It's All a Mess

It was one of those fights that started with something small — Jen walking over to the couch, a plate with a piece of chocolate cake in her hand. She got distracted by something on the television and tripped over Ronica’s foot. The cake tumbled to the couch cushion and fell frosting-first into the teal crushed velvet.

The couch was new, expensive. Something that Ronica had wanted for a while, something that symbolized true adulthood for her, something that heralded the end of having roommates, of being isolated in her bedroom while others enjoyed the rest of the house. Ronica had been becoming more serious, more quiet over the past year, but Jen remained ever herself — and it was starting to become an issue.

Jen had a habit of getting distracted by the television. Ronica’s day had been long and frustrating, and when Jen tripped over her foot, it jostled her ankle, making a previously forgotten pain flare up. Ronica winced and sat up straight with surprise as Jen regained her balance. And then she noticed the cake on the couch. It was many little things that all added up to a moment of intense frustration on Ronica’s part, and because it seemed out of proportion to Jen’s external view where she made a small mistake and Ronica stood bolt upright from the couch and started yelling, she was immediately on the defensive.

It all fell apart from there.

The argument evolved and twisted until it was an hour later, until it had moved through ten different topics, things that had happened a couple of years before, things that were apologized for but never really resolved, all covered to the point of exhaustion. The argument strayed so far and took on so much mass and brain space that Jen had completely forgotten about the cake on the couch and, feeling depleted and overwhelmed, went to sit down. Ronica lunged towards her and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away before she could make a worse mess of her couch, but all Jen saw from her perspective was Ronica making an aggressive and sudden gesture towards her. It kept her from sitting down, but as she put her hands up and tilted her head while looking at Ronica in disgust, Ronica was thrown off and realized the mistake.

“No, no, I wasn’t-” Ronica said.

Jen was breathing heavily. “Ver...What were you going to do?”

“I was just- you were going to sit on-” Ronica opened and shut her mouth several times, shocked that Jen could think that she would hurt her, and unable to explain herself because it was all just so ridiculous that she couldn’t possibly capture it in words. Jen narrowed her eyes at her, and it made Ronica shudder with angry disbelief. “Stop looking at me like that! God!”

Jen shook her head with heavy disappointment. “I know things have been getting worse, but I never thought you’d be like that, Ver.”

“Oh, come on! Do you really think that little of me? How could you even entertain the idea that I would hurt you!”

Jen scoffed. “Well, I wouldn’t have if you didn’t come at me like that!”

“I was trying to keep you from sitting in the goddamn cake, Jen.”

Jen’s eyebrows tensed, causing a wrinkle in her forehead that Ronica had never seen before. “Don’t say my name like that.”

“Like what?” Ronica said, feeling almost a little afraid at the look on Jen’s face.

“Like it tastes bad in your mouth. Like it’s trash.”

“You are wildly out of line! I’m not a villain, Jen, I just didn’t want you to make an even worse mess!”

“Oh, I’m sorry I destroyed your couch. I’ll pay you back for it, is that what you want?”

“No, I want you to care enough to not do that sort of thing in the first place!”

Jen threw her hands up, the frustration so loud within her that she felt as though she couldn’t contain it in her body anymore. “Like I did it on purpose! Do you think I’m a child? Because that’s how you make me feel sometimes. People get distracted, people trip over things! Why am I not allowed to, Ver? Why can’t I make mistakes, ever?”

Ronica rubbed at her temples and looked down at her feet. “Because it happens all the time with you. If you actually cared when you were spending time with me, you’d be more attentive. But you’re off in your own world. It’s like you can hardly stand being around me.”

Jen’s hands dropped. Her voice became quiet and heavy. “You really think that?”

A wave of numbness washed over Ronica. It was suddenly very apparent to her that whenever Jen did go home that night, she wasn’t going to see her again. They hadn’t said the words, hadn’t actually broken up yet. But that night was going to be it. At that moment, she didn’t want to be around her. But she was aware of the fact that soon, she’d be learning how to miss her.

Ronica’s breath hitched as she tried to swallow a sob. “I want to love you. I want so badly to love you.”

“Then why can’t you just do it? What is that supposed to mean? That you want to love me?”

“It means that I want to. But I can’t. I think that maybe… I don’t.” Ronica continued to stare at her knees as her words hung in the air between them.

Silence.

Ronica closed her eyes and squeezed them tight, willing away the tears, knowing that they wouldn’t help. “I wish I could. That’s all it means.”

