Eva and I, or, The Wages of Love

Edit: Proofread, bits expanded upon, and things explained better.

We met a few years ago at school. It was the same story as you might hear from anyone else: A friend of mine had a class with her, she started hanging out with my

"in-group," and over some time, she was just as much a part of my normal day as the five-dollar lunch in the basement cafeteria. She was smart, she could talk the talk

my group talked, and we accepted her seamlessly.

Of course, as Nature's badly-written Science Fiction script is wont to have us portray, people fall in love. It wasn't exactly the way I'd have preferred it, though,

but then, love is never exactly the most accommodating of circumstance-makers, often only coming when it is wryly inconvenient or downright dishonourable.

Dishonourable, as this instance most definitely was, for, you see, one of my group had just started his own relationship with her.

He was the good-natured type, a solid friend to have when you wanted to have a friend. He wasn't the kind to try to get anything out of having people close to him; he

had friends because they were awesome to have. I wish there were more people in the world that shared his sentiments for this, but that's getting off-topic here. He

was one of my own, my people, and if I didn't support him in the most difficult of manly endeavours, what kind of friend, what kind of tribesman was I? The men in my

tribe took care of each other, and this was to be no exception.

Thus it was that my group of previously-four-and-now-five started a strange set of connections within itself.

Adam and I were really the ones who made it happen to begin with. Tex mentioned that he sort of liked her, and so Adam and I set it up and pushed it into place,

letting the pieces fall like tetris blocks, giving them a nudge or a turn here and there so they would fit. It was my own action that signed my hands away, which still

makes me laugh even now. Tex and Eva got along rather well, in fact, after the initial kick-start. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of that possible link

between myself and her.

There was romance, there was cutesy crap, and everything that would normally show up in a penny dreadful wasn't lacking here. Adam and I cheered Tex on from the boy's

side, while Alice played the role of support for Eva. Things were going extremely smoothly, so we should have known that something would have gone wrong sooner or

later. Still, with nothing of the kind of notion that the audience of any stupid romance movie unconditionally bring with them, there was no reason to exercise any

damage prevention measures. That would have been presumptuous, and what would have been termed by the more common of our age group as "a dick move."

Now, I'm no party-goer, and I'm even less of a Disney fan, so when it was posited that the group went to that accursed park, I made the decision to skip out on it.

After all, park tickets were more expensive than any right-minded college student would be comfortable paying, and I'd been to the original version of the place more

times than I'd like to recount. It was, of course, during this particular trip that the last straws were piled on, and the camel called bullshit on the metaphor about

a single straw's difference in weights being enough to break his own back. This straw? It was more like a large concrete waterway pipe. All at once, with only hints of

its existence beforehand to prepare for its incoming.

Tension, stress, and worry are things Eva doesn't exactly take well, and when the initial blow hit, it cracked the glass holding back the entire aquarium of mental

overload. Slowly, but very, very surely, that crack spread. You can try to fix that kind of damage, you know. Tape over the cracks, glue in the little valleys, but it

only holds for so long.

I finally knew it when Alice and I were sitting, waiting for class to start, and Eva arrived later than usual, crying.

"I'll take notes for us," I whispered to Alice. She knew exactly what I meant, and the two of them disappeared, leaving me trying half-heartedly to follow the lecture

for the rest of that seemingly-extra-long class. When it was out, I immediately began searching for anyone who could tell me what happened. I sent messages to Alice,

Tex, and Adam, but only Adam got back to me immediately. We met in the cafeteria.

Adam told me that Tex and Eva had been having some trouble. It was true, I had been privy to a bit of that knowledge, but I assumed it was the sort of small,

inconsequential issues that always cropped up now and again. I was wrong. I asked the nature of the trouble they were having, and he told me that Tex had gone back on

a promise that he had made, a sort of deal-breaker on both ides of the equation. It was a big deal, or, at least, only a big deal when presented with the reality of

itself to Tex.

