Chapter 3 - Did You Know I'm Idiotic?

Monday, October 25th, 2021

We want to go see Dune. Gavin, Dinesh, Ramy, Rori, Joffrey and I are all in a group chat. I tell them our roommate, Voldemort, wants to come as well. They want to see it at seven. Joffrey tries to convince them to see it at 9:30 PM in a nicer theater, but they have to get up early. I expressed that I’m fine with seeing it at 9:30 PM, but as a date (I don’t want to be Joffrey and Voldemort’s third wheel), as a date or as a group.

Joffrey freaks out and tells me everything I’m saying is idiotic. He says I’m trying to make everything harder for him. I stay calm – I don’t think I’m unreasonable. I tell him I wish he’d listen to me and what I want and not get mad. He calls me selfish. I tell him it’s not about making him feel anyway, it’s about me and what I’m comfortable with. He says it’s always about me. He insisted we go on dates all the time, and it’s a movie, so it shouldn’t matter. It matters to me. And I didn’t say this, but we don’t go out on dates. We do things, but he doesn’t ever take me anywhere romantic or surprise me with anything romantic or say anything romantic…

Actually, this weekend he told me he’d remember us doing it in the cabin forever. That I was beautiful and sexy and it was magical. It was.

I had another dream last night about Connell. We were walking around, holding each other. He broke up with Brit, who Joffrey was walking with. I met Connell’s family – they read my palms. I wanted to find my dad, brother and Joffrey. We were driving around New York and I sat next to Connell. I was amazed by the Christmas lights – he kissed my neck and I wanted to break up with Joffrey. Usually, we never touch.

But that’s just a dream. I don’t even know if I actually like him. Maybe I just need someone to crush on and romanticize. I don’t know what to do for future me – marry Joffrey, who I love and who’s amazing, most of the time...

The rare moments like now scare me. The things he said were cruel. Like at the Haunted Hayride – he was so mad and directed at me. I wanted to leave early to find parking, but he was playing a game on Xbox. The parking was bad, but not impossible. I remained positive and he remained a mean child. He said he should start saying no to me and that he hated going to things where he’d have to wait in lines. He loves haunted houses! I was hurt because I’d been excited for a long time and had planned this date for us. The lines weren’t long and I stayed happy for me, so we had a good time, even though he didn’t want to talk to me through the first half of it. I led us through the haunted house without hanging onto him (mostly) fearlessly.

What if I did – what if I were enough? What if it were just me… I don’t know.

It also doesn’t make sense for us not to be in each other's lives. I don’t want us to ever live apart. The idea of becoming strangers just wrecks me. I really, really love him.

He just came back in, all smiley, and it’s hard not to instantly forget and move past it. But I wanted to talk. I laid on the bed, staring out at the rain, calm, ready to talk and really listen. He said he got a seat by me and that he was sorry he got mad. I told him he said some mean things and he went on to talk about how everyone else, the neighbors, me, are ruining things for him and it’s frustrating. I brought up how he said that everything I said was idiotic and he didn’t say anything – he went back to insisting that I was ruining everything. I persisted with I wasn’t trying to ruin anything. He threw out that he saw Dear Evan Hansen with me even though he didn’t want to. I told him he didn’t have to, and that it was nice, but we shouldn’t owe each other. He argued I was making him be bad by making him uninvite Voldemort. I wasn’t making him do anything. He said how could I not get it, how it’s bad, when I’m supposed to understand social harmony. He changed his ticket to see it alone and told me I always do what I want so he doesn’t feel bad. Lots of contempt towards me.

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