A further revised work still in progress...

Adorable Disaster


Laura Berger says: Hey I found your Facebook page and noticed that you come from a place called Downingtown, near Philadelphia. I’m from there too and thought I’d send you a message.
I turned in my chair towards Blake.
“Do you know who Laura Berger is?”
“Who?”
“This girl just messaged me saying she’s from the same town as me and I dunno who she is.” It was shocking to say the least considering Downingtown was roughly six hours, three long arduous highways and at least five million map miles away from Bradford, where we went to school.
“Does she have a picture?” Blake responded, seemingly interested. I pulled up her picture to find the short, freckled girl with straight dark hair leaning against a wall. Her jeans were unbuttoned and she looked extremely attractive stretching along the wall outwardly telling me through her gaze that she wanted to have sex with me.
“Damn,” I said, still in shock “Isn’t that the quiet girl who lives next door?” We actually assumed that her and her three housemates were all batshit insane because they never seemed interested in talking to us.
Ross Sharkey says: Yeah I’m from Downingtown. I never imagined that I’d find another Downingtownie way up here in Bradford.
Laura Berger says: Yeah what are the odds?
I scrolled through her Facebook page and stopped on the section labeled “favorite music.” Bands such as Brand New, Matchbook Romance, Motion City Soundtrack, Mae and Rise Against appeared. She had literally the exact same taste in music as I did.
Ross Sharkey says: I noticed on your page that you like the band Brand New. Have you heard all their stuff?
I felt a little bit cocky because it was a documented fact that I was the biggest Brand New fan on this half of the universe. I even had a man-crush on the lead singer. It was bad.
Laura Berger says: Oh my god I love Brand New!
I already wanted her.

Laura was a short, freckled girl with straight dark hair that lived next door to Blake and I during our freshman year of college. Facebook was all the rage back then which must have accounted for our conversations.
I got another message from Laura the next day.
Laura Berger says: Hey Sharkey!
Ross Sharkey says: Heya
Laura Berger says: Any chance you could come over? I dunno if you’re any good with computers but I might need some help.

