letters to no one

Love Letters

After a few more trips to the bar, Joel and I got even closer. I learned that Michaela had never really trusted him. She was always accusing him of cheating on her. Of course my mind didn’t even go back to that night at the bar, even though I knew Joel had gone home with that woman. I just thought that if she was going to treat him as if he was already cheating, he wasn’t going to care about actually doing it. He was already being punished for it, so why not? It got to a point where we made a regular habit of talking back and forth over f*******:.

During these conversations, we learned a lot about each other. We found out that we had a lot more in common than either of us would have ever guessed. He was into the same music as I was, demented stuff like Insane Clown Posse and Boondox. He was also the only person I knew who appreciated classical music as well. We both had the same morbid infatuation with serial killers. My favorite was Jack the Ripper, his was Charles Manson. We liked the same movies, everything from Rocky Horror to Aladdin. I also learned that like me, he had lost his father at a young age. Like me, he felt boxed in and unappreciated in his relationship. Like me, he was insecure about himself, but he was good at hiding it. Most importantly, we both felt like there was something more for us in life than what we had.

A few months later, he turned 28. Of course we had a huge party for him at the bar. Michaela even decided to come out and celebrate. Steve and I went across the street to get him a birthday cake. Rory decorated it herself with a picture of a Hatchet Man from my cell phone. We used his favorite colors: Orange and Purple. When we got back to the bar, I noticed that Michaela was trying to convince him to leave. At first I didn’t understand. Who leaves their own birthday party before they even cut the cake? It didn’t take us very long to find out what the problem was.

Something you should know about Michaela is that she loves drama. Any situation that she thinks she can spice up by picking a fight, she will. That was the first time I ever saw it firsthand, although Steve assured me it was nothing new. Michaela liked to start things, she made up problems where none existed to keep herself from getting too bored. According to Michaela, one of the girls we regularly hung out with had told her boyfriend that Joel was sleeping with her sister. Then, she had supposedly pointed at Michaela and told him, “That’s the girl he’s cheating on.”

This was absurd for several reasons, the most obvious reason being that it was too loud in the bar to hear what we were saying to each other. There was no way Michaela could have heard an entire conversation from two tables away. Secondly, the girl in question was not Joel’s type at all. He always said he was “afraid to break skinny girls.” Also, even if it were true, they would have known better than to shout it out in the middle of a crowded bar, where there was any possibility she could have overheard. We ended up getting the situation all sorted out. Steve took the girls outside and talked to them away from all the noise to get it all straightened out. Rory took Joel aside and explained what was going on. He was always adorably clueless. I went outside to talk to Michaela and convince her that Joel wasn’t the type to cheat on her. (Ahh, the irony) Finally, everything calmed down and we were able to enjoy the rest of the night.

A few days later, I saw an advertisement out by my house for a carnival. Josh didn’t want to go because he didn’t trust the rides, so we always ended up fighting instead of having fun. I asked around to see if I could get anyone else to go with me. Rory had to work, Amy couldn’t make it out, and Shayna was going out of town. Then I had an idea. Joel loved ICP, which meant that Joel probably also loved carnivals. I texted Michaela to ask her if they wanted to come with us. It turned out that Michaela didn’t like the rides much either, mostly because she couldn’t ride a lot of them due to her size. She told me they didn’t go to many carnivals because Joel had nobody to ride the rides with, and she had nobody to hang out with while he was on the rides. It seemed like a perfect solution. Josh and Michaela could play games while Joel and I rode rides.

That day I learned about something else we had in common. Joel takes forever to get ready. Even just going to a carnival, it took him almost two hours to get ready to leave. Josh and I decided to go to the carnival and just meet them there. After we had been there about thirty minutes, Michaela texted me to say they were parking the car. Between the four of us we experienced almost everything that carnival had to offer. Joel and I rode everything twice, Josh and Michaela tried every kind of snack food they had- including deep-fried Ores, which may sound good, but they are disgusting- and we all played a few games. Joel ended up picking out a painting of an evil clown, which he won in a darts game. Michaela showed everyone up and picked out a TrueBlood poster as her prize. The best part of that carnival, though, were the conversations Joel and I had on the rides.

Michaela rode a couple of rides with us, because she had gotten some tickets. For the most part, it ended up just being Joel and I, though. He laughed at me when I told him I was afraid of heights before we got on the FreeFall. I was watching our shadow on the ground as we got close to the top. I remember looking at him and saying, “If I pee myself on this ride it has to be our secret.” He threw his head back and laughed like a little kid. He had the most infectious laugh. On the next ride, he told me that I was the only person he knew that could put a genuine smile on his face no matter what, That surprised me, he always seemed so happy. When I told him that he informed me that it was all an act. Apparently, Joel has been diagnosed Manic Depressive with Narcissistic Rage. He told me how when he was younger, his father committed suicide. Joel was the one who found him. He also told me how much he hated himself. He had tried to kill himself once when he was younger, too. Thankfully, he was unsuccessful. He had two sons, the youngest had Systic Fibrosis. They lived with their mothers in another state. He had lost his best friend when he spent a year in juvenile detention. She had just stopped talking to him. His mother rarely talked to him, and his sister was a stripper. I gained a whole new respect for him that day. He had been through a lot, and it never really showed. He told me that he was a little jealous of Josh because he really cared about me, and that he didn’t like the way Josh talked to me sometimes. When we left I had a much better understanding of why Joel acted the way he did. He just wanted to feel like somebody loved him. I couldn’t blame him for that.

The four of us ended up going back to mine and Josh’s house for a while. We were planning on going to the bar that night anyway. For the first time, Joel got a good look at how Josh acted when there was nobody else around. I cooked dinner for everyone, brought Josh his plate in the living room where he was playing video games. Josh asked for a drink, which I also brought him. Then he complained about the food and told me to heat him up a frozen pizza instead. Joel and Michaela were both a little taken aback. Josh rarely showed anyone his true colors.

That night at the bar, Kenny had a brilliant idea. We all needed to go to a big rock show in the city, about two hours away. There were several good bands playing, like Halestorm, Taproot, Godsmack, and Staind. It sounded like a good idea, and we all agreed that we wanted to go. The show was going to be right around Josh’s birthday anyway, so it seemed like it would be a good birthday present for him. We always ended up doing something big for his birthday.