be with somebody else. Not anybody. Once you start jumping from one to the next, what’s stopping you from doing it again? What if it never stops? Once you start throwing people out, they start to become disposable, and you’ll never be satisfied with anyone because you’ll always be looking for the next, better thing. I could never do that to somebody. I could never do that to *myself*.” “You’d only have to do it once.” I let out a huff that might have originally been a laugh. “The grass will always be greener somewhere else.” “It won’t.” “Oh, no?” “Nah.” “Why’s that?” “Because I’m the greenest grass.” I did laugh, then. I think I was trying to convince myself that I wasn’t getting frustrated. “That’s an awfully bold statement.” “It’s true.” “Why, because we’re soulmates?” “*Yes*.” I leaned back in my chair, watching my hands trace patterns onto my glass. “So, you believe in soulmates because of your parents, right?” “Yeah. I mean, don’t you feel like your parents are meant to be together?” “No.” He didn’t say anything. “I’m not even sure that my parents love each other.” “Well, then maybe that’s why.” “Why do you think your experience makes you right but mine is irrelevant?” He pauses again. “I just do.” “That’s not a real answer.” “It’s just true, alright?” “No. I’m not taking that ‘because I said so’ shit. You believe in soulmates, I don’t. So we’re stuck.” “But we aren’t, though.” “How do you figure?” He knew I was getting fed up, and he smiled wide. “Because I’m right.” I threw my head forward into one of my palms, my elbow resting on my knee, and swiped my hand down my face. “Why, because you’re the man and you’re older, so what you say goes?” “If you say so.” “Ugh!” “Look, it’s not something I can explain, it’s just something that I know. That’s all.” “Well, then it’s not something that I have to take your word for.” His smile turned a little sadder, and he looked up into the sky. It was pretty dark by then, and if we weren’t smack in the middle of the city, we’d probably be looking at stars. As it was, I was glad that the light pollution made the sky so dim and ugly. It matched how I felt on the inside. “No, I don’t think it’s something I can explain to you. I’d just have to show you.” “I don’t intend to let that happen.” “Then I guess you’ll never know.” “I guess not.” We just sat there listening to the cicadas for a while, until he said, “I didn’t want it to be this way, but you’ll figure it out eventually.” “What the fuck does *that* mean?” “It means that I’m going wait for you.” He was dead serious, but he was still smiling as if he was playing with me, as if it was all a joke. I wondered if he noticed the dread that I’m sure was written on my face to match the newer, deeper pit in my stomach. “I don’t see any point in dating other girls when I know they aren’t the ones for me.” “What if I never break up with him? What if you’re waiting forever?” “Nah, that won’t happen.” “Why. Not.” “Because he’s not right for you.” “You haven’t even met him.” “Look, it’s fine. See your thing through, and I’ll be waiting here when it falls apart.” “You don’t have do that.” “I know. But I will.” “I don’t want you to do that.” “Well, it’s not for you. It’s what I have to do.” “You don’t have to do shit.” “It’s what I want to do, then.” I didn’t say much after that. My thoughts were spinning too fast for me to grasp on to a single thing to say. The mosquitoes chased us back inside and I stayed to finish the movie so it wouldn’t be awkward. I left for home after that, even though I usually have a pretty strict policy about alcohol and driving. I had pretty much sobered up by then, anyways. He insisted that I give him a hug before I left, and I did, but he found something unsatisfactory with the first five or so, so he kept insisting. By the end, I felt so awkward I ended up walking out, leaving him pouting in the kitchen. It wasn’t the same after that, really. August was crawling closer, and he started to realize that I really wasn’t going to budge. I asked him if he would still try to be friends once I moved, and he changed his mind about four times for different reasons. First, he told me that I was using him for his company, that he didn’t think I’d have any use for him after I moved. He told me that my friendship was pretty useless to him anyway. I cried when he said that. Then he said that it was all good, that I could text him or whatever, but he wouldn’t ever remember to text me first. Then, the thought of talking to me was too painful. Two days before I was done at the warehouse, he claimed to have changed overnight, that he was totally over me and I could do what I pleased. I was pretty fucking pissed at him for that. By the time I actually left, he’d changed his mind so many times that I wished he’d just decide that I was a selfish bitch and let me be. He settled on tentative friends, though. I think he was trying to find the right thing to say to make me stay. He used to tell me that I was a master manipulator. He said that I got on too well with everybody, that I was a social chameleon, and that I was bound to break a few hearts in the process. He told some people at work, too. What he didn’t tell them is that he thought the same about himself, that he thought he would never find a real connection because he knew how to play any person like a fiddle. That’s why he thought that we were soulmates; supposedly, we were both too aware of mind games to fall for them. He used to tell me that I was really smart, that he loved talking to me because he never knew what I was going say, that I’d just say what I was thinking and he couldn’t ever follow my thinking. He used to tell me that I talked about sexism too much, that he was annoyed how aware of it he had become. I told him, “you’re welcome.” He used to say I was hot, but that if I still had my natural hair, I’d be a *real* knockout. Sam died about three months after I moved down south. Something about some equipment in the warehouse, but they kept it pretty under wraps. I suppose I felt a little bit guilty, but mostly I think I felt relieved. I sort of take it as proof that he was wrong, that it’s our choices that decide our fates and not the other way around. I know it actually doesn’t prove shit, but I think it anyways. I didn’t tell my boyfriend about all of this. I mean, I told him some, but I didn’t want him to worry about me. I think that deep down I was scared that he might always wonder if I cheated on him. I might never tell him everything. I might never tell anyone. So, I guess Sam’s love story will die with me, the remaining half of the perfect pair. I’ll never get to tell him that he was wrong, that he was fucked up for what he said, for what he did to me. Letting him go hasn’t really been the hardest part, though. The hardest part has been learning how to live with his ghost, how to carry it all on my own.