Emma

I asked Emma to meet me at a Waffle House on the 106. It was a rural road on the outskirts of Athens, Georgia where we went to University. I used to love Waffle Houses. Sometimes in high school I would sneak out and drive to the one closest to our house so I could people watch and write. It was one of the only liminal spaces I knew of in a town where everything surrounding me felt set and decided.

I was going to tell her that I was gay. Or maybe I would finally tell her that I was in love with her. I couldn’t decide.

I knew I was fucked the minute I met Emma. She didn’t give me the time of day at first. I think that was more because she was bookish rather than snobby. She knew who she was which, in an environment like that, was very unique. We were sorority girls, bound to houses that had existed at the University Of Georgia for a hundred years. That experience is the reason that I like the Matrix movies so much. I was living a life that I knew was inauthentic and dangerous for me though I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong.

We used to eat dinner at the sorority house on Mondays. The glass in the windows was so old that it drooped, giving the lush grounds outside a surrealist blur. One Monday, I noticed letters  etched into the glass. I ran my finger over the indentations.

“It’s for sweethearts.” One girl said with a southern lilt. “When you get engaged, you put your initials in the glass.”

I looked around, realizing for the first time that all of the window glass was covered in these initials. To me, it looked like the walls of one huge prison cell inhabited by people with Stockholm syndrome. A familiar panic settled in.

But Emma was cool. She was different in a way that didn’t set off alarms. She was beautiful and not blonde. There was a peacefulness about her that made her listen to things differently and it made her seem older and wiser. She introduced me to Billie Holliday and Laverne Baker. She loved the roughed up edges of old recordings. She smoked extra long cigarettes and she had long fingers that elegantly brought the filter to her full lips. She didn’t really care what anyone thought of her. Not because she felt she was better than anyone but because it didn’t occur to her to care. She always wore cool boots. She drove a gold convertible stick shift. She had really long hair and the top was always down so it looked wild but never unkempt. She was a dancer. She taught me about Alvin Ailey. When it rained she would read on the kitchen floor with the door open so she could be close to the sound of it. She had a fear of potatoes that had grown those things they grow when they sit around for a while.

I had a bad temper back then. I could shoot off in a second at the slightest thing and I was a dangerous drinker. She calmed me whether she meant to or not. She was the only person whose opinion truly mattered to me. The love I had for her settled into the foundation of who I was. It was like a load bearing wall in the middle of a room - inconvenient but non negotiable. She became as much a part of me as anything else in my guts. I realized early on that the way I loved her was different. Like you know about Le Creuset or a good grudge, I knew she would last for a long time. And I was right.

I had recently come out of the closet - or more like I was gently pushed out - by a close friend. She was worried after a particularly bad night of drinking and dangerous behavior on my part. We were at a bar and a man tried to grope me under the table. I let him.

When she pulled me away I said something like “Who gives a shit what happens to me?”

A few days later she came to my apartment and talked to me about it. I was alone, drinking a bottle of vodka. She pushed me and I ended up telling her I was gay. She said she knew for sure after that night.

With Emma, it wasn’t just the announcement that scared me. It was the realization she might have when I told her. We spent all of our spare time together. I’d written her a lot of letters, thinly veiled confessions of love. I knew that she might connect the dots, flip back through mental pictures and see how differently I’d treated her. I was embarrassed and worried that she would think I betrayed her or that I’d always had an ulterior motive. I was ashamed to bring something as derelict as homosexuality to her door.

It was dark when I arrived at the Waffle House, one of the last few days of winter. I found a booth overlooking the dumpster. She walked in and sat down across from me. We ordered coffee.

I came out to her over scattered, smothered and covered hash browns. She listened supportively until I was done. She sat quietly for a moment and then said. “Were you ever in love with me?” I tried to say something but no words came out.

I paused long enough for her to realize the answer. “You know, if you were a guy we’d already be together.” She said. I felt my gut twist. I knew. But then I really knew.

Feeling vulnerable, I tried to take control by explaining how I felt about her in a clinical way as if it was something I could solve or fix. I continued with my admission like I was giving a powerpoint presentation. I showed her my emotional projections for the coming year.

“I’ve decided to go home for spring semester.” I told her “I’m gonna get therapy and learn how to deal with all this. I’ll get over it and then we can just move on.”

“But…you still wanna live together this summer, right?” She asked. It was a plan that had been in the works since we left our respective sororities.

“Of course! Don’t worry. I’m gonna figure out how to deal with all this.” I said again.