“That makes no sense to me, but if that’s what it is, then I guess I have no say. I’ll go,” Jen said. But what she wanted to say was love me again, what will make you love me again, what can I do for you to love me again, I’ll do anything, anything just… love me again.

Ronica sat back down on the couch, feeling suddenly deflated and dizzy. The edges of her vision blurred as she felt the muscles loosen in her face after being so tense over the course of the argument. She exhaled heavily and folded her hands in her lap. She looked down at her hands, studying the wrinkles across her knuckles, afraid to look up at Jen, afraid to see what her face looked like. Afraid to have to either finally hear or say the words that would mean the end of their relationship. But then she felt something on her head. Jen’s light touch swept over her hair as Jen petted her tenderly, carefully, as if she were a scared animal that Jen wanted desperately to gain the trust of. That whisper of care, that gentle display, that was what made the tears finally come. Ronica’s chest was deflating as she whined, breathing out all of the breath in her as her eyes began to leak uncontrollably, as her heart felt suddenly still and heavy, feeling like she would never breathe back in again. And when she finally did, it was stuttered with violent hiccups and short, frantic inhales of breath through the nose. Her face was drenched and she covered her face with her hands, burning rivulets of tears meeting the cold surface of her palms.

Jen panicked and felt cold adrenaline rushing under her skin; the sound and the sight was the most horrible thing she had ever seen. That was Ronica. Her sweet girlfriend that she called Ver because of a silly joke she had made years ago. That was her hurting. That was the person that she loved more than anything. And she was in heart-wrenching pain. In that moment, it felt to Jen like there couldn’t possibly be anything worse in the world. So, she stopped petting Ronica’s head and scrambled onto the couch to sit next to her. She grabbed onto her from the side, encircling her entirely within her arms, holding her tightly as Ronica continued to cry into her hands.

They stayed like that for what seemed like hours, unmoving. Ronica’s breathing eventually slowed and grew smoother, more measured. Jen’s own tears were hidden where she had her face pressed against Ronica’s shoulder, buried in the dark grey fabric of her loose sweatshirt. Together, they both grew completely silent, their breath synced and hushed. They stayed that way until Jen’s arms started to go numb and she had to let Ronica go. And they finally looked at each other.

Jen noticed the pink edges of Ronica’s tear-stressed eyes, the rosy shine at the tip of her nose, the soft lines of dried saltwater cresting over the curve of her cheeks. She shouldn’t have to cry. Ever. Why would Jen ever want her to cry?

Ronica looked over Jen with tired, burning eyes. She saw how much things had softened there in her gaze. Her eyes were pooling over with some new realization, some new feeling. And it made Ronica feel protected and cared for.

And then she noticed where Jen was sitting. And she started laughing.

Jen looked like she had been broken out of a trance when Ronica started laughing. She shook her head lightly and her mouth dropped, her eyebrows pinched together in confusion. Then she looked where Ronica was looking and saw the mess of frosting collected at the side of her upper thigh where it met the couch. She scooched over and saw more and more crushed cake and spread frosting everywhere underneath her, mashed from the edge of one cushion to the next, no longer isolated to the single cushion. As she moved and gawked at the realization of just how huge the mess was, Ronica laughed more and more. Jen looked confused at first, feeling guilty and silly and forgetful once more — like a child, she’d made a mess on the nice, expensive couch that her girlfriend, a real adult, had recently purchased. But as she saw Ronica continue to laugh, she felt tears brimming at the edges of her eyes again, but that time accompanied by a smile and a small laugh of her own.

Ronica reached down, still uncontrollably laughing, and ran her finger through a particularly thick spot of frosting on the cushion between her and Jen. She impishly and quickly batted lightly at Jen’s face, depositing the frosting on her nose. Jen blinked in surprise and was silenced for just a moment before dissolving into giggles. She imitated Ronica’s move and quickly got her on the nose with some frosting as well before she could be stopped. Ronica went to grab more frosting, but Jen blocked her and used an entire hand to scoop up some cake and shove it against Ronica’s cheek. Ronica countered by wiping it off of her face and pushed it into Jen’s. They shoved at each other’s hands, blocking one another from obtaining more cake or frosting, giggling and feeling a great influx of childlike giddiness as they fought each other while simultaneously getting closer and closer. Their sticky hands stopped fighting against each other and they ended up interlacing and softly curling their fingers together before leaning in and kissing one another, faces cake-smeared and sticky. Once more, Jen felt like a child, but that time she was a child with Ronica. She never wanted to feel any other way, ever again.