The Cake is a Lie (2 page)

My prepared statement was great, I just
said, “Hey Emma, I don’t feel good about our relationship anymore,
I want to break up.” I was intentionally direct and brief because I
had taken heavy criticism throughout our relationship for over
thinking everything and being too nice. I was also careful to say
“don’t want to be in a relationship” instead of “I want to be
single” because she’d always accused me of wanting to be single.
I’m a natural spin-doctor. It felt so good to finally get it over
with. I’d been so anxious about it, hesitant right up until the
moment when I somehow forced the words out.

The truth is that she was right–I was
never the “rest of my life” in love with her. I said “I love you”
for the first time for the same reason that so many people do:
pageantry, because it was expected. We had been dating for six
months and she’d been hinting at it. I planned it out perfectly. It
was a warm summer night, we were cuddled on the grass. Seattle’s
biggest fountain played in front of us. I was so incredibly nervous
and sick to my stomach that getting it out was more like a car
crash than anything dreamy. Emma even made me suffer for a few
timeless moments before leaning in and whispering perfectly in my
ear, “I love you too.”

Once you say it, well there’s no going
back. I was nineteen then, I’ve learned a few things since. Emma
always picked up on my fear of commitment. Call it a woman’s
intuition. Not that it exactly took a detective. I was always
reluctant to show her affection in public, because I didn’t want to
appear tied down in front of my friends, family or old
acquaintances we might happen to run into. I gradually stopped
doing anything super special for her. She would ask me about it and
I would say, “Emma you’re only my second girlfriend. I’m 23, you’ve
slept with twice as many people as me. Yes 40% of me wants to be
single.” But then I would go on about how great she was and why I
loved her, how every guy has a part of them that wants to be
single. Honest enough to have a clear conscience, deceptive enough
to waste more of her time.

When I would stay up way too late,
Emma, half asleep on my bed, would stick one of her arms straight
up in the air and flap her little hand up and down beckoning me to
bed. I will always miss that. I could’ve settled with Emma.
Settling isn’t as bad as it sounds. Emma was intelligent, a nurse,
very cute, a solid eight, one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met.
She’s the best kisser I’ve ever kissed, and I’ve tongue kissed
around 25 girls. She knew almost everything about me, my
mannerisms, how I think. She would reach her hand up my shirt and
scratch my back at social events when she could tell I was getting
tired and cranky. She wanted to spend the rest of her life with me,
even with all my imperfections. She would have stuck with me and
taken care of me if I got sick. If that’s not close to real love I
don’t know what is.

Staying with Emma would have been worth
it just to avoid having to start all over again with someone
new.

But I’ve seen how almost love,
so-very-close love, can become something ugly. The small digs and
criticisms, the yelling and crying, the resentment and regret. Emma
had plenty of flaws, many that I will only ever see. People are so
different it’s amazing we find matches at all.

No, settling isn’t as bad as you might
think. Just don’t you dare confuse it for a second with reaching
out against all odds, beyond all your means, and winning over the
person of your dreams. That was why I had to pull together all my
strength and let her go.

I try to ignore the fact that
eventually I will never see her again, even though a part of me
wants to run back to her, pick her up and hold her, tell her that
everything is going to be alright.

Spring, 2012.

Last night Emma became FB official with
a guy she’s been dating. I’m looking at a big blown up picture of
his face. He’s wearing a desert army helmet and shades, he just
deployed to Afghanistan. Just above the picture is a big decorative
banner that says, “Emma is in a relationship with…” They slept
together for the first time the night before he deployed. The
romantic notion of this repulses me. She’s told me a about him. He
religiously gets on Reddit for a half hour as soon as he wakes up
every morning. She went on birth control just for him, “Because he
doesn’t use condoms with his girlfriends.” He calls her his
firecracker. I’ve fallen into one of those episodes where I just
lie on my bed and stare off into nothingness for hours. His muscles
are freakishly big. And he’s actually handsome too, “GQ handsome”
as Emma puts it, and he’s a tough solider. I imagine he’s carefree
and full of energy. Picturing her spending hours talking to him,
having his child, is misery.

Winter, 2012.

No, I never committed myself to growing
in love with Emma. From the beginning I was just passing the time.
Never compromising my nostalgia for the adventure of the chase. And
something else, much worst. The truth is, I was, and am, obsessed
with a girl I grew up with. Oakley Carter. The most beautiful name
that has ever been given to anything. It’s been with me every
single day since I first really learned it, ruminating in my
thoughts. The last great name left from my youth–and trust me,
there were legends. Oakley beat all of us. She grew up to be the
most popular person I’ve ever been friends with, acquaintances
with, ever touched. In literature it’s called an “enchanted
object.” In movies a “pixie dream girl.” I’ve heard some cool
sorority girls call it their “unicorn” before.

Now at this point you might say, “You
don’t know anything about love.” Well, this is true–I don’t. But
put me in a room with any other girl in the entire world, even
famous girls, even Scarlett Johansson, and I would not be filled
with as much anxiety and excitement as if I saw Oakley again.
That’s something.

But she’s far out of reach
now, about as far gone as someone can be while still leaving behind
a sliver of hope. And there
is
a sliver. Oakley Carter–the girl whose picture
alone makes me cringe–she once had a crush on me. We were friends
for a long time, but for a while she was crushin’. Fact.

Oakley’s Facebook wall is private now.
You can’t see it if anyone writes on it. And she’s never been lame
enough to write anything on it more than twice a year herself.
She’s made her pictures private, too. There used to be over a
thousand of them. Glimpses into all the parties. Mexico, Whistler,
Westin rooftop pool parties with guys whose faces can’t be on
camera, Hollywood hills. Scenes filled with an endless supply of
light beer, stunning outfits and secrets I will never know.
Semi-scandalous pics that entice, that feature her in skimpy
swimsuits, with captions like, “They'll either want to kill you,
kiss you or be you.”