Her house was all of three feet away from mine. I logged off my computer and started making my way downstairs. I was well aware that on this current day I was wearing my favorite dark blue track jacket, flawlessly styled jeans and bitchin’ sneakers to go with my perfectly coiffed pompadour hair. Regardless of how good I thought I looked, I still found it odd that I was analyzing something as simple as this to go over and talk to a girl I’d hardly seen in person before. My girlfriend back home never even entered my mind when I went over to Laura’s.
I didn’t know which room Laura was living in so I just started making my way upstairs until she came and met me on the landing. She was wearing some jeans (buttoned up this time) with a tight pink shirt and an unzipped hoodie with stars all over it. She wanted me to look at her computer for something and seeing as how computers are my biggest nerd pastime, I was up for the challenge.
“There you are! Come look at this. Do you know much about computers?”
“I dabble,” I remarked coyly. She walked me over to her computer and started opening a series of programs as she tried to remedy her mysterious problem. She also put on some music and started playing the song “The Quiet Things that No One ever Knows” by Brand New. God I loved that song.
“Okay I downloaded this program called Bandwidth Monitor Pro. It runs in the background of my computer all the time and lets me know all the traffic that goes in and out of my computer through the internet.” Makes sense so far.
“Okay so what’s the problem?” I asked, half interested, half looking around her room in curiosity, half lost in the lyrics of Jesse Lacey on guitar, and half curious as to why this girl made me lose all conception of math and how many halves are in a whole.
Despite my closet-nerd stature, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her computer. I may or may not have actually been paying attention because a lot of my energy was spent restraining myself from looking like a complete loser.
“Okay well thanks for coming to look at it for me. I have to get to class, but we should hang out sometime.”
Yes! Yes we should hang out sometime, I thought, realizing that I was allowed to be as pathetic and excited as I wanted within the confines of my own mind.
“Yeah that sounds good to me.” We exchanged phone numbers and I was on my merry way.
I began spending much of my free time with Laura. Things were pretty rocky with Sari, my girlfriend back home, and I had been forecasting the end of our relationship in the not-too-distant future. My newfound friendship with Laura seemed like just what I needed to take my mind off this. Laura was good at making me forget about the small-town worries I was experiencing from a long-distance girlfriend.
****
“Knock, knock!”
I sat up from my position hunched over my computer desk to find Laura standing in my doorway.
“You and that roommate of yours should come over to my place a bit later on. I picked up some rum and I need some people to drink it with.” It was still my freshman year of college and I was relatively new to the whole drinking thing but I was slowly picking it up, having started my excursion with a six-pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and several drunken clichés a few months prior.
“Yeah sure. Blake is out right now but I’m sure he’ll come over afterwards.” I just liked looking at her leaning in my doorway, everything about her was so inviting.
“Alright sounds good, swing by sometime after dinner.” She scurried down my stairs and I couldn’t help but lean around the doorframe to watch her leave.
I arrived to Laura’s place a few hours later and found her scrolling through her music collection on her computer, sipping on a rum and coke. She had curled her hair and put it in a pony tail. She was sitting with her legs up against her absent roommate’s desk.
“Boo.”
“Hey, you made it! Let me make you a drink.” I sat down at her computer as she made her way over to her fridge. I immediately scrolled to the “Brand New” section of her music library to find that her collection of songs matched mine, almost perfectly. Impressive, considering I had dozens of unreleased demo’s that I always thought would even impress the band.
“Nice music collection,” I commented, still scrolling through her library.
“Thanks,” she replied, handing me a rum and coke. She leaned over my shoulder and took control of the mouse. I took a sip from my drink.
“Holy hell, woman. Do you think you put enough rum in this? There’s enough in here to sedate a bull.” She just looked at me and giggled. I continued drinking it anyway.
The night progressed to the point that we just sat around bullshitting and watching music videos in her room until the alcohol had a complete grasp on our nervous systems.
“Let’s go watch some T.V.” She said, dragging me downstairs to the living room, after pouring us another few drinks. I plopped myself down on the couch and took drastic countermeasures to prevent my head from spinning – which basically just involved centering myself and taking deep breaths. Laura staggered her way down the stairs and almost fell over in the process. I laid myself down on the couch with high hopes that my head would come down. To this day I’m still unsure if she remembers what she did next.
“Hi, there,” she said putting her hands on my chest and crawling on top of me.
“Oh…hey,” I said, panicking as the inner mechanisms of my mind raced to decide what the hell I should do. I had a girlfriend, and even though our relationship was weak at best, I still held out hopes that the girl I loved would return to normal once the distance barrier was broken, and I returned home for the summer.
Laura didn’t say anything else. She continued to straddle me, and was well aware that I had a girlfriend of two years. Laura bit her lip and ran her hands down my chest as she slowly started leaning in closer. As she inched slightly closer two curly black strands of hair escaped her pony tail and ran down her face like a renegade waterfall. Her hands were still firmly on my chest and I was sure she could feel my heart pounding rebelliously as it tried desperately to escape from my chest. As Laura continued to slide herself closer to my face, I tried desperately to slow down at least one of my adrenaline-fueled thoughts long enough to process something. Anything. Before she could get any closer my mind froze and I realized that I had to chase down and contain my heartbeat before it ran off with her.
In a last minute decision, I quickly grabbed her hands and pushed her away, until she was sitting confused on the couch next to me, blowing curls of hair off her face. Before I could open my mouth to say anything, Blake erupted through the front door.
Shortly after Blake arrived, the three of us continued drinking and watching T.V. It didn’t seem to take Laura very long at all to forget what had just happened. I couldn’t cheat on Sari anyway, and with optimistic thoughts about our relationship, I didn’t get upset when Blake slept with Laura that night. I think it was just one of those “I’m drunk, you’re drunk, you’re not a complete stranger, let’s do this” college moments. I think it happened a few times, but that was about the extent of their relationship. Blake bragged to me about it the next day and I can honestly say that it didn’t bother me. I didn’t even judge Laura when I found out. I had a girlfriend, and everything was going to be just fine.

