golden glue

we’ve all got things to give. those things (infectious hope, advice, a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold, a listening ear, parts of ourselves intended to make others feel whole, that golden glue, intended to piece them back together until they’re gleaming anew) eventually run out. once you give, you can’t get it back. it’s theirs now, no longer yours. 

i didn’t realize, until that very night, just how much of my own golden glue i had used to fill the voids of others. until i saw the cracks coursing through me, the broken pieces that now needed mending and noticed i’d given all my golden glue away. 

she always said, “you fix me in a way nobody else can.” something i always took as a compliment, words i didn’t realize weighed the teeter totter so i could hardly stand on my own without her pushing me back up again. 

that night, she called (as she always did when her world crumbled). “i need you.” 

i went over without hesitation. it was the way i had always been with her: unapologetically there. i drove around her block a dozen times before i found a parking spot. the streets were clogged with the last stragglers of the commuters, dreary from the routine that had sucked up yet another four hours of their day. i walked into her apartment four minutes after i’d promised i would be there. she was curled up on the couch, her hair in a messy bun, her eyes stricken with red veins snaking beneath her pupils like a broken frame. 

“you’re late.” 

“what’s wrong?” deflection was a critical shield of mine, when it came to her. claim indifference of the criticisms she threw my way like arrows. most times, she hit the bullseye. 

“i slept with him.” 

“who?”

“well, you know how you said sometimes the only way to move on is to find someone new? so i texted him, and we’ve been flirting back and forth for weeks. then last night, he asked if i wanted to get drinks. of course i went, he’s dreamy…” 

i stopped listening to wonder who he was. something in my gut told me i didn’t want to know, another part of me knew i needed to know. intuition is funny like that. sirens sounding: a warning bad news is hurdling your way, bad news you won’t be able to blink away once it has pushed past the walls of ignorance and risen to the surface. 

“so we’re talking and it’s going great. i swear his eyes lit up with every word that came out of my mouth. but then i guess i had too many drinks, because the next thing i knew i was in his bed.” 

“who is he?” 

“so anyways, when i wake up this morning, he’s telling me he has a really busy day...blah, blah, blah. i hardly even heard him because i knew what he was doing. absolutely devastating.” 

“what was he doing?” 

“preparing to ghost me, of course. didn’t you say that’s what he always does?” 

her words pierced me as recognition came to the forefront of my mind. “who are you talking about?” 

my expression must have mirrored the horror i felt inside, because her face fell. “i thought you told me to go for him?” 

i took a deep breath. with her, i had always told myself to tread carefully. she had been through a lot, was still working through a lot, would always be going through a lot. “what part of i don’t think i’ll ever be over him sounds like you should go for him?” 

she regained her composure, sucking at her cheeks and widening her eyes. all feigned looks of innocence aimed at exuding the perception that she was broken. like i’d be prepared with my golden glue, ready to put her back together again. tears formed in her eyes as bile pushed at the back of my throat, her way of being suddenly nauseating to me. even more nauseating was my propensity to help those inclined to step across my own broken pieces, shattering until i was nothing but dust sticking to a muddied floor. 

“you told me he was great, and that i needed to move on with someone great.”

“anyone other than him.” it could have been anyone. she chose him. 

“but you guys never even dated.” 

my thoughts swirled in opposition to one another. she’s my best friend. she isn’t the same friend to me as i am to her. he is the one person i will never get over. she knew that, but did she? if i did this to her, how would she react? would she still be standing here? would she be rationalizing me as a friend worth keeping, or would she say i was never there in the way i should’ve been? 

i stood up. bit my tongue. committed the look in her eyes to memory, promising myself i would remember it as the antithesis of empathy, the poster child for fulfilment of selfish desires. 

“i’m going to head out.” 

“oh come on, don’t be so dramatic.” 

the irony was that every tiny tangle she encountered in her life seemed to be ablaze with disastrous consequences. i was always the one waiting to extinguish the flames she herself built. filling the cracks she shattered, my golden glue gleaming with empty pride. 

i left without another word. 

the streets were empty now, amplifying the most unwelcome realization. i was alone. if i fell, no one would be there to pick me up. i pushed past the thought, and continued the trek to my car. it was a monday night in the height of fall. it was the type of night meant to make you feel lonely, prematurely disappearing sun, crisp air that bit at your cheeks, closed doors and sealed windows. 

a ticket was waiting for me on the hood of my car. loading zone. three hundred dollars down the drain; i wouldn’t be getting new tires anytime soon. when i returned to my studio apartment just off the edge of the marina, the lights were all off. i didn’t turn any on. i knew my way around, and somehow the light seemed too harsh for that moment. as if seeing my own hands would confirm just how much of myself i had given to those who didn’t deserve it.