elvis ain't dead

One of the things I hate most of all are players. When I was younger I used to think being a player was the absolute coolest thing anyone could be. To be the sort of person who was so flirty, so fun, so adored, that people would trip over their own two feet to fall in love with you. To have a hundred people to choose from at any one time - if someone didn’t want you, who cares? There’d always be someone else who would. I envied players because they seemed to have it all. They could leave, whenever they wanted to, and they’d be just fine. I was so jealous of people who knew exactly how to play the game because they always won. When I was younger I used to wish I had the capacity to be a player - you know, to be a bad bitch who “kisses without loving, listens without believing and leaves before being left”. Marilyn Monroe knew some good lines! But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t kiss without falling in love or listen without believing and as much as I tried to leave before being left, at the end of the day I still ended up alone. 

Last night you called me a little after midnight. I had been sitting on a rooftop in Beaverbank Place with a group of first year boys drinking vodka sours shots, and it had been a ridiculously good day. “The last Bongo of the year!”, we giddily chanted. I was so excited. You called me a little after midnight as we were running towards the waiting taxis and for a moment, for a damn good moment I didn’t know who you were. Later on we met by the barricade, and you gave me a hug. I just couldn’t understand why you were standing there, infront of me, telling me about your terrible day at work like nothing had changed. I just couldn’t understand why you had called me. The queue to Bongo was insane last night - I don’t think I’ve ever seen the place so busy, and it snaked around the building. You took one look at it and told me you were going home, and every instinct told me to let you go, but I was drunk, and you were cute, so I practically begged you to stay. I felt silly the minute the words left my mouth - I’m not a stupid girl, but I sure act like it sometimes. You kissed me, and I don’t think anything has ever made me feel so sad. I’d already let you go, dammit! You weren’t supposed to come back. So I stood outside in the cold with you, I missed “the last Bongo of the year!” to stand in a queue that didn’t move with a boy who didn’t like me, and what had been a perfect day and a perfect evening dramatically climaxed into a fuckin waste of a night.

We met your friends outside Sneaky Pete’s, and when they asked me how we knew each other I smiled and shrugged my shoulders. They led me through a little door that led to a hotel water tank and I dipped my hands into the bubbles. We could’ve been in another universe for all I knew. I couldn’t see a thing. This reminds me of Narnia, I said, and they laughed. You turned around and you kissed me. We sat in your friend’s living room till it got light outside, you talked about your band and your friends talked about your childhood. I felt like an intruder into your world - I shouldn’t have been there, meeting your friends and listening to stories about your past. What was I going to do with this newfound knowledge about you? Sell it on ebay? You turned to me and told me you liked the sound of my voice, and I couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Later, we walked down the empty streets of Edinburgh and all I could think about was how much I hated this city and its damn seagulls that never shut up. But I think, at 4:35 in the morning, I hated you more. I mean, we were talking about the most mundane things, and the entire time I just wished you would’ve stopped walking, turned to me and told me about this damn game you’re playing. You push and so instinctively, I pull, but then I’m left grappling at thin air as I fall backwards. You haven’t given me anything to hold on to. Don’t you see? You’ve given me nothing. I feel like an idiot who’s created some sort of fairy cupcake rainbow-filled world where you were the cool and funny and nice bartender and I was just me, but you liked me anyway. I feel like an idiot because I should’ve never picked up when you called me a little after midnight last night, and I should’ve never missed “the last Bongo of the year!” to stand outside in the cold with you, and I should’ve never thought for a minute you liked me. But I did, all of the above, and now I’m the sad silly girl who’s staying up late on my last night as a second year in Edinburgh writing about my topsy-turvy feelings for a guy who couldn’t care less. I swear I was doing exactly this a year ago on my last night in Edinburgh as a first year. Seems to be a reoccurring incident.  God, I need to stop being so weird. 

It’s been four days since I had to let you go. I know that I smiled and kissed you on the cheek goodbye without a word, but it still hurts. Not a lot, no - it’s more like someone’s punched me in the ribs and it only starts to hurt when I touch the leftover bruises. And I can’t stop touching them. I can’t stop digging my fingers into the purple skin and feeling those agonizing jolts of pain. Why do so many people sing songs about embracing pain? Feeling pain doesn’t mean you’re alive - it cripples you, you know, it makes you worthless. I’d rather feel nothing at all.

Everything about this damn city reminds me of you. The 8:30pm sunshine, caffè Americano in paper cups, hailstones against my window on a 16 degree C day. Last week I dreaded the thought of having to leave and now, I find myself counting down the minutes till I can get on a plane and fly away for the summer. I tried to do everything right, you know - I tried to be the best possible version of myself, I gathered the personalities of all the coolest girls I knew and I tried to be every single one of them! So imagine the irony that it still wasn’t good enough. 

I don’t know how to put this feeling into words, so I’ll put it into a picture instead. Imagine you’re standing in a beautiful cornflower field. You’re the happiest you’ve ever been in a while. The sun is shining and there’s a slight breeze in the air. It’s a perfect day. In the distance you notice a raincloud, and I suppose you’re worried, because there shouldn’t be any rain on a perfect day. And sometimes the raincloud takes weeks to arrive, sometimes it’s pushed so far west you lose sight of it completely, but this time it took days, and you just wasn’t ready to go home yet. It was a perfect day in a cornflower field and you were happy and you just wanted to sit in the sunshine for a little while longer. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that I’m tired. I need to learn how to be happy when it rains and the world stops being a beautiful place, but I just don’t know how. Where do I go from here? Lately it’s been raining an awful lot on this side of the world.