Before I left for home a couple of weeks later, we took a drive out to the country. There were wonderful winding roads outside of Athens with farms and fields of hay and cattle. We used to drive out there a lot together to smoke cigarettes and listen to music. It was the only place that felt peaceful to me. There was an abandoned silo there that I used to love. It was rusted and the top had collapsed. Over the years, the rain had created these long, flowering vines that overtook the walls. The water collected in a small pool at the bottom. I asked her to bring all of the letters I'd written over the years. We scattered them in the silo and watched them sink down into the water. It was very dramatic. I was basically a walking Indigo Girls song. But I wanted to try and bury the whole thing. I couldn't stand the thought that those letters were wandering around. It made me feel weak. I was determined to get over Emma - for both our sakes - and I didn’t think I could do it with all of that unrequited love spread out on the pages like grease stains.

I went home for a couple of months. Emma and I didn’t speak a lot. I went to therapy and tried to figure out how to help my family deal with the reality of who I was. Spoiler alert: I’m basically still doing that. But I have to admit, the months away proved vital. Returning somewhere that I had always felt out of place with the knowledge of who I was identified an ache that I hadn’t understood.

I found a great therapist that helped me deal with my conservative upbringing and the negative opinions about homosexuality. I spent time reading and writing and putting my shit together. I’d never been a hopeful person yet there I was, looking forward to things. My therapist suggested I watch ‘Desert Hearts’. It’s an old eighties lesbian flick about star crossed lovers. I remember trying to check that out of my neighborhood Blockbuster. It was like a scene from a Mission Impossible movie. Why does the Gay and Lesbian section always have to say "Gay and Lesbian” in such big letters.

I went back to Athens a couple of months later. I hadn't seen Emma and I was nervous about being around her. I pulled back a lot. I made constant strides to move forward and meet people in the gay community. I wore my little Ann Taylor sweater set to the local gay bar on $1 Zima night. It was rough at first. Coming out forced me into dark corners that I had never seen before. It was scary but exhilarating and it made me realize that even though it was tough with my family, I was very lucky.

It turned out some of the friends I’d told weren’t happy about my lifestyle change. In theory, they were supportive but in practice it was too much. One friend named DD warned me not to “take Emma with me” as she put it.

“You had her questioning who she is, you know.” DD said.

“What do you mean?”

“She thought she might actually be in love with you for a second. She was very confused.” DD must’ve seen the look on my face. “She’s not. And I hope you know that you’re responsible for helping her. Don’t lead her astray. She’s not like you.”

“I know that.” I said. But her words gave voice to a profound shame that I had and an abiding fear that what I was could somehow damage Emma. I heard similar things on more than one occasion from a couple of different people. As I look back, I realize how deeply it impacted me.

But the split between me and my friends can’t all be blamed on them. I disappeared. I didn’t know how to explain or defend who I was and I didn’t really want to. I remember a frat party where one of the starting players for the UGA football team grabbed my tits when I walked in. The guys laughed. One of the girls I was with was jealous. I was supposed to be into that. It made me want to put a fucking gun to my head. There was no corner darker than that. I was too far from those frat parties and debutantes for any of us, including me, to understand.

Some of the more religious friends even called to ask if I’d accepted Jesus into my heart. They said they felt that it was their “Christian Duty” to tell me that my soul was in jeopardy.

One day I answered the phone, hungover. “Hello?”

“Hello is Melinda there?” The woman said in a Southern accent.

I deepened my voice. “No.” I recognized the person on the other end immediately as a former friend, Patty.

“Will you tell her Patty called?”

“Will do.”

There was a pause and then she said. “I know it’s you Melinda.”

“Uh…I just…” I stammered.

“I’m calling to see how you are.”

I warmed for a moment, forgetting the time she was supposed to come over after my father died but didn’t make it past the porch because there was a butch lesbian smoking a cigarette out front. “I’m okay.” I said.

“I haven’t seen you in so long. I wonder about you. I feel bad we stopped talking.” I didn’t respond. Patty burned me a couple of times and I didn’t wanna set myself up again. “I think I could really help you.” She said.

“Help me?”

“I’ve been going to this new church…”

“Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me.” I said.

“If you would just-“

*CLICK* I hung up.

A couple of weeks after I got back Emma and I went for a walk. We used to go through this old historic graveyard just outside of town. She noticed that I’d been avoiding alone time with her. I couldn’t ignore how I felt when we were together so it just seemed better to be apart. We sat down on a small hill with two old headstones that overlooked a little creek. It was where we usually sat.

“You’ve been okay?” She asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“Me too.”

“I think…” She started but there was a pause, long enough to make me look up at her. “I think I was in love with you too."

I was eating gas station popcorn in one of those big paper cones. I remember I choked and coughed some of it up. When I recovered, I walked away. I could hear her footsteps behind me. My head was spinning with different emotions but I settled on anger. I didn’t believe her. I figured it must’ve been temporary insanity or maybe she missed the attention that I gave her. It made me think of what DD said.

“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “Do you know how hard this has been? It’s too late.” Even as I said it, I knew that I didn’t mean it but I didn’t know what else to say.

