Will Smith: It’s better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all, right?

Tommy Lee Jones: (Glaring) Try it.

– “Men In Black”

(Continued from yesterday’s entry.)

7 days. 168 hours. 10,080 minutes. That’s how long I waited before I called Amy after she told me “It’s over.”

Every day the pain would eat away at me like the harpies tearing out a chained Prometheus’ liver, only to regenerate and suffer another day. Every night I would try to catch any remaining scent of her from my pillow and blankets. Every hour I prayed she would call me and plead that it was all a mistake. Every minute I tried NOT to remember how exhilarated, how happy, and how at peace I had felt when I was with her. Finally I called her. Instead of calling me “Scottie” which she did when we started going out, she called me “Scott.” The sound of my own name never hurt as much as when she just called me “Scott.” The conversations consisted of few words interrupted by dead air. After a couple of embarrassing attempts at trying to put us back together, I told her that I could handle just being friends if that’s all there was between us. That was the first of two colossal lies I would ever tell her. I couldn’t handle it at all but in front of her I pretended I could.

I had learned some things from my short “just-friends” conversations with Amy. I found out who this Dave was. I had assumed he was some tall Asian stud who looked like someone in one of those foreign films Amy liked to see. In reality he was shorter than me, a dental student, and very Asian looking, but not exactly handsome. That night when she met him she knew he would be at the dance club. She apparently wasn’t quite over him and she knew it. After some alcohol and necking they both knew it.

Eventually the short phone calls were too painful to bear. I stopped calling her. I did what any guy would do. I tried to block her out. In between classes and studying, I spent an obsessive amount of time in arcades, at the gym, or drawing my cartoons for the medstudent notes. The main character “Ace,” in my medschool comic strip, was inspired by Amy’s sexy no-nonsense strength and beauty. Several classmates had asked who “Ace” was supposed to resemble in our class. Every Asian girl in my class thought I was modeling Ace after themselves. I would just smile when they asked, and let them think they were the one. Everyone was my friend that year, and yet I never felt more alone.

Sometimes I would see Dave at the gym. He had no idea who I was. He spent more time hitting on the Stairmaster girls than he spent exercising. Every time I walked by him I would “accidentally” bump him with my shoulder. Juvenile, I know, but it was the only satisfaction I could get in my year of pain.

Months would pass by and I still couldn’t shake this dreaded loneliness. I could keep myself busy during the days, but at night the counsel of loneliness would stab me repeatedly with their icy daggers, as if waiting for me to die uttering, “Et tu Amy?” At night, I would try to remember how it felt to hold her in my arms, to smell her hair, to feel her warmth. I dreamed of ever kissing such a goddess’ lips again or having her soft body yield to my touch. Sometimes I would go to the cafe hoping to see her, but she was never there anymore.

One day I saw Amy and Dave at the library. She actually got up to talk to me for a minute before she and Dave left. He hadn’t even noticed. Whenever I went to the medical library after that, I would search all four floors hoping to find Amy studying somewhere. Dave was always studying with a different girl or he’d be talking to the cute receptionist at the front desk. The more I saw of this, the more I didn’t like him.

The next spring, I went to the Cafe one more time and found her working there. She was actually glad to see me - the deadness within me sprung to life again with her delightful tones. We talked and I asked her if she could give me some pictures of herself so I could draw her portrait. It was more for me than her. I was hoping putting her on paper would partially quell my longing and would give me something to hang onto at the same time. She gave me the pics the next day. I remember while photocopying a picture of her and her sister, the Kinko’s guy asked if that was my family. I smiled with pride, and lied, “Yeah.” I wish, I thought to myself. Eventually I finished the picture and she loved it and so did her mom. Deep down, I knew someone wouldn’t like it, though. Good.

