Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [50]
Yet, I am obsessed. I think about him constantly, wondering if he thinks about me and listening to the score of Romeo and Juliet, the 1996 version, which has expanded in meaning from the one Des’ree song to the entire album, now that I have seen the movie (again) with him.
I’ve known him for three weeks and look at how swiftly and completely I have fallen for him. Shouldn’t he recognize this and be alarmed? Isn’t this symptomatic of something?
We met in a way that you wouldn’t think would be a possible way to meet a shrink. I was wearing a tank top and shorts, fresh from the gym. I was walking south on University Place, on my way to get an espresso when I passed this handsome and cool guy lurking on the corner. I noticed him, then turned away and walked on. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his head turn to follow me. Then as I was walking, the person in front of me opened a door, and I was able to see a reflection in the glass that I was now being followed. With a sudden heart-pounding sense of panic at the idea of a possible meeting, I ducked into a magazine store and purposefully began thumbing through a copy of The New Yorker. A few seconds later, he came into the same magazine store and began thumbing casually through The New Republic. I felt him look at me, so I replaced the magazine on the rack and left the store. He followed. I walked quickly, and then I felt a hand on my arm.
“Hey,” he said in a slight Southern accent.
“Hey,” I said back to him, surprised that he was Southern and feeling immediately comfortable with him for this fact, because my parents and older brother are all from Georgia. So even though I do associate the accent with people who are either drunk or insane, it’s familiar.
Then out of the blue he said, “You wanna get some coffee?”
And like in some thinly plotted porn movie I said, “Sure.”
So we went to French Roast on Seventh Avenue and drank coffee and talked, and he told me he was a shrink, and I told him that I was in advertising but wanted to be out of it and be a writer. And then he said, “Are you straight?” And I said no, why? And he said, “As soon as you said hey to me, I thought you were straight and that I made a big mistake, so I’ve been sitting here the whole time worrying that you were just some really nice and friendly straight guy.”
So that’s how we met.
I’ve been indoors all day wondering what he’s doing and feeling left out now that I know he’s on call tonight. I hate this.
I wish he’d call me this evening and say “Let’s go get eggs.”
He never eats at McDonald’s, which is right near him: a bad sign.
For some reason, I am horrified to be an alcoholic around him and am tempted to never tell him. To simply never have been one. Never drink again and never mention a word. Have it revealed to him in years, as a surprise.
If he were a plumber would I feel the same? No. I would think he was strange, distant, and oddly disconnected. The fact that he’s a shrink makes me feel safe. Because if anybody should have a psychiatrist for a boyfriend, that’s me. And yet.
Mark the shrink is still in bed, curled up and sleeping with the easy depth that only an exhausted doctor can. For the past five weeks he’s been coming over to my apartment after his shift and falling into bed. We never have sex. We only sleep. We never talk about it.
I find it endearing how comfortable he is, able to just be. However, I hate him for having thick hair and being twenty-eight, while I have almost no hair and am thirty-one.
It seems like he has always been here in my bed. He seems to just suddenly belong, like a part of something that was missing and has now been returned without fanfare. Almost like my dog-tail dream. Sometimes I dream that I look down and suddenly see that I have a dog’s tail. At first, I’m shocked, but then a second later realize, Well of course I have a dog’s tail. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and I’ve always had it but just not realized it.
Maybe I should tell Mark the Shrink about my dog-tail dream.
It occurs to me that I’m in a different decade than this