January 24th in Posso's Prompts

Tell a story of a time in your life influenced by something that happened around this time last year.

Heather first attempted suicide just over a year ago. It was a cry for help that went answered; I went to the hospital north of Chicago to see her. My life wasn’t exactly at a stable point at that time either; I had been on an emotional bender from getting dumped and given a ‘time out’ from my workplace. Our relationship was tumultuous and supremely toxic and this was the breaking point of trying to keep up the facade of being able to run away to each other when life went wrong.

It was at this point seven years ago, in a January snowstorm on a warm but windy winter night when I had had to call my friend Sam for a ride home (which ended up being a ride to the Stadium Bar.) One of the first nights out with Heather ended up with me being physically kicked out of her car on the side of 113, ironically, close to my other job at Willows Tavern. I can still remember I made a bad joke about being a stripper and how I’d just be able to live off her; she leaned over, opened the door, told me to fuck off, and dug her stiletto into my gut and pushed with all her might to get me out of the car, whilst giving the vehicle gas so I’d hit the ground rolling. She drove off and I called Sam. He found me near the Culver’s on the north side of town and described it as ‘watching a yeti come from a mountainside:’ I think we had gotten over 6 inches of snow at that point. We ended up at the bar, I told the story to our friends and we had a great laugh and I figured at that point the ride was probably over.

Not in the slightest.

She called me, apologized with the full waterworks show, wanted to make up for her overreaction and like the sucker I am, I said obviously. She was everything I had dreams of physically; I can still picture every tattoo on her petite body. She was great at changing her look without changing herself. Her hair was different nearly every time I saw her but her eyes and her subtle smirk were always dead giveaways for me. Others saw her as a broken stripper with wasted potential; I saw a woman who knew her self worth and her capability to do whatever she wanted. Problem was she cared so much about making anyone else but herself happy. She had a second place in Miami where she would moonlight as a staff manager and teach ladies how to maximize their potential earnings from sleazy, lonely guys without having to even get naked. I was always amazed, I understood the concept of serving in a bikini, or the like scantily clad. If guys had money and were willing to spend it to have a sense of companionship, why not let a woman take advantage of that? Even as a stripper, Heather never concerned me with thoughts of her cheating on me when we started being exclusive. There was a bond in our connection that existed outside of glitter and body butter. Not that I didn’t mind seeing all the butts and boobs I ever wanted, obviously, I got to know her to a point where I was attracted to her mind. Taking her clothes off was a game that she could beat most of her competitors at. She had amazing weapons in the form of sports knowledge and dirty jokes and movie quotes that could make you feel like one of the guys (while she was grinding her crotch into your leg.)

Our relationship really was one that should have never worked. We fought as much as we fucked, cliche as it sounds. Other than the stories and occasional drunken meetup, I kept her from most of my friends. Not out of shame, but she was my escape. I could run away and live a life with someone I was amazingly attracted to and loved me and I didn’t have to put on this show that everyone had grown accustomed to seeing. I finally realized that I was dragging her along and I didn’t have the intention of ever settling down and living the rest of my life with her, and I didn’t know what made me feel that way, but I was never open enough or honest to tell her that, until it was too late. When I did tell her how I felt about her, how I loved her but had to stop using her as this secret, mysterious getaway and start finding someone that I wanted to wake up next to and not sigh about what would go wrong that day, she took that as a goodbye forever. She was definitely my best friend; there are things she took with her that no one else knows. Dealing with her death was hard and to this day a year later, I feel somewhat numb, I drank a lot of the feelings away and pushed as many memories and feelings away as I could, attempted to replace them with other girls, but there are always reminders. Songs I hear on the radio that remind me of a dance she would work on, drives around the city to places we’d laugh at. Sure, it’s only been a year but I spent the better half of my Madison life with her off and on. Heather is a reason why I loved this city but never left and why I leave the city but always come back.