Tex's main difference between himself and the rest of the group was that he was religious, where the rest of us were patently not. That he followed the teachings of a

religion did not factor into our harmony, really-- I mean, honestly, he didn't try to indoctrinate us, and we didn't try to rationalise him. It was a complete non-

issue, so much so that I wondered if he was only religious when his parents were around. Apparently, though, he became religious when faced with the prospect of a

long-term relationship with someone who opposed the idea of being held to any set pattern of beliefs because someone said so. Suddenly, kissing was a no-no, physical

intimacy got cut back to nearly-nothing, and talk of that dreaded word so many people hear too often from people in white collars knocking at their doors at

disgustingly early hours. He'd taken back his oath that the religious difference would not matter. Suddenly, and very strongly, it did.

Of course, I had the "Bro Code" on one hand, and my undeveloped feelings for this girl on the other. What's a guy like me to do? I invoked the only thing I knew to

invoke in situations like these: The Neutrality badge. I would listen to what happened from both sides, without bias from either, and throw my tracks neither north nor

south.

What actually transpired is a story I don't know if I have the right to tell, but the differences between an independent, nonreligious girl and a spiritually middle-

class boy were enough to drive them apart and break the bonds Adam, Alice, and I had tried to tie in the first place. I felt like the idiot on display for forcing it

to happen in the first place. If I hadn't initially paired them together like some terrible one-true-pairing fan-boy, nobody would be having the intensely bad day they

were having now. Now, obviously, any onlooker would tell me it was not my fault, but I have a habit of assuming responsibility for my friends' unhappiness. This time

it actually was something I had done, and it was something stupid. Add to this that I wanted nothing more than to be responsible for this girl's happiness, and it

becomes painfully clear that I had little choice but to do something to alleviate one side or the other

What used to be a nice circle, with all points connected to all other points, suddenly had a glaring disconnect right through the middle. We were all still friends

with Tex, and we were all still friends with Eva, but Eva and Tex were no longer friends. What can you do to fix it? She wasn't religious, and he wouldn't have her if

she wasn't religious. The only direct paths were to change the mind of one of the parties, and that was as likely as convincing a butterfly that life was better

without wings.

The group eventually amassed enough platelets to scab the wound and prevent any more blood loss, but as most wounds are wont to do, a scar was left there. A scar

that is hard to hide, one that will not be obscured by make-up. It still flares red now and again, especially when subjected to similar conditions to the ones it

experienced when the scar was made. We try not to let those happen very often at all.

But then, where was I, in this whole thing? Was not I also in love? Was not I also pining for the heart of pure, fair Eva? Has the author forgotten about the romantic?

Do they not share the same heart and head?

No, he has not forgotten. But the romantic, the romantic wishes he had been forgotten. Too much is at stake for the romantic to be involved, and he knows it.

The group was scattered to the winds at the end of that fateful year, to return to the places from whence they had come. We still kept as together as five points on a

map could be, but then, thrown as far apart as we were, what else could be done? We drifted apart much in the same way that leaves drift in a pond's clear, still

water. Slowly. Up until this point, I had kept silent about my own interest in the companionship of such a girl as Eva. What good could have come from it? During the

occupation of her heart-land by Tex, I would have been an unwanted guest at best, a threatening challenger at worst. During the rebuilding effort after the war, I

would have been no more than the philanthropist that donates money in hopes of being recognised with one of those gaudy bronze plaques that they tack to the last

remaining bits of the capitol building, a constant reminder of what destroyed it in the first place. Any time after that, and I would look like that guy who looks for

old people to rob because they are easy targets. I intended to be none of those things, and would not have afflicted that kind of status effect on any allied player.

My self-respect coupled with my fear of rejection made be believe that if I said anything at all, I would look like I was trying to capitalise on her losses and slip

in like some sleaze-bag. No, I wanted nothing to do with that image.

Flash forward three years. We've all finished school, and when I moved back to my hometown, I found she was only a hundred miles away.

Only.

Too far for me, who had no resources. Alas! That hundred miles was the longest hundred miles I'd ever not-experienced.

There was a play, called "The Casket Comedy," wherein one of the main characters laments his inability to meet his loved one for an entire six days, and he makes it

sound like the world is coming apart at the seams with his oratory. When I had not seen hair nor hide, heard word nor breath of my love for two years, what kept me

going? What kept me thinking that I had some shred of chance, some glimmer of that gold in the mines that produced primarily dirt and coal?

