Becoming but not yet

all the things I want to tell you

Monday, I woke up early, but I wasn’t groggy because I was going to see Gustav. I was going to see him, and I was going to stay the night. I got ready, and when I got there, his mom wasn’t home. He showed me around his house, and we kissed, and I met his dog, and we kissed some more, then we went in his car to get something to eat.

The place he chose was like an almond girl's heaven; he knows me all too well. I got a coffee collagen smoothie, which was amazing, and I had a few bites of his sandwich, which was okay but felt fattening. There was almost no seating, and the food took way too long to arrive. I went to the bathroom to pee and to take pictures of myself, and they had this mirror that was so elongating, I wanted to take it home with me. It was making me feel way too confident about my new jeans that are very low-rise.

We left the restaurant and went to his city’s art museum, which was cute and very Art Deco. I like Art Deco; it makes me think of Lana Del Rey, and I love Lana Del Rey. I made him listen to Venice bitch on the way there. I love art. Sometimes, I think about being a museum curator, and I think it would be fun. We walked around the museum, and he had his arm around my waist. It was nice, it felt like the right place for his arm to be. Leaving the museum, I mentioned I was tired, so he said lets go home and take a nap which is like dirty talk to my sleep-loving heart, so I happily obliged.

As we pulled into the driveway, I saw his mom had come home, and I felt like I was about to be in the belly of the beast. Mothers usually love me, but Gustav’s mom is scary; she is unfamiliar territory, and I don’t know if the enemy has been neutralized. I walked in, and my tension was relived, she was nice. She left pretty swiftly after I arrived to go do god knows what. Gustav put on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I haven’t seen before, but I will say that it was a very confusing movie. That being said, I wasn't really focused on the movie. I was much more focused on the hot guy that I was making out with on the couch, whom I did end up falling asleep with for a little while before his mom came back home.

Unbeknownst to me, Gustav had planned on getting us drinks, which I was thrilled about because I love being drunk. It’s like liquid confidence, and liquid arousal. He said his friend was coming to get us so we could go and buy the drinks. The man who came and got us is Gustav’s best friend, so I will spare him my bitchy review, but I don’t think I have ever been more uncomfortable in my life. We got in his car, which, for starters, was an elevated truck that I was reluctant to even set foot in. We got in, and he started cranking the blown-out bass and vaping. The car ride was over quickly, thank the lord. I don’t know if I ever want to see that man again, even though I am eternally grateful he provided Gustav with alcohol.

We got back inside Gustav’s house and immediately started drinking. It didn’t take long for me to start feeling it because of my extremely low tolerance. Within mere minutes, we were in his bed, buzzed, blissful, and our clothes were coming off. I was all over him. I was looking at him, and my eyes were full of nothing but lustful love. I wanted everything. I wanted it all. I wanted him to bruise my throat and my ass. He was eating me out, and every movement of his tongue felt like an angel’s kiss. I felt like I had been knocking on heaven’s door for so long, and I finally got an answer, and it was exactly the answer I wanted. We couldn’t keep our hands to ourselves, I couldn’t shut my mouth, and he wouldn’t stop telling me how pretty I was. We fell asleep next to each other, our skin close and hot. Every time we would wake up, we would start kissing again, and one thing would lead to another until the sun rose, and I had to face god once again.

I was supposed to wake up at 7, but I ended up waking up at 8:44. I tried to get ready quickly because if I was ready before 10, he was going to take me to Starbucks. We got in the car, and it was bright, and I was hungover, and I desperately wanted coffee. We went through the drive-through, and I got a spinach egg white and feta wrap and an iced shaken espresso with almond milk and none of the classic syrup. Gustav got a blueberry muffin, and he paid like the gentleman he is. He drove us back to his house, and it was time for me to go. He looked at me and said, “I thought you were lying when you said you’d make an amazing porn star, but I was wrong, you really would,” and I laughed because I don’t really want to be a porn star. I actually don’t think I ever want to fuck anyone other than Gustav again.

On Wednesday, I sat on the bench in front of a church, eating the Ghirardelli chocolate squares with raspberry filling I had just bought from the Walgreens that my grandfather drove his car into many years ago. I ate too much of the chocolate, and I started to feel sick. I started to feel an overwhelming sickness, like I was going to start crying, and start crying I did. I started crying, and I started to think about how I haven’t had a real meal since before November, how I haven’t had my father’s spaghetti in so long, how I will never get to have another meal cooked by him again. I sat on the bench in front of the church, crying, crying, crying. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to call out to.

I ended up calling Gustav, which only deteriorated the situation because it only made me realize further that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I search for it, no one is ever going to love and care for me as my father did. I can’t expect anyone to. I can’t try to find something to replace what we had, to replace our genetic understanding of one another. Not even my mother can love me the way my father did, but really, I can’t hold it against her. I can’t teach her something she has no skills or experience in, and I can’t get mad at her for being so bad at it, even though I do very regularly get mad at her for it.

As I walked home from the bench in front of the church, crying and sobbing, while passing many confused construction workers, I passed by a car with a few teenage boys. They yelled something at me through the window, and I turned around because I didn’t hear it. When I saw that it was just some retarded Mexican teenagers, I turned around and kept walking, but they kept yelling, and it made me stop crying because it made me laugh. I didn’t know that people still catcalled, but honestly, I appreciated it. Maybe that’s what I needed in that moment: I needed a compliment, even if I didn’t know what I was being complimented on.

I got home, and I immediately locked myself in the bathroom, completely ignoring my mother, in an attempt not to become instantaneously enraged at her. I took off all my clothes, and I turned the shower on. I laid myself on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. I had my jacket balled up underneath my head like a pillow. I laid there for probably too long. I laid there and cried. I stared at the ceiling, and I cried. When I got up, everything was hot and sweaty, and there was so much condensation, so I quickly washed and went to bed, so I didn’t become hungry and tempestuous.

Sometimes I wear bobby pins, and it makes me feel like a child again. It feels like it has been so long since I was a child, but technically, it really hasn’t been that long. I was a child not so many months ago. I will always be a child, but I will never really be a child again. I was never really a child. I never really got the chance I had to grow up so fast. I wear bobby pins, so I feel young again, even though I know I am youthful without them.

I worry a lot that I have iPhone face, even though I don’t fully know what that means. It scares me having iPhone face, but I will never ask you if I have iPhone face because I will never let you know my face. I don’t have enough confidence to un-anonymize myself. I will stay your faceless princess forever. I think that I am okay with posting my body because that is something I can hide in the real world, but I cannot wear a brown paper bag over my head, no matter how much I would like to. I hate my body, but I know how to contort it to my liking. I cannot withstand insults to my precious face. I won’t show you, that’s too vulnerable.