A couple of days later, she called me. She asked me straight out, “What does this picture mean?!” I said it was just a picture, what does she think it means. She told me she showed it to Dave and he said that I obviously had a massive crush on her. Amy asked me if I knew we were just friends, and said that she couldn’t accept the picture if I was interested beyond that. Like I said before, a guy can tell when another guy is circling the waters, usually long before the woman even has a clue. He knew and he told her this. She asked me if this were true. I knew if I told her the truth then he would trash the picture and Amy would never talk to me again. The choice was clear, so I kept my heart in its cage and lied to her for the second time in our lives,

“It’s just a picture I drew of you. I draw pictures of a lot of people all the time (God, I miss you). There is no hidden message in it (other than the fact that I will love you forever). Do you want me to take it back then (if I could take back my heart I would have done so already)?”

Amy kept the picture, I knew she wanted to. I found out later that this was one of two major arguments they had in their new relationship. The second was partially my fault too.

Later that spring she appeared before me in the library again. Her smile was like a lighthouse illuminating me in my fog of numbness. She was studying there with Dave, but he was out of sight. I was about to leave and get some dinner when she suggested we go to Pizzeria Uno’s. Just me and her. We had a great time there. We laughed like children at a birthday party. I could almost remember being happy again.

When I drove back, the library had been closed for half an hour. Dave was waiting with her books in the lobby. He probably caught a glimpse of me as I went to study in one of the empty lab classrooms upstairs. When I got upstairs I peeked out the window and saw Amy and Dave arguing outside the library. He was on a mountain bike circling her and I could tell she was upset and tense. Then they stopped talking and he rode away… Amy just stood there and watched him. Then she started walking in the opposite direction.

Our reacquainting period continued. I was truly happy that we were friends again. We studied together. We ate together. I was content with being her friend now. At least I could see her and talk to her and sometimes make her laugh. She told me one night how she and Dave had a fight that night at the library. I acted surprised. He was upset at her for leaving the library and he wasn’t sure he wanted to be with her (he was bluffing). When he said that, Amy told him they were through (she wasn’t). I knew this was my chance but Amy said she didn’t want to have anything to do with any guys for a while. I didn’t push the issue; our friendship was the only thing that made me happy again and I couldn’t risk losing it.

It was summer again, a whole year since we first met, and I was studying for the USMLE boards Part 2 test — a two day, sixteen hour test that determines if you can be promoted to your 3rd year of medical school. It was summer break and I was studying around the clock. Amy would visit me at the medical fraternity I lived in. She would bring me fruits or sometimes read a book while I was studying. I would go to the cafe during lunch to see her when I had time. I came close to having a nervous breakdown studying for 3 weeks straight for that damn test. Amy supported me the whole time and allayed my panic-stricken fears. She believed in me. She became my best friend and has been ever since. I knew she would never hurt me again.

After the two day ordeal of a test, we went out to celebrate at some nice restaurant. I was so glad to be done with it all. She told me that she had talked to Dave that week. He wanted to get back together and she told him it was over forever now. After dinner she told me she had a surprise for me, and it was up in my room. We went upstairs, but I didn’t see anything there. Amy came up close to me. I got scared. “What the hell is wrong with her?” I thought. Amy told me she didn’t want to distract me while I was studying, but she’d wanted to do this for a long time. She knocked me over onto the bed with a single kiss from her sweet poison lips. She stripped my clothes off and then her own. By the time I recovered, we were entwined, bare skin sliding against bare skin. We explored each other with wild abandon. I must have covered every inch of her body with my tongue that night.

The only time we stopped was when I had to get a condom — something I hadn’t had a need or a thought for in the past year. I ran downstairs like my balls were on fire (as indeed they were) and knocked on a friend’s door in the basement. When he didn’t answer I opened the door, only to find him and HIS girlfriend tucked in bed. She was asleep and he was barely up, and I think I was wearing a towel. “Hey do you have a condom, it’s an emergency,” I said half-naked and flushed. He was all out. So I knocked on the door next to his. “Hey do you have a condom, it’s an emergency.”

“Uh… sure. Waita sec,” then he gave me one.

And thus began the never-ending story of Amy and me. We’ve been engaged for 2 years now. We’re getting married next March 1999. She doesn’t like the first part of this story. It makes her cry when she realizes how much she hurt me back then. I tell her it’s okay, because it turned out good in the end.

Funny how I’m talking about the woman I’m going to marry on Independence Day.