Lipstick On Your Collar

Return of the Prodigal

August 8th, 2004



I'm not dead.
I am living in New Jersey, which may be the same thing.

I've had an...interesting eight (!) months.

First and foremost, we very nearly lost Dear. He had a blockage in his carotid arteries, and bloodflow to his brain was 1% of normal. Very Scary. So I moved back home, to stay with my grandmother during the Bad Time, and help her as much as I could. And I've just...stayed on.

I'm not actually staying at my grandparents' house anymore (I would have died of boredom), but I do drop in there every day, to make sure they have everything they need. Which brings me to Thing Two:

I have a car. A teeny little hatchback Escort, which I got into a crash the first day I had it. Luckily my de facto stepfather is handy with a socket wrench, and fixed it for me. Doubly luckily, the other car had no damage, and made no claim, so my insurance is not as scary as it might otherwise be.

And now we come to Thing Three, the thing I'm sure all of you who know about me are wondering about, now that I'm back in Parts Jersey: Matt.

He's engaged. To someone who's not me. This happened in May, which is astonishing to everyone, as he and I were still involved (read: sleeping together when I was in town) as of Christmas. So in five months, he met someone else and proposed. I was absolutely floored when I found out. I mean, it's true that I wanted him to be happy, and that I knew he couldn't do that with me, so I'd been hiding from him since my return in February, but...

You understand, right? It was hard to believe that he got over me that quickly.

Except then I found out he hadn't.

It's like this. My little sister is "involved with" (the same way I was) Matty's little brother. (Interesting historical note: apparantly men of That Family hold an irresistable fascination for us. My mother? Dated their father in high school. My grandmother? Dated their great-uncle. It's insane.) She had driven over to their house, and I needed the car. So I walked over there to pick it up, and rang the bell to get the keys from Emmy. And He answered the door. So, to be polite, I came in for a minute and sat down while I waited for my sister to (put her clothes on and) come downstairs with the keys. Except...well. By the time Em came downstairs, I was no longer there. Because I was in His room, doing things that good girls do not do when the boy is engaged to someone who is not them. And afterwards, I felt horrible. But...I mean, it's not really my job to guard his fidelity to his intended. And he didn't know that I knew he was engaged. It was entirely accidental on my part, and he ought to have known better, and not seduced me. I was just sitting on the sofa, and the next thing I knew, he was kissing that place on my neck that might as well just take my knickers right off. And...no. You know what? I have no excuse. I did something I shouldn't have done. But merciful god, that boy just does something to me. But we had a talk, and we've agreed that we're not going to see each other any more, if we can possibly avoid it. And then only in public places, by accident.

And that's what I've been up to. I mean, there's more than that (I work, I see my friends, etc.), but those are the big Things That Have Happened Since Last I Wrote.