Oh So Serious

"I don't get it, you don't want to hang out with me anymore?" I was walking her home from an evening out with my friends. It was a bomb out of nowhere.

"No, remember when we first met and it was your friends and my friends and we were all just hanging out? I think we should go back to that."

"That doesn't make any sense. You like me. I like you. We have fun hanging out together."

"I know, I just... it's..." She started over. "We've been spending a lot of time together, just the two of us... and I didn't intend for that to happen. I think we should go back to the way things used to be." I didn't remember the way things used to be. I only remembered smiling when I was around her. I only remembered catching her out of the corner of my eye smiling at me.

I couldn't understand. "Why?"

Her reasons didn't make much sense. I didn't think she was being honest with me. Maybe not with herself. It was a long walk and a long, drawn out conversation. I had made the unfortunate mistake of being chivalrous, insisting I would walk her home when she tried to get me to stay with my friends.

She wasn't going to change her mind. I wasn't going to try to change it for her.

Finally we made it to her door. We stopped walking and faced eachother, both staring at the ground so we didn't have to acknowledge the awkwardness floating between us. "If I see you, I promise I'll be congenial and I'll laugh at your jokes and I won't be jealous of the boy on your arm." "I don't have any jokes," she replied. I hugged her close to me and she left her arms limp at her side. "Give me a hug," I asked her. "Hmmm. You smell nice." She murmured and her arms hesitated. "That's making this really difficult for me..." It better be difficult for you. It's pretty damn difficult for me, I thought to myself. I didn't say it though. I kissed her on the forehead and said "goodbye" and walked away.

When she had stopped at my apartment earlier in the evening she had given me a mix tape. An actual cassette tape. When I got home I saw it sitting on the table where she had set it down. I picked it up and looked at the track listing written on the back. At the bottom she had drawn some hearts and xoxos. "This is bullshit!" I exclaimed to my empty apartment. I threw the tape down on the table and went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and remembered what had happened. "Bullshit!" I exclaimed to my ceiling. "This is bullshit!" I puttered around my apartment, feeling pissed off and not wanting to head to work. I picked up the tape and looked at the track listing again. It only annoyed me more. Songs I liked, artists I liked, from different eras, from different genres. I tried to put it out of my mind.

****

I was driving to a nearby state park to go hiking when I played the tape for the first time. One time she had noticed that my car's radio had a tape deck, which was why she had recorded a tape rather than making a CD. Nobody still had a tape deck. I listened to side A on the way out and only got more irritated. Songs like "Your Love," "In Your Eyes," and "The Way You Make Me Feel" she would have chosen only if she liked me as I did her. At least, I thought. Maybe not. Of course so. Then why did she change her mind? I kept seething in my head, wavering one way and then another.

The last track on side A ended as I pulled into the park and stopped my car. The hike was long and hot; exhaustion was what finally stopped my internal diatribe as I returned to the car. Sitting in the driver's seat, I drank the last drops from my water bottle and started the engine. The tape deck made a series of clicks and whirrings, and side B began as I started to drive back home.

There was a shift in tone from A to B, or at least I thought there was. "Don't Let It Get You Down." "Find Out How It Ends." "Forever Young." "Boys Of Summer." Maybe it was the heat, or the exhaustion, or the sunset I was driving into, or the goofy way the sound was warping faster and slower, louder and softer. Whatever it was, I suddenly understood what catharsis meant.

I started to compose an email to her in my head. I listened to your mix tape... Thanks. I'm still a little pissed, but it made me feel better. I think I understand. Or maybe I'm misinterpreting, or maybe you didn't mean anything at all. Either way, I really enjoyed getting to know you. I had a lot of fun spending time together. I'll miss that. See you round.