i remember writing an entry in my journal when i was 15 about how i felt like i was growing up in spurts that were so dizzying. i felt like i was competing in a bicycle race weeks after learning how to ride one. i think that it was recently after the 'cool kids' in high school started talking to me like i had a pulse, like i might be as alive as they seemed, and i had started my band with violet and we were getting noticed and photographed on the street all the time, which was weird because there was no music on our myspace yet. we didn't even have any songs back then, but we would hang out in union square all day covered in shiny beads and scarves, singing at the top of our lungs (mostly janis joplin and that one song from rent), arms wound around each other's waists. people thought we were sisters or dating, and i think back then we were both. we felt so invincible, but i was incredibly fragile. i remember writing in my journal, "four months ago i didn't even know what a hipster was" and this was back in '05 when that word wasn't an insult yet and it was really all we wanted, a craving like the taste of salt on our hungry tongues.
i used to sit on the corner of east houston and eldridge in a red and white striped dress, no shoes on, back shoved up against the glass windows of the 24-hour pool hall. this was "the spot." one of many, but the best one because it was just outside of "territory," the rectangle we all used to walk that stretched from avenue B to the Bowery, but close to silver spurs too, where violet and i split grilled cheeses with bacon (extra crispy) and always had to go to the bathroom at exactly the same time. their milkshakes were thick as cement.
territory was the neighborhood where our high school is and where my and violet's ex boyfriends both lived. we used to walk the streets giddily there, half-hoping we'd see them so we could run away holding hands and laughing. one night we stalked up avenue A at midnight and covered all of his band's stickers with ones of our own. we always joked that each other were the prizes won out of those early attempts at love. i remember when nate and violet used to come down the stairs of his apartment and it was so obvious that they'd just been fucking, and half the time she was crying, but she never ever wanted to let go of his hand. one night he threw a printer at the wall beside her. i remember hearing stories about sex and vaseline, violet's dislocated jaw and seizures. i remember the story about how they finally did it on the floor of her bedroom in a pile of stuffed animals after months of Nate not being able to get it up.
they were my model for what it was like to be an adult. i think that ben was 16, and violet a year older.
i remember when they finally broke up for the last time. there had been twenty-seven ruptures before this one, a number that you can't make up. i forced my way into violet's apartment and held her while she sobbed in jerky breaths. we were both afraid she was going to die, but she didn't. after that night her bed became another spot for us. a place where we sat end exchanged dreams through our open hearts.
one night violet asked me if i thought i was a good person or not. i wasn't sure, but we were determined to figure it out. "i know" she said, smiling. pulling out a piece of paper, she began writing a list of names on it. we were sitting on her bed and i was backlit by a standing lamp that always shone in my eyes. my shadow fell across the page. "write down the name of every relationship you've had that's ended. friends too. cross out the ones where they hurt you. if you have more crossed than uncrossed, you're good. you know what makes you bad." i found a piece of paper of my own and started writing. this girl was complicated and sharp in a way i'd never seen before.
Angelica, Sadie, Cleo, Anna, Heather, Tim. Tucker. Mallory. almost all my names were ones from middle school, mostly friends who'd bullied me and jerked me around until it wasn't really a choice to stop talking to them. By contrast, violet's names were exotic. I could tell from how many boys there were that a lot had to do with dating--sex, in my mind. Helena, Spencer. I'd heard of these two. They seemed like fucked-up twins, each with black hair and a scowl. Spencer loved Violet until he met Helena. and then they all were together, a codependent triangle, for a few months. This was the most glamorous thing I'd ever heard of. Violet explained cautiously while she continued writing names on her list. i'd been done for almost ten minutes. Sam, she wrote, "but this one's not really over yet."
Eventually we concluded that we were both good people. Out of my eight, I'd hurt three; out of Violet's 15, she'd hurt six. it was may of 2006 and we were alone in her bedroom. the walls were painted pale green and her shelves were still lined with horse figurines and children's books. i was supposed to have been home hours ago, but i didn't really care. i'd never known a person who approached her world so systematically, and with so much force. it meant so much to me to be good in the eyes of the world, and in this spring, that's what Violet was.
i laid back on her comforter. Violet's ceiling was speckled with little black marks from when she and a boy (years ago) had thrown firecrackers at it in the dark--the kind that come in a box full of sawdust and explode when they hit the ground with tiny pops. "i love you," i whispered, and she jumped on top of me. we often sat like this, with her innocently straddling my hips. she'd kissed me once that year, in her sleep, but we hadn't talked about it since. the sky outside her window was black, and i could see our silhouettes reflected in the glass, dark and angular inside a yellow halo. violet replied carefully, so as not to include the "too" that would cancel out our words, a running joke. the pieces of paper slid to the ground.
"i love you."
