Good Morning, Heartache (part 8)
Good morning, heartache, thinks Jake, waking up to another day. How cold you’ve kept me in my bed at night.
More like the movies and TV shows of post-dumped characters, Jake has been crying in his room for the past few days. He listens to “The Only Exception” by Paramore at least three times a day, and a specific scene from the movie The Broken Hearts Club, where one of the characters tries to win back his ex by proclaiming everything he did wrong, and then wishing him a happy life with his new beau. Sometimes with the door closed and sometimes not, Jake sobs alone, drenching his shirt with tears, his whole body heaving up and down, gasping from sadness.
(Skip to 4:27 in the video)
All these months have been a waste. I was a goddamn fool to ever think there was hope. I thought there was hope, but there’s no hope at all. He’s with someone else, someone who is better than me. It’s never going to be me ever again, are just some of the negative thoughts going through his head.
Our It Gets Better video we made together.
The times we made love.
Every “I love you.”
The bath we had together.
The one night we slept together.
The roses we gave to each other.
The poems we wrote to each other.
The songs I sang to you.
Every kiss we shared.
Every laugh we shared.
Every second of every minute we did something together.
Don’t these things mean anything to you? I know they do to me.
Thanks, or possibly no thanks, to the fact that it’s in between semesters, maybe he would have less to think about if he were busy with classes. On the other hand, maybe he needs to cry it out. Even going in to work at the theatre, Jake is so ovewhelmed that on a few occasions, he leaves the building on his break and heads over to the empty parking lot next door, listens to “The Only Exception”, and cries to himself in the cold rain.
And when he goes in to work at the park… well, most of the time, he’s making kettle corn like a robot, and doesn’t have to think about much. When he goes in to work later the day he and Heath meet in December, Jake tells Mozilla what happened. He expects her to be surprised, but she confesses, “Yeah, I just found out yesterday about this guy. Basically, Heath’s been doing the same thing to him as he did to you– ignoring him. Except this guy doesn’t care. He’s in Japan for 10 months. I don’t trust him. Apparently he’s bisexual too, and he just gives me a bad vibe… When you’re away from someone for such a long time, I think the pressure to sleep around can be pretty up there, and I can see this guy doing that. I think Heath is going to get hurt because of that.”
Heath won’t get hurt because he doesn’t care if this guy cheats on him, Jake thinks to himself.
Every night working in the park brings Jake down. He can almost see where he and Heath told each other “I love you” last year. How different a whole year has been.
His friends tell him to take his time and cry all he needs. Again, Jake tries to move on since it’s clear Heath has, but this time, it’s even more difficult. He tries dating, and does meet some interesting people including Kurt, who is younger and very patient. Perhaps it’s the people he’s been seeing or that it’s too soon since the incident in December, but whatever the case, Jake doesn’t feel “it” with his dates like he did easily with Heath. He wonders if he’s lost that part of him that believes in things like Hollywood endings. Maybe it died in December. Maybe now he’s been disillusioned, and true love doesn’t exist.
His entire being, after all, is to love (and be loved, of course). Or at least that’s what he thought. And now that he’s failed with Heath, he can’t help but feel like, again, he’s failed in loving. He knows people won’t understand if he tried to explain it to them. Of course he can live without love. Of course he can be single. He obviously isn’t imploding into nothingness. It just doesn’t feel right to not have someone to love.
The city becomes a minefield. No longer can Jake go without feeling a pang in his chest when seeing ads for the botanical garden on TV or online. Working at the park is an obvious one. Such things as hearing a song by Shakira or Lady Gaga, whom Heath adores, red sweaters, hearing and speaking Arabic– it all reminds him of Heath. It almost feels as if every time something reminds him of Heath, what’s left of his heart dissolves further, decomposing. It all makes Jake stop and feel sad.
Even going to school, knowing Heath is somewhere in those halls creates a sense of dread in him. When the next semester in January starts up, Jake is so disinterested in college life that he makes half-hearted attempts to do pretty much everything. Walking around the school makes him nervous because of the possibility that Heath could appear anywhere, and Jake figures that ignorance really is bliss in this case. If he doesn’t see Heath, the better it is for Jake.
There are times when Jake sees Heath waiting at the bus stop. They used to take the bus together. When Jake sees Heath, his breathing immediately because short gasps of air, and he has an overwhelming sense of nausea and panic. Jake has to walk away and find another way home, and he wonders if Heath notices him walking away at all.
Although Jake considers himself to be “seeing” Kurt, they haven’t talked about being official boyfriends. Things with him are simpler, but at the same time, are also complicated. With Heath, they went out a few times, and talked about being boyfriends. Jake does like Kurt a lot, and he’s told him about Dorian and Heath because he feels it would only be fair that Kurt know how and why Jake is being affected by issues in the past.
When Jake tells Kurt about seeing Heath at school and how he felt as if he were experiencing the same symptoms as in December, Kurt tells him he had anxiety. Although anxiety is a common problem in society, it’s not something Jake ever thought he would develop, at least not when it came to exes. He supposes this must show how much he loved Heath.
There are times when Jake finds himself still thinking about Heath and this new guy of his, and surprises himself by clenching his fist until his knuckles are white, or shouting profanities to no one in paticular. Jake’s mental health deteriorates; he gets sick several times in the following months, as opposed to normally once or twice a year. At the very least, he is aware that his mental state isn’t that great, but doesn’t know what to do about it. Kurt, who has been extremely understanding and patient with Jake this whole time, helps Jake sort things out. But it’s still not enough, and Jake knows it.
One day, Kurt advises Jake to write down every thought, positive or negative, around Heath. Write it all down on paper. This, Kurt says, has been proven to help people feel better about things.
So he does. After filling three pages of scrawl, Jake sighs. He does feel slightly better, but now that the words are written on the page, staring back at him, it feels like a waste of ink. These words hold power for change, and to let them lay on the page, flat, not living up to what they could achieve…
And with that, Jake types up his written thoughts and organizes them.
To be continued!
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