The ​Friend (It's Just Us Here 1.) 6 csillagozás

[…] because he didn’t give up on me, I will love him forever.

Ordering Orange Pants

I laugh at the first time Mark made an appearance in my journals. I'll copy the exact couple of sentences, from a Monday: “Met a really weird guy today. He must be having a tough time —really lonely. We're going to go running next monday. Hope he's not a serial killer. If I don't show up, Mom, this was what happened. I'll keep the circuit under a mile so if he does attack me, I'll hopefully be able to limp my way back to the car. I'm probably faster than him. He looks more like a gym guy than a runner. Fancy car, rich people problems.”

If anyone interacted with me, I viewed it through the lens of my default position: I never wanted to harm anyone, I never wanted to seduce anyone, I never wanted to be noticed. So, to my mind, no one would want to do those things to me, either.

Here's another apology to my husband: when I first met you, I pegged you as a guy that would have a full-length mirror in almost every room. I would come to find out that he only kept one in his master bedroom and another in the bathroom. To this day those are the only full-length mirrors we have, even though we’ve moved houses twice. I'm very proud of him for curbing a small portion of his vanity. My first impression of him was that he had to be incurably vain, but I now stand corrected… there is (some) hope for him.

I hated being called ‘dude’. But as our friendship grew, I playfully began referring to him as ‘dudebro’ because he used both words so frequently. At first I used it as a knock against his limited vocabulary, but then it became a little nickname between the two of us. Then I eventually just shortened it to ‘dude’ and sometimes to ‘bro’. Both of which I now use unironically, believe it or not. I know it’s sad.

Mark rarely woke up with crazy hair, which I found so hard to believe that when we first got together, I regularly accused him of sleepwalking to the bathroom and fixing his hair before we got up (which honestly wouldn’t have surprised me). The bedhead was my area of specialty.

“Listen… Mark is a good looking guy. And he uses that to his advantage… if you know what I mean.”
“Like, he’s a playboy?”
“Something like that.”
“I figured. I can see how he is in the gym and walking down the street. He can’t help himself. I think he would chat up a tree if he thought it would listen.”

I was happy as I went to bed. Then my phone dinged… and dinged a few more times. They were stupid drunk texts from Mark.
I shut my phone off. We’d have to deal with that tomorrow. Maybe Mark would get a wake-up call… let’s say at ten in the morning. And maybe each half hour after that. That should teach him to pull a stunt like drunk texting me again.

I was so embarrassed. I slid out of my pants. Dima didn't comment on my ratty underwear. Mark looked like he was drinking piss instead of coffee. The assistant looked away—presumably because he was laughing at me.

“Look at yourself,” he commanded. I didn’t listen and had been avoiding the mirror as much as possible. I glanced at myself and almost immediately down to my feet. “Chris…” He put a hand on my neck and guided my head to the mirror. “Stop fidgeting and look at yourself.”
I did. I gazed into the mirror. My body looked… I had a haircut unlike any I ever had before. My brown eyes were prominent under my bushy eyebrows thanks to the contacts. My jawline stood out more than normal because I was clean-shaven. And the suit… I felt like I was looking at someone else.
“This isn’t me,” I whispered.
“Yes it is. Look at you. You are one handsome dude. You’re going to kill it next week.”
“I don’t want to kill it,” I said solemnly. “I don’t want this. I just want to be me.”
“Stop it. What’s wrong with looking your best?”
“This isn’t me,” I repeated.