"We're the directors—our hands will hold steady. I'll be John Cassavettes—let me know when you're ready. Man, we make our own movies. Man, we make our own movies. Man, we make our own movies. Man, we make our own movies." – The Hold Steady "Slapped Actress"
Does your life ever seem like a movie? You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes you're just sitting there living your life and if you think about it from a detached perspective, you can almost hear the bad soundtrack in the background and the people in the audience asking themselves how that character got into that situation. That's where I was at. How did I get there? Good question.
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I showed up to work one night incredibly hung over. When I found out that I was going to be training a new server I was not excited by the prospects. The last thing that I needed was to answer someone's questions all night while my head reminded me of the bad decisions I had made the night before...then I saw her. She had beautiful wavy brown hair, and the biggest, most beautiful brown eyes I had ever seen. Her smile was electric and I was immediately smitten. It didn't hurt that she was tall, with incredibly long legs and what looked like beautiful breasts.
"Are you Jake," she asked.
"I am," I replied.
"My names Chelsea. I think you're supposed to train me tonight."
Suddenly my headache was starting to dissipate and I was forgetting about the 5 shots of Wild Turkey from the night before.
"Cool," I said. "Follow me and we'll get started."
For the rest of the night I showed her what to do and talked to her. I found out that in addition to being beautiful she was smart, funny and more than a little sassy. I love the sassy. As the night went on the conversation between us became more and more natural. After our shift ended we had a drink or two with some of our co-workers and went our separate ways. I was so happy as I walked home that it was a little frightening. This was six months after a long-term relationship had ended. That relationship had died for a number of reasons, but a big part of it was that I just wasn't able to communicate very effectively. After the break-up I made a pact with myself that I wasn't going to do that again. The next time I had an opportunity with a woman I was going to be honest and up front with her, no matter the eventual consequences.
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That night had been about a month ago. As the days went on Chelsea and I got closer and closer. We saw each other a lot at work and went out all the time with friends. She was very flirty with me, constantly touching me on the arm or shoulder when we were talking, making suggestive comments, the usual. She laughed at me all of the time. I'm funny, but not that funny. After a while, I knew that I wanted to be with her. And that gets us caught up to how I ended up in my own little "movie".
I had gotten up the nerve to ask her out and she said yes. I guess I had assumed that she understood I meant it to be a romantic date, but I wanted to make sure. So using my new life rule to be honest and up front I told her how I felt. I started some long speech about how I thought she was beautiful and smart and funny and that every night when I went home I thought about when I would be able to see her again. It was good, really good.
I was ready for her to admit her feelings about me when she said, "Can you sit down?"
We were walking to the movie on a snowy February night. The only place to sit was the front porch of some random house. I sat down and instantly realized that in addition to what was undoubtedly going to be a crushing denial from Chelsea, I now had a wet ass. "Sure," I said.
"That is about the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me," she said. "And I've had so much fun with you over the past month, but I just can't do that right now. You're a friend, and I want you to stay that way, but I don't want a relationship with you."
I listened to what she was saying, and the only thing that entered my mind was, "this sucks." She had recently ended a relationship too, so I was ready for her to say that it was too soon, but that's not what she said. She said, "I don't want a relationship with you." Combine that with a wet ass and the night wasn't exactly going as planned.
"Jake?" she said.
"Yeah?"
"You haven't said anything," she answered. "I still really want to go to the movie with you."
Spending two hours in a movie theater with a woman who just rejected me was about the last thing that I wanted to do. At the same time, I didn't want to let her know that I was totally hurt and act like a child taking their ball and going home. So while I was planning on kissing her tonight, and maybe exploring that sexy body a bit, I was instead going to go to a movie with my "friend".
The movie ended up being fine. I walked her back to her apartment and she invited me in to see the pictures from her semester abroad. I looked through the pictures with her, all the while feeling the sting of the rejection. She was acting like nothing had happened, and while I tried to do the same inside I was screaming. We spent the next month or so going through the same motions we had established in our friendship.
We would see each other at work, have some drinks with our coworkers and have flirtatious conversations again and again. It was getting to the point that I couldn't take it anymore. Something had to change. Either we were going to see where the relationship could go, or we had to spend less time together. The present situation was horrible for me and I needed to do something. I decided that I was going to give it one more shot, with a different strategy.
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There was a group of us going out for the night. Everyone was meeting at the bar we worked at and we were going to go out from there. My friend Mike saw me as I walked in.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Nothing," I said. "Is Chelsea here yet?"
He rolled his eyes at me. Mike was my closest friend and had gotten pretty protective of me. He had made it pretty clear that he thought Chelsea was being a bitch about the whole situation.
"Why are you doing this?" he asked. "She loves all the attention that you give her but she is never going to give you what you need. She's fucked up, man."
"I can't help it," I said. "I know that something needs to change though. I'm going to give it another shot and if it doesn't work, that's it."
"Christ," Mike said. "What are you going to do? You don't have another long speech planned, do you?" He chuckled as he said it. I had told him about my first attempt to win Chelsea's heart and how it failed. Somehow, he saw humor in it that escaped my imagination.
"No more speeches," I said. "I've been thinking about it and I think I figured it out. I know that she likes me, but something is holding her back. I'm just going to change the dynamic a bit and see what happens."
"Whatever," he said. "Just let me know when you're about to start. I want to make sure I have a front row seat. And don't be nervous, at least it isn't snowing tonight."
I didn't hear the last part of what he said because I was watching Chelsea walk across the room towards us with Molly and Courtney, a couple of our friends. She looked incredible. She was wearing an incredibly tight pair of jeans that showed off her legs and ass. Her little black top was trying to contain her chest, but the cleavage it allowed caused my imagination to go into overdrive. She was smiling her electric smile when she came up to me.
"Hey Jake, are we ready to go," she asked.
I nodded, grabbed Mike and the five of us headed out the door. We walked in a group to the destination for the night, another bar on campus where we knew the bartenders. Mike was walking up ahead with Molly and Courtney. The three of them were laughing about something, more than likely the fact that I was going to give it another shot with Chelsea tonight. Chelsea and I were talking about classes and work, but I was only half paying attention to the conversation. The bar that we were going to was underground, and just as we were descending the stairs I leaned over to Chelsea and whispered, "I'm going to seduce you tonight by the time they make last call."
"Really," she said, starting to giggle. "We'll see about that."
For the next few hours I didn't say a thing to her. I didn't talk to her or sit by her. Occasionally I would look over and smile, but that was it. I was having a blast with my friends. The vodka was good and cold and the buzz was outstanding. It was one of those nights that you imagine when you think about college. You always hear that you'll have the time of your life, and this was one of the nights they were talking about. As the night went on, Chelsea started to get a little jealous. I wasn't talking to another girl, I just wasn't talking to her. At about 1am, 30 minutes before last call, she came over to me.
"You haven't talked to me all night," she said.
"I know," I replied.
"How are you going to seduce me if you aren't going to talk to me," she asked.