Dry_ A Memoir - Augusten Burroughs [34]
I was trapped because I did love him, but also now wanted to cause the most massive harm possible. You will love me, I thought. And then it will be too late.
It went on like this for a year. The sex, always intense, fast and hungry. And the friendship. But no romance. I’d go over to his apartment (mine was always too messy for his taste) and he’d make roast chicken or beef stew. I’d watch his hands work: slicing, stirring, grinding pepper. I would watch his hands and think, I love those hands. And all the while, I knew I had to get over him. It didn’t matter why he wasn’t interested in me romantically. Just that he wasn’t.
I started dating. First there was Tim, which lasted three months. Then there was Ned, which lasted a couple of weeks. There was Julian, Carlos, Eric. All of them in some way resembled Pighead. Tim was a banker, like Pighead. Julian and Carlos resembled him. Ned didn’t look like Pighead but he was Greek and I thought, Maybe this will be enough.
It was a year later when I finally thought I was over him. When not every song reminded me of him. And I was able to go for entire days without thinking about him on a constant basis. I was able to imagine the possibility of someone else.
One evening he called me from his car and told me to meet him downstairs. It was a Friday. Probably I had plans with Jim, maybe we would be going to the Odeon or Grange Hall. “You need to come downstairs. Now.”
I climbed into his car and foul mood. “Jesus, what the hell is the matter with you?” I remember asking him. Maybe not those exact words, but close enough. “You have to keep things in perspective. Nothing is this bad. Your fucking job is just a job. It’s not like you’re HIV-positive.”
But it was. He’d tested positive.
That night, I slept over at his house, holding him, showing him that it didn’t matter to me. I wanted him to know that even if there was no cure, there was hope. The kind of hope that is powerful, because it comes from such need. That was the night he told me that he loved me. That he was in love with me.
But hearing him say it made me feel like he was saying it only because he was afraid. Afraid he’d never get anything better. I made it my mission to fall completely out of love with him, yet be there for him as a friend. That virus was something I just didn’t want anything to do with. And I was angry with him. Furious that I had spent so much energy falling out of love with him, only to have him fall in love with me after he became diagnosed with a fatal disease. Part of me felt deep compassion. And another part felt like, You fucker.
So now we’re friends and I thought I was way past all that crap. But obviously I am not over all that crap. Obviously I am a sort of a mess.
For a while the room is silent. Then Kavi speaks up. “When my lover was diagnosed with AIDS, I left him. Couldn’t deal with it.” He is fiddling with the gelled curl on his forehead as he says this. “And what I regret the most is that he died not knowing how much I loved him. And how the only reason he didn’t know was because of my using, and my selfishness. I was already married, I guess. To coke. I couldn’t even deal with the two of us together, let alone his virus, which made it three of us. I hate myself for that.”
He looks at me. “He died never knowing how much I really loved him. He died believing that it was his virus I was afraid of. But that’s not it. I left him before he could leave me. Because I’ve been left a lot in my life. Except by coke. Coke never leaves me. Coke is always there. I had to leave him. I had to break the cycle.”
I want to throw up at hearing this. I can feel it kicking around at the back of my throat, knocking on the door. My stomach is pushing the acid up. My stomach is saying, This is too much.
Kavi disgusts me. He disgusts me more than any other human being has ever disgusted me before.
Because I am him.
Suddenly I want to drink. The urge hits me like a tsunami. I don’t want to drink