There all gone now. All that’s left is
a big number next to her name: 1,700 friends. You know she hasn’t
added anyone in forever either. She doesn’t even allow birthday
wishes on her wall anymore, even though she used to get hundreds of
them. Even though to lames like me the random, halfhearted birthday
wishes mean a lot.

There’s still a little green dot by her
name though, indicating that she’s online, only a click away.
Apparently she still likes to chat online.

I decide to message her. F-it. I
usually do once a year anyways.

I start off, “Hey, you should write a
book.” Send.

Then I write quickly, “I would buy the
first copy.” This is clever.

“
Lol Random. What up.” She
responds. I’m thrilled, not the most thoughtful reply, but whatev,
at least she’s playing ball.

“
Random and funny, but
true.” I counter. Then I ignore her “what up” completely, I’m not
trying to talk about me.

“
You dating anymore famous
people in L.A.?” Ouch. I immediately regret this, bringing up her
high profile boyfriend from two years ago is not the best move. I
have to write something though.

“
Lol, no.” She laughs back,
what.a.relief. This is going much better than I expected. And
whattt?, she’s single. Well, she’s not dating a celebrity. Small
victories.

“
How are you? How is
Seattle?” She’s insistent to turn the conversation towards me,
social intelligence 101.

“
I’m alright! Dreading
another gloomy Seattle winter.” The gloomy Seattle winter line is
good, she knows what that’s all about. I am also validating her
decision to move to California. The “I’m alright” is good too,
maybe should of left off the exclamation point. I never know what
to say when people ask me how I am. Stupid small talk. I should
have said, “I’m alright, except I’m 23 and not rich and famous
yet.” That would have got big laughs.

She’s actually talkative, lots of
“LOL’s”, even some “hahahas.” We chat for like twenty minutes. Out
of all the people she has met in the five years since I have seen
her–1700 Facebook friends, famous people, NFL players–she still
wants to talk with me. Maybe if she didn’t live in L.A…

She tells me she’s a publicist for a
big company in L.A. A big, big company. I pray it’s not as cool as
it sounds, but I know that it is. I think about her life, how she
did everything right. How she’s reaping the success of all that
work. I think about my life and focus on all the negatives. What do
I have that compares?

She eventually doesn’t respond to my
last question, it wasn’t an important question anyways. I wait five
minutes… nothing. It’s okay, I was expecting this much earlier.
Overall, this was successful. I wait another five and then type,
“Hey you keep rockin it, and when you’re in Seattle, hit up who you
know it’s past time since you saw and told your stories too.” Oh
god, that’s so terrible. WHAT WAS THAT?

There is hope because Oakley loves guys
that will never truly love her: big time ballers. This is the
nature of the game.

And lastly–and most importantly–there’s
hope because she loves to read.

A few blocks from my childhood home—two
if you knew the shortcut through the house at the end of the
street—there was the official park of Richmond Beach. One of the
sound side towns in the Seattle suburb where I grew up,
Shoreline.

Before best friends, there was just me
and my mom spending our afternoons in the park. Richmond Beach
Park, “the park” to us, was not by any means the most impressive
park I’d ever explored, in fact just down the road was the actual
Richmond Beach. But the pond and little hills were in all the right
places and it was familiar. I knew all the secret trails on the
outside of the fence and played in all the best climbing
trees.

The park is where I first displayed my
social prowess. My mom would brag to anyone that would listen about
how I would fearlessly approach any kid, adult or dog and ask them
where they were from or compliment them on something they were
wearing. It wasn’t all natural ability, at first my mom fed me the
questions and encouraged me.

“
It’s unbelievable how
socially intelligent he is at such a young age,” She would always
say.

If you want to have a high social IQ
this is where it all starts, saying “hi” to strangers on the
playground.

The bright summer sun felt like a
spotlight on my concerned face as I entered the park with my mom.
Even from afar, I could tell something was off. All the kids were
running around in a big group, from one spot to another, sitting
down around one tree for a few minutes before taking off to another
spot. Normally there would’ve been a bunch of scattered
groups.

We were going to a picnic
some parents had organized to meet a new student joining our
4
^th
grade class. I stayed close to my mom like a cub as she walked
over to the group of adults. I kept an eye out for Loren. Loren
Larson was my one semi-best friend at school. Loren was a year
older than me, but he lived in my neighborhood and our parents were
friends so we had play dates. Loren was super skinny, even his face
was thin and boney, but his shaggy dirty blond hair and big
personality were unmatched. We got along. We both knew how to raise
our voices to tell a story. He was my social idol. But Loren was a
year older, so he gave me the cold shoulder more often than not at
school.

Loren was the only reason I went to
that picnic. My mom had repeatedly assured me he was going. You
can’t just go to a fourth grade social event without someone to
talk to. These weren’t strangers at a park, I saw these kids every
day. Plus, I wasn’t all that impressed by the other the kids in my
grade, I spent my days dreaming about hanging out with Loren and
the older kids.

I overheard from the parents that the
new student was a boy named Jonsen. It was the most unique name I’d
ever heard. His mom couldn’t stop raving about him, how he was a
star soccer player. I was now in full fledge crisis mode. I’d been
so sure the new student was going to be the love of my life. Our
grade only had one beautiful girl, Mari Smith, and she spent most
of her time hanging out with the older girls. And now she was going
to fall in love with Jonsen.

Eventually, I built up the courage to
go take a look at the big attraction for myself and headed over to
a bench the group had temporarily settled around. As I walked
towards the group I could hear Loren’s voice loudly joking around
with some other kids from our school.