Why you wanna give me a run-a-round? - 1
When you run away from something one of two things will happen: 1 – you’ll completely avoid that problem and never be forced to deal with it (this literally never happens) or 2- that problem will bite you in the ass when you least expect it. Running away from something always seems like the easiest solution when you’re up against the wall and can’t see more than a few inches in front of your own face. So when I had to make the decision to either tell the girl I'd become best friends with over the last year that I was in love with her or watch her run off into the sunset with some other guy, naturally, I decided that the first part of our previous equation was my best option. Sure, I had seen the wedding invitation. I had a pretty great ritual with it that involved a small kitchen fire and an entire case of beer. Not one of my more proud moments but it’s a decision I’m still sticking behind. I had heard she was pregnant a year or so after they had gotten married, I had also heard that she lost the baby shortly after. I didn’t know how to be there for her anymore and after the way I had left, I wasn’t exactly sure she’d want to see my face again either way. Most people always want an explanation and I wasn’t in any sort of mood to give anyone that.
There were always ways of avoiding going home, always a test to study for, paper to finish or the most reliable, sorry, can’t get out of work and they’re real slave drivers here. Then once you’ve said no a certain amount of times, they stop asking, they stop expecting you to show up and they give you want you wanted when you left. To just be left the fuck alone. But who really wants to be alone in a strange country with nothing to do, when the girl you love is in love with someone else. If that’s a hard question for you, then the answer is no one. No one wants this, it’s not something little boys stay awake at night dreaming about the girl they’ll always love and how she’ll never love them back. It’s shit okay and I know but I’ve gotten myself so far down this road that I’m not really even sure which direction might take me back home.
There were people I missed sure, my dad, he never really understood why I thought leaving was my only real option but he’s still in love with a women who left him so long ago I can’t even remember her face, so his vote doesn’t count. Archie, of everyone, Archie is probably the one I miss the most. Been the best of friends for years, since we were kids, and in the end I even left him without an explication. Then there will always be her, the girl that he’d compare every other girl to and the girl they’d always lose standing next to. Do you know how strange it is to go 5 years without seeing people you’ve spent your entire life with? Do you understand how much willpower that takes? Also a bit of stupidity but that’s the part you’ll hear about later.
The accent worked well with the ladies in New York, even if it had only been used to land him a job hosting a midnight radio show, they let him play his own stuff and ramble on about his pathetic life. Even managed to build up enough listeners to have a few of them call in ask a few questions now and then. WKPX 98.6 all the 90’s punk you could stand but hey any excuse to play Oasis and he’d take it. Working 5 nights a week and having your weekends free is nothing to complain about. Even if his first caller had only been to request that he stop playing wonderwall every single night it was still a caller and he considered that a step in the positive direction, he’d just open with it a few times a week instead.
Instead of living his dull existence out peacefully like he had actually kind of, started to come to terms with it was all blown up in one single rap on the door, it should have sounded familiar in all honesty but you know the thing is, when you move to a different country you never really expect to run into someone from your past and you never expect to have them knock on your door at 11 am on a random Tuesday in September. So when exactly that happens, it’s hard to put the right kind of words together and have them make sense.
“Hey asshole” Archie smiles walking right past him, dropping his bag and throwing his arms around his neck. This is that moment when you’ve thought that you made it through your two possible outcomes of running and you’ve kind of felt a little proud of yourself for thinking you’re finally the one person who’s managed to run away from their problems and successfully leave them behind. This is when you realize that it will always come back to bite you in the ass.
“What are you doing here?”
“What? No hello Archie, how are you? How was your flight? I’ve missed you, it’s so nice to see you. I can’t believe you came all this way just to see your dear old friend Finn”
“I…I am happy to see you, I’m just surprised”
“Well good because I’m pretty sure not knowing I was standing on the other side of it was the only way you’d have ever opened that door for me.”
“That’s not true” I say raking my palm down my face “I would have opened the door either way”
“Sure you would have” he laughs and pulls off his glasses. He leans against the arm of the sofa and looks down at the hem of his t-shirt he’s now using to clean the lenses. “Why don’t we go grab a drink?”
“Is that when you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Why can’t a friend just show up at your door without you expecting something to be going on?”
“I may not have seen you in the last few years but I know for sure that you wouldn’t come all this way without something to tell me”
“Maybe you’re right” He states walking over to me slinging his arm around my neck, pulling me out the front door “but I do remember that it’s easier to have a conversation with you once you’ve got a few tequila shots in you”
“Oh fuck, this is something that requires tequila?”
“So much tequila”
Once you’ve swallowed 7 tequila shots everything seems a lot easier, walking, dancing, talking to girls or listening to your old best friend talk about the guy he’s in love with. It’s easy to listen to him go on and on about this perfect guy who lives in New York, who makes an obscene amount of money, is openly gay, has a summer house in the Hamptons and has asked your best friend to marry him. It was easy to be happy for him too. Right up until he said “we’re getting married here and I want you to be my best man”. That’s when you realize that nagging feeling at your ass isn’t because you’re at a gay bar and things are getting weird, it’s because your life is finally biting you in the ass and you have nowhere else to run.