Really? It was the romantic in me. It was the thought that if I hoped hard enough, if I pined enough, if I stared at the moon long enough, maybe the stars would align

to produce just the right polar magnetism to pull the two of us together, and we'd live in that land of unending silent gazing into each other's eyes and wistfully

sighing, holding hands in some small cafe somewhere.

Of course, there's nothing realistic in that, but as I have determined through many a philosophical conversation with many friends, I've never been a realist.

I moved into her town, into a house less than two miles from hers. I don't know what I was trying to accomplish, but I moved into a house where I inhabited a single

room of it so that I could be closer to her. I didn't have a stable job, I didn't have any actual resources any more than I had before, but I knew I just had to be

near to her.

It certainly made it easier to see her. I saw her in the first two months nearly ten times more than I had seen her in the two years previous. I was jobless,

relatively poor, and living in the same house as a self-proclaimed Crip gang member, but I was happy. Due to my lack of money and the rent of my single room being

higher than I could provide regularly, the endeavour was destined to be short-lived, but I could mark no better time spent in that year than the ill-planned jaunt into

being closer to her.

It's amazing, how being in the same vicinity as someone else has the power to override so many of the issues that the rest of reality imposes on one.

Alice and I never drifted as far apart as the others did. Even now, I appreciate this with a greatness to it that I wonder if she understands. When I was feeling

particularly self-loathy and melancholic, I would talk to her about what I wanted to say but could not bring myself to. She knew just how much I was in love with Eva,

perhaps more than I knew even myself. She's a keen girl, one who asks questions that only have answers when she asks them. In another life, she might have been my

level-headed sister, but in this one, I think she's more valuable than that-- she's one of the most unique girls I know, and that makes asking her for advice the most

productive out of all my other acquaintances. She told me that there wasn't time to wait-- what if she found someone else? What if she had to make due with a lesser

specimen because I didn't offer myself? What if you DIED and never told her? Don't wait on it.

I didn't actually intend to tell her how fond I was of her that night. It just sort of... spilled out, like when a jar is too full of honey and it sloughs down the

side, leaving sticky sugary trails behind. The Buddha once said something to the effect of there being no guarantee of happiness as a direct result of action, but that

there being zero chance thereof if you remain inactive. That Alice had been pushing the importance of this confession? declaration? on me for some time probably had

some influence on it. She had, in fact, even helped me write the mental script I had totally planned to use but ended up stumbling through and missing most of. I

should thank her again for that sometime.

We'd gone to have tea with some friends, and she'd given me a lift (seeing as I was lacking in both navigational skills in my new town and also gasoline). We ended up

talking for way too long, about way too much for that time of night, a night I knew wasn't the right night for it. We both cried. I told her about everything I'd

thought about her, for as long as I had, and she told me that maybe, just maybe, she felt something kindred to it. We both admitted we were scared.

As is often the case with many real-life stories that are too boring to be made into Hollywood blockbusters, she had the presence of mind to know that she wasn't ready

for a relationship of any kind, and I had the willingness to acquiesce to her request. We left it on the table and covered it up with one of those Indian throws that

are so useful for covering up junk you don't want guests to see when they come unannounced and you have no time to clean up. The rules were pretty easy, really.

Don't talk about it to anyone who was directly related, so that nothing dramatic happened. Don't talk about it to her, so she could have uninterrupted time to sort out

what she wanted and when.

I often wonder what it must be like to be in cryostasis. How aware is your brain while it's frozen? How much do you remember during your frozen stay? While nothing

about you changes, do you still have the ability to store data? Or is the whole thing literally imperceivable except from an outside standpoint, one that is not your

own?

Enough time has passed since that fateful night that I wonder if she's forgotten about it. I have not. I think about her often, really. Quite often. Often enough that

I had to write this story to get it off my mind. Now that I am once again far away, we do not speak often, and this concerns me. I will lay awake in the middle of the

night, after waking from some dream, and sigh quietly.

What rightly should I do? I can only wait, as she asked. That's fine, though. I have waited four years already. I am patient. I can wait longer.