We said goodbye, unexpectedly, to Fuck Face tonight…
We had plans to write about our day at work, which was unusually stressful (more to come about that tomorrow), but it looks like we are going to save it due to some unforeseen...something.
In an unusual turn of events…well…what can we say.
First, we had drinks with Fuck Face tonight, turns out it was our last drinks with him. We didn’t expect that.
Over a glass of wine (several, at this point, for us, of course) and a Guinness (several, for him) he began telling us about his plans for the weekend, yard work, and such...things to do regarding his wife’s horses..and the infamous barn.
“You know, despite the fact all that we are going to do is dance at the grocery later, paint, write, drink wine, and spend the weekend on Twitter…we still live a more interesting life than you. When you’re on your deathbed, working won’t be what you are thinking about” we snidely say, we’ve had a couple wines at this point, “Hopefully you’ll be thinking about us”, mostly joking of course.
We were his first, and probably only, affair. We know that to be true, we also know, from previous conversation, it’s us, not just the fact that we were an attractive female, that had led him astray. Once he had said, last week “There will never be another [The Other Girl].”, when we were discussing things about him seeking some education outside the city, away from his wife, for a couple of months…chiding him about infidelity. So we give him a hard time, about thinking about us on his death bed.
A shadow passes over his face. He is silent. He leans back in his chair. We can tell he has had a bit more to drink than he should. We’ve never seen him this candid looking. He reaches for our hand with a serious look on his face.
He pulls his hand back.
“I’m not going to spill the beans” he says, and starts to divert the conversation.
“The Beans” being something he referenced the first and second drinking “dates” ago (last week)…regarding our getting fired. We had tried to get him to tell us then, but to no avail.
“Take another drink of your beer” we say, nodding our head towards his beer. We know that with another drink he might tell us what he’s been referencing for the last couple drinking sessions. We want to know, we have no idea what his secret is.
He begins talking again, about something random…we don’t know what, and then all of a sudden he stops, leans in, looking seriously and blurts “I love you”. This look on his face, we’ve never seen it before. We know he’s telling the truth.
We…stare at him…our eyes well up…there are many things going on in our head. With tears spilling onto our cheeks we give him "the finger".
“Fuck you, I hate you, you suck”, we say.
He spilled the beans. We are angry, confused, and sad...those are not the beans most of us are expecting.
“Fuck you and your timing” we say.
More tears.
The next 20 minutes are him admitting how he’s felt about us from the very begging, even before our affair, and that the week we got fired how he felt, us not being there, going to our office for something and…just…being sad we were no longer there, (because we had gotten fired) which makes us understand how happy he was when he got fired.
Him saying how his marriage has improved since telling his wife about the affair, but he says he still wakes up in the morning and watches our tweets while we ride the bus to work. He reads our blog, he reads James' blog. While he plays video games…our Twitter feed is there. He thinks about us always. Thinks about us and tries to erase the feelings, kill us, metaphorically, while he digs fence posts for his wife’s horses.
He loves us. Just as we always thought. Thank god we were not off base. But he agrees, as do we…there are four people involved now. He says he wouldn’t try anything, he doesn’t want to do that to his wife again.
He read our blog entry from last night, and he had hoped tonight’s drinks would be us “breaking up with him”…our final drinks, as last night was with our “goodbye” to Special Someone, now that James is coming into town to live with us.
We sit and talk…he says he wanted to come tonight and ask us to run off to Cuba, only half jokingly. We are stunned, laughing, and then crying, confused, but relieved that we had been right.
He tells us how James is good for us, and that he doesn’t want to hurt James (they actually met once).
He tells us “In another life…” then he pauses…and talks about how it never would have really worked because of one of us (Bethany) and that he only wanted to deal with us as one, as Frank. We tell him that he’s dealt with all of us. He says he realizes that, and has noticed the differences in each of us, but still…
We cry, and cry…covering our mouth, alternating between laughing because he is trying to make us laugh, and crying because he tells us we are gorgeous, and amazing, and funny, and interesting…and that had he been single, almost the first day we had started working where he worked, he would have asked us out that day.
“Wow. I really hate our life”…just one of the things that come from our mouth, because sometimes the irony is far too painful, as we listen to him talk about the first time he laid eyes on us and called us “Wonder Woman” to our face…and how he says he had loved us from the beginning, and how the last week or so, after we got fired…was the worst days of employment he has ever had; how he hoped each time he had asked us for drinks since we had gotten fired he wished we had said no…and other things too much to write about, involving throwing rocks at our window…and…
We know he is telling the truth. Several of the men on Twitter, our followers, married ones who had had affairs before, who were reading the story as it unfolded, back in the day, told us “He loves you, he is confused”.
They were right. Men know men, we guess; and clearly we do not. (but we do, they just have to be honest...and then we know we are right.)
We stood in the parking lot this evening, outside of our apartment, in front of his new motorcycle…he wouldn’t let us hug him goodbye…but we did anyway.
We're talking, and crying a bit, and he is staring at us, with pain in his eyes, and finally he asked us, almost pleaded, that we just walk away…He was sad, we were sad. He was our friend, more than anyone can understand, if only because we have not written about the rest of the impact he had on us, and how he helped us, this year…with us. We will write about it someday...it's disturbing, and dark...and everything that Fantastic was to us in those days.
It’s bittersweet…it all is. This year has been…fucked up…we still haven’t written everything about our relationship with him…we will. We’re two years away in the writing of our life. When we get to that part, those days with Fantastic New Addition/The Jean/Fuck Face…the things we didn’t and couldn’t write about at the time, why he was so important…you’ll all understand more.
For now, we sob…because…well…life is never what you expect…people are…confusing. We had a shitty couple days at work…we’ve had a shitty couple of days in general, now, saying goodbye to friends is hard…and we haven’t even gotten to say the goodbyes to Girl Crush and Fabulous People (our female friends); they will be just as difficult, but in a different way.
For now, the rest of what we know about tonight, we are keeping within us. Rest assured, there was no betrayal of any kind. James is important, many of us love him…and as someone we truly love, we could never betray him, and his love…that’s not how many of us roll.
[Dear Fuck Face...as you knew we had to tell James...you also knew we had to write your final chapter...you know we will miss you...you know.]
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