****

Two months later I no longer had a girlfriend and everything was not just fine. I still don’t know why I stayed with that girl for as long as I did, but needless to say I broke it off. I held onto the rope that held our relationship together for as long as I could, but by the time it ended the rope was frayed and my hands suffered painful burns.
It meant a lot to me that Laura came out with me just minutes after I broke up with Sari. I was an emotional wreck, having never lost a girlfriend before, and Laura came to pick me up and collect the pieces over ice cream. When I thanked her for coming to my aid so quickly all she said was “if you call, then I’m coming to get you.”
We went to Rita’s water-ice, a place so delightful that I swear it was made of happiness, sunshine, and orgasms. We sat down at a secluded table with our gelatos and absorbed the silence briefly until she snapped it in half.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never gone through this before. To be honest, I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to feel,” I replied, with my face buried in my cup. “I feel sort of odd. It makes me wonder if she feels the same way. She didn’t seem too bothered when I broke up with her.”
“That’s normal for girls. A lot of girls won’t let you know it bothers them until they want you back. Do you think you could ever take her back?”
“Hell no,” I replied adamantly, resting my head on the table on top of my crossed arms. Laura looked bothered, almost as if she felt exactly what I was feeling.
“You know,” she started, taking a long inhale and even longer exhale “I once had a boyfriend a few years ago. He was a huge guy. He played a lot of varsity sports and was always working out. He treated me really well despite the negative stigma that most jocks drag around, and spread like the plague amongst themselves. After a few months of dating I didn’t think it was working and I broke up with him. Despite his huge size, I watched him cry for what seemed like hours. All this pain that was pouring out of him was caused entirely by me. I don’t regret my decision because I knew it needed to be done, but it just shows you that people aren’t always what they seem. I already know that she’s missing you. Even if you aren’t missing her back.” She got up from her side of the table, sat down next to me and gave me a hug. It felt good having her that close to me again. It was then that I realized I never should have pushed her off of me on that couch. It didn’t matter that we were drunk, what mattered was that she would never do it again.

Laura and I spent our entire summer completely wasting time. Time wasted with Laura was time well-wasted, and time well-wasted was time well-spent. We spent countless hours around parks, malls, movie theatres and grocery stores. We reconvened almost every night after work, walked our asses to the same park two miles away and laid down to watch the stars.

“Take my spider webs bitch!” Laura demanded, waving her tiny fist at me. We were walking to the park and she walked straight through an absolutely massive spider web. It douched her right in the face. I laughed hysterically.
“Ross!” She screamed, picking spider web out of her hair. Screaming my name became routine for Laura and started happening more frequently as our friendship developed. It didn’t bother me because it was always masked behind incessant laughter.
“Take your own spider webs!” I laughed. Laura didn’t find it as funny and promptly grabbed another colossal spider web and threw it right in my hair.
“Touché.” I grabbed her hand and we finished walking to the park, accompanied by the constant ear-piercing sound of cicadas.
“Fuckin’ peepers,” Laura seethed at the obnoxious creatures.
We found a soccer ball when we got to the park at 11 pm. I played soccer when I was younger and therefore assumed that I was still awesome at it, even if I hadn’t played in twelve years. I made fruitless attempts to woo Laura with my most excellent juggling talents, but still couldn’t get past about three.
“Nice foot work, Ronaldo.” Laura laughed. I stopped the ball in mid-air and kicked it straight at her. She ducked.
“Ross!” I stayed where I was, laughing. It was around this time that we heard the noise. It almost sounded like a dying giraffe and a constipated bull were trying to mate on the soccer field. I wandered over to the source of the sound to find the smallest deer I’d ever seen sneezing uncontrollably. If I hadn’t seen the snot rockets leaving its nose then I’d have sworn it was having a seizure. Before long it spotted me, and ran off. I turned around to find Laura huddled over in laughter, before bursting into laughter myself. This was what we did.