She immediately backpedalled, ”I’m sorry. I was testing you. I guess you really are over me." She gave me a weak smile. Somewhere I knew she was lying but in that moment I was glad for it. Writing out that interaction still makes me cringe because I  didn’t afford her the courtesy that she had extended to me a few months before. I just felt like she was perfect and I was ruining her. I couldn't take her into the dark corners with me. She didn't belong there. Our relationship became strained after that and I noticed that some of the peacefulness in her was gone.

Soon after, I was going to Atlanta with some new friends and this girl I met. It was my first Pride. I was nervous and excited. I was in the bathroom getting ready when Emma came in to take a shower. I turned to leave when all of a sudden she dropped her clothes. We didn’t do that. We didn’t change in front of each other or anything. She stood there naked and we locked eyes. I had no idea what to do. I mean that literally. I’d never even kissed someone that I loved before. I only saw "Desert Hearts" twice and the love scene was pretty tame, nothing instructional there at all, FYI.

Even now I struggle to understand the moments that we stood there. I don’t remember much except for the way that she looked at me. It wasn’t lascivious. It was bare and raw. I was scared that she was unraveling and it was my fault. There was so much complexity to the way that I loved her and I was afraid of it all. A few seconds passed. She walked to the shower and I left.

The gap between us grew wider. I tried to submerge myself in the new world that I was learning about and becoming a part of. I felt less confusion and less self hate in the gay community. I met a cute girl and we started dating. Emma found a guy that she seemed to like. She was never quite the same with me though. She got mad at me for little things like leaving a fan on or a towel on the floor.

Towards the end of the summer, I had a ‘Letter to the Editor’ published in a local paper. It was about coming out and finding peace after being in the closet for a long time. Though I signed it anonymously, some of our friends were enraged by it, saying that I was making their lives more difficult by outing myself. Emma never joined in but she didn’t stop them from talking shit either. I moved out after that.

When the confusion and anger settled down, I tried to reach out to her. I was dating someone else but I couldn’t stop thinking about her. As I became more comfortable with who I was, I wanted to talk to her, to explain what happened but she didn’t want anything to do with me. She was cold on the few occasions we did speak. I didn’t blame her. I figured she’d come to her senses. I had always been heartbroken over Emma and I think I was more comfortable with the familiarity of that sadness.

After that and for a long time, she lived like a storm inside of me. Whenever I thought that I’d moved on, the winds of her would gather to remind me that I belonged only to her. Sometimes, when I felt like it was too much, I would ride out to the silo. And while I raged with the loss of her, I would find our pages resting calmly beneath the surface of the water.

I started singing a little bit in a few bars here and there. Songwriting came shortly thereafter. I started a couple of bands and we played all over the Southeast. I put her in everything I wrote and everything I sang. I got in trouble with girlfriends when they realized that none of the songs were for them. Sometimes I lied to make it easier.

The sound of the loneliness that Emma caused was beautiful. One song made it to the top ten list at a regional radio station. They played it a lot at night even though it was eight minutes long. I liked the thought of my voice floating around looking for her through the darkness. I wondered if I ever caught her on a long drive. If she would ever know it was me. If she would ever hear all the things I meant to say.

I Frankensteined a world made of music and poetry and a part of us lived there together for many years. It was a dangerous creation because it ensured that no one could stack up to her, maybe not even Emma herself. At night, I dreamt of her often. In the dreams, my head was clear because somehow I always knew that we didn’t have much time together. That was the game of it, to get everything in before I woke up. I tried to fix the memories of us. I remembered the way her hair fell in front of her face, the way her mouth looked when it opened just a little and how she stood in front of me naked, waiting for me to touch her. Sometimes the dreams were so real that they would stick with me for a while and I would miss her like the heartbreak was new.

Emma was a mood that I could fall into for days and the farther along in life I got, the less explicable those moods became. It was the ebb and flow of letting her go. The tides of us that drew me out over and over again until all the sand was gone and there was nothing left to fix, nothing left to remember. I grew accustomed to the loneliness that she brought. Sometimes I would take her out and we’d go on walks together. Though the storms became less frequent, they never really went away. I felt sure sometimes that it must be her, out there in the ocean of us, calling me in. There were moments when I thought that the longing itself would kill me.

As the years passed, she became a legend to me - something I could hardly believe had ever been real. When I walked home alone at night, sometimes I would say her name out loud just so that I could hear it for myself. She lived within me, on the winding roads of Georgia and the rusted out silo with our letters, the Waffle House and all of that love…

****

Thirteen years later, I was at a bar. It was the night before I moved to New York. I ran into my good old friend, DD. We didn’t leave Athens on a good note. I promised myself after what happened that I would never give DD or anyone else the satisfaction of asking about Emma but I changed my mind that night.

“How is she?” I asked trying to seem nonchalant.

She pretended not to know what I was talