Have You Ever Needed Someone

I want to be 16 again and be lying in my bed with AC and know that there is no better place to be in the entire world. Those were the days; the two of us in bed in my parent's country house in Pennsylvania after a keg party when we were both learning how to drink. We'd have pre-partied at my house sucking down alternating vodka and water with straws out of ice cube trays and race to see who'd finish first. Beer took time getting used to. After arriving at the party and paying our $2, we'd each get our first cup of beer, usually in a big red cup and take it outside and start the ritual. We are on wooden steps leading down from the porch, amazed at the fact that we are at a party with all of the older kids, specifically the hot 18-year old lifeguards whom looking at was like looking directly at the sun. We'd each light a cigarette; hers a Newport and mine a Marlboro Red. We'd exhale and take the first sip of beer. Yech. We'd take another drag and take another sip of beer. And another. And another. After cup two or three, we'd peek inside from our perch outside on the steps and people watch. Eventually, when we had enough liquid courage in us we'd mingle. We were a great team.

We still are a great team.

AC came over to President Street where I lived with Illinois to help me gather up my stuff that first night. She fortuitously had an empty room available when Illinois and I broke up. Before I could bear actually packing and moving out of President Street, she came over after her brother, R. dropped me off from our night in Pennsylvania after he rescued me and took me to my sister. She helped me pick out the necessities to get me through the first night. It was a horrific experience. In the movie version a la Bridget Jones Diary 'Don't Leave Me This Way,' by Thelma Houston is blasting and instead of being one of the most pathetic moments in my life, it is a moment of female empowerment and strength and a group of dancers come out opening and closing drawers and packing while singing and dancing backup to my song.

In reality, it was the opposite of that. Watching me so unglued made AC cry. I scared her. I scared myself. She arrived and I was frantic. I was screaming and crying and hysterical. I was slamming drawers and cursing when I saw what was in them; his stuff, our stuff intermingled, I would announce, "matches from Magnetic Field, ASSHOLE," and slam the drawer closed or, "that's my FUCKING cellphone charger, get that away from his swiss army knife," and throw the swiss army knife. I was wild. She watched. She didn't know what to do. I was glad she was there because I couldn't be alone. My mind was disconnecting from my body and I was losing control just acting, raging, muttering, pacing. If I had been alone my mania and rage would have compelled me to pull out my hair to feel some other sort of pain or maybe break every dish and roll my heaving sobbing self dramatically into the shards.

But she was there.

And she asked me what I wanted to take with me to her place that would make me happy. I pointed to the "The world is my porkchop" postcard on the fridge and the magnet that I had just bought that said, "Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over it became a butterfly." She noiselessly put them into her pocket while I carried on. We left and brought my necessities home, to her place. Then she and her brother and I went back to President Street to bring my bed and a suitcase to AC's apartment and they took me out to dinner. I can't say I slept like a baby that first night. I don't remember going to bed that first night in her place, in my new room, in my bed that she and her brother R, made up for me. But I couldn't imagine a better place for me to heal.

The first few months were convalescence for me. I was recovering. Yet I felt at home and safe for the first time in years. Living there felt the same way as sleeping at my parent's house on Christmas Eve night when the whole family is together. Safe, protected from anything that could ever hurt me and unconditionally loved with no strings and with a lot of care and awareness.

AC and I are mirror images in our emotional style. We are not pursuers, we are distancers; we give each other space because we need it ourselves. We are not gushy and are understated when it comes to expressing how we feel about each other. But it's always there. Part of our connection is having that in common and seeing it in each other. We are always on the same page even when we're not. Our connection is primal, it is below gut level, below judgement, below thought. I can be in my head when I am with her without filter; I can never say too much, I can never say anything wrong. We are mirror images of each other in a special way which allows me to say anything to her, she will listen constructively to my every whim and every thought and give a completely honest response which might be disaproving yet never judges and always ends in complete support of me.

If I could be anywhere right now, I would be 16 years old and lying in the safe cocoon of my bed with AC talking about boys.