Before long we were star gazing as normal. Laura made up a game wherein we both tried as hard as possible to spot slow-moving satellites among the stars. There was no prize, yet it still entertained us for hours. It was at this point that I leaned in to kiss her.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She sat up, but did not seem annoyed.
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be. Don’t feel awkward. Don’t feel rejected. I’m not rejecting you. Ross, I have a great time with you all the time. When I’m with you, I laugh constantly. We do nothing but waste time and I absolutely love that about us. I’ve just had a history of struggling to make relationships last, and that’s where I’m afraid this is going. Can we keep doing what we’re doing and see where it goes?” She sounded genuine. I think a lot of other guys would have told her no, along with several other choice words and walked off in a huff to go get drunk. For some reason I couldn’t have been happier. I wanted nothing more than to keep her as close to me as possible.
“Yes. Yes we can.” She placed her head back on my shoulders and we laid unadorned in a tiny park until 4 a.m, falling asleep to the sound of peepers and sneezing venison.

****
“How many do you think you can drink before we have to head in? I asked, polishing off another Labatt Blue. We were probably in the car for about forty-five minutes at this point, abusing our livers like they were evil and had to be stopped.
“I don’t know,” she replied cracking open a fresh can “We’ve probably only got a few more minutes before it starts.” We were in the parking lot of the Town Ballroom in Buffalo, waiting for The Academy is, and Armor for Sleep concert to begin.
We got out of the car, and settled our composures. I was really fucking drunk. I could tell Laura was too because when I looked over at her, we both just started laughing. For good measure, I grabbed another beer and stuffed it in my pocket. They were serving alcohol inside, so I hoped I’d just blend in, despite the fact that I was underage. With my hand covering the huge bulge in my pocket from the can, I miraculously made it past the bouncer and into the raging concert. Armor for Sleep was just about to come on. Laura inched ahead to find us a good spot, while I made my way into a disgusting bathroom stall to chug my leg-warm beer.
I barricaded myself in the tiny stall and quietly cracked open the beer. Evidently, I was too intoxicated to remember to put down my $300 cell phone before I started chugging the beer and dropped it straight into the toilet.
“Fuck me.” Before I could finish another thought I pulled up my sleeve and dove into the toilet fist first to grab my brand new phone and rip out the battery before it could sustain water damage. I washed my hands for a solid ten minutes and missed a few songs from Armor’s set. Nice job, dumbass.
I found Laura up front with a bottle of Molson Canadian in her hand, dancing around wildly, and splashing beer on half of the crowd. She eventually spotted me.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Chugging a beer in a bathroom stall…and dropping my cell phone in a disgusting toilet.”
“Eww! Nice job, dumbass.” God I loved her. Laura offered to get me a few beers with her special, rainbow colored “over 21 years of age wristband” but I was already too drunk. I don’t even remember half of the set list from the headlining band. The last thing I remembered was William Beckett from The Academy Is yelling into the microphone as he reached out to the crowd. With our ears ringing, we walked over to a nearby donut shop to sober up for several hours before having to make the long drive home. It was one of the best times I’d ever had.

****
We arrived back at school for the fall semester. It was August 30th when we were allowed to move our belongings into the campus residence halls. My birthday was August 31st. It was also about this time that Brand New’s newest album was released. Both of us pretty much listened to it relentlessly on the six hour drive up to Bradford. The song “Degausser” came vividly to mind with its amazing guitar and down-right confusing lyrics.

Take me, Take me back to your bed
I love you so much that it hurts my head,
Say, “I don’t mind you under my skin,
I’ll let your bad parts in, the bad parts in.”

By this point in our friendship, I was more than ready for something more from Laura and I think she felt the same way. I didn’t care that she had mentioned she struggled with relationships. I knew we were so much alike that it wouldn’t matter. I needed her.

“Hey dildo, what’s up?” Laura often called me dildo.
“Struggling to unpack all my shit from my tiny car.”
“Care to come over to my place and watch a movie to get your mind off of it?”
“Dear god yes, I don’t want to be buried in my junk anymore. I’ll be over soon.”
I arrived at her house to find she was already entirely unpacked.
“Dear god how did you unpack so quickly, half of my stuff is still in my car.” I snapped in amazement.
“I’m getting good at it. I like setting up a new room to make it look like I’ve been here a while. What movie do you want to watch?” She asked, reaching for her stack of DVD’s.
“I don’t care,” I replied, making myself comfortable on her bed and throwing my jacket in the corner.
“Ever seen Grandma’s Boy? It’s totally a pot-head movie but I laughed the whole way through anyway.”
“Go for it.”
Laura put the movie in and then situated herself resting on my chest like she always did. I was used to it by now. We watched the whole movie, and she was right, it made me laugh the whole way through, especially the scene wherein the main character accidentally ejaculates on his friends mom. It was around 11:45 when the movie ended.
“Ugh, I should probably get going.” I yawned and stretched. “I have class tomorrow morning.”
“But tomorrow is your birthday.” Laura sounded almost nervous when she said it. The first time I’d ever seen her that way. “You could stay with me for the night if you wanted to.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to react at first, but eventually put some words together.
“Uhh, yeah sure I can do that.” I took my jacket off and threw it back on the floor. I crawled back onto Laura’s bed.
We laid down next to each other, and to be honest it didn’t really feel all that much different than normal. That is, until her watch beeped, signaling that it was midnight. She looked into my eyes.
“Happy birthday.” She leaned over and kissed me, smiled adoringly, and rested her head back on my chest and fell asleep. I fell asleep smiling, and pulled her closer to me.

Laura knew that I loved warheads. Not the diabolical weapons of mass destruction, but the diabolical candies of taste bud annihilation that wreaked havoc on the tongues of anyone daring enough to eat more than one. I loved those sour candies. When I arrived back in my half-packed room the next morning, I found that the entire room was covered in colorful, wrapped warhead candies. They were everywhere and on everything. That girl somehow covered my bedroom in my favorite candy while I was with her. Standing in my doorway in shock and awe, I realized that I was in love with that girl.

****
Laura was hunched over her computer desk when I knocked on her open door.
“Ross, -I”
“Laura, I have to know what went wrong.”
“I can’t tell you, Ross. It’s not because I don’t want to, but I really don’t know. You’re just such a nice guy and I have such a good time with you-”
“That’s what I don’t understand, Laura.” I was starting to get angry, something that rarely happened. “I know for a fact that there is no one on this planet that knows you as well as I do. It doesn’t make sense. Give me something, please.” It was true, I’d only known Laura for eight or nine months, but I was still certain of that statement. I wasn’t going down in flames this time. I wasn’t going to make the same mistakes I did before. I wouldn’t be that blind and hopeful optimist who was slowly suffocated in his own ignorance.
“I don’t know. I love you. We know each other so well that I could actually see us being married in ten years time. I just don’t know what the problem is, and I don’t want to hurt you. I’m bad with relationships and even though ours is perfect, I can’t trust myself. I know there has to be something more keeping me away from you, but I just don’t know what it is.”
I sat with my head in my hands on the edge of her bed, ready to rip my hair out. We’d been through so much together and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to continue spending time with her without breaking out into unyielding misery wondering what the fuck she was thinking. It was depressing. I couldn’t do it. I collected myself and got up from her bed. She was sitting in her computer chair with her head in her hands, crying. She couldn’t look at me. I leaned down and rested my head on her shoulder and wrapped my arms around her.
“I love you so much that it hurts my head.” I turned away and walked out of the room.

****

I’ve since forgotten how many freckles Laura had, what color her eyes were, how dark her hair was and where her scars were, or how she got them. I didn’t think it was fair that she was using me to try to find answers for questions she still had about herself. None of my female friends could really offer any consolable advice and played the generic ace of spades for depressed, male friends in times of emotional hardship: “You’re too good for her anyway.”
Several things happened after that night. I almost drank myself to death the next night, I took up smoking, and I developed anxiety issues. However, I think what killed me the most was returning to the same state we were in when we were next door neighbors, and nothing more. After that night, Laura treated me with the same passive sentiments she gave me before we knew each other. Seeing her in passing, only to find her walking straight through me was almost as painful as walking out on her in the first place.