Written: all over the place
Powered by: pumpkin spice
Inspired by: an awe-inspiring friend of mine who once told me a story about her drug-dealing high school boyfriend (this is not that story, they only share the same first line)
One time in high school I dated this drug dealer named Solomon. He probably would like that I remember him that way because it makes him sound tough, but he had these kind brown eyes and believe it or not we met at a lock-in at the Jewish Community Center, so he couldn’t have been that bad.
Anyway, we started dating in our senior year. He took me to prom and everything. I didn’t do drugs, but I was around when he sold them sometimes, mostly weed, mostly to his friends but sometimes to the kids at the private school who had more money than we did.
So a few months before graduation Solomon decides he’s going to start selling coke too. He’s more discrete about this, more elusive, but when all there is to do in town on a Friday night is go to the football game, rumors spread. It wasn’t more than a few weeks before one of his friends got caught and pegged Solomon as his dealer. They both got expelled.
We had always known I would be going away to college and he wouldn’t, but my high school diploma and his criminal record sort of put this wedge between us, and the miles apart didn’t help. We stayed together, but by the time he came to visit me on campus it felt like we were completely different people. I didn’t have any pictures of him up in my dorm the way other girls with long distance boyfriends did. I asked him to please not wear the same hoodie he used to wear in high school when he came. My friends smiled when they met him, but ran out of things to say.
It wasn’t like it was unclear to us that this wasn’t going to work, it just wasn’t clear what other alternatives we had either. We sort of went into hibernation with each other, fighting but not quite breaking up, seeing other people but not quite cheating. I don’t remember when it actually ended, or how. It just did.
Did I mention that after Solomon and that kid got expelled, they found out that it was just pummeled concrete in that bag passing itself off as coke? They still charged him for selling drugs.
I remember watching a lot of movies in high school. That’s what he and I would do together, we’d huddle up on the couch in my basement and rent all kinds of movies. And I remember, like, being impacted by them. Like if we watched a sad movie, I would feel kind of moody and try to find some reason to cry and have him comfort me. Or if we watched a movie with a real badass, I would act more tough. I remember not really knowing who I was, but thinking I had plenty of time to figure it out. Now I wish I had tried harder to figure it out, who I really was I mean. I wish instead of spending all of my time copying those movies I had actually lived more of my life.
Because now I think I might know who I am, but I think it might be too late to really do anything about it.
I guess I’m trying to figure out how other people manage to keep people in their lives forever but I can’t seem to keep them for more than a year or two. Despite everything, I thought I loved Solomon. Now I don’t even think I would recognize him. And I wonder, how many people think that about me? How many old friends or neighbors or hook ups or coworkers see me on Facebook or something and think, that’s her? Really?
How could I keep anyone when I can’t even stick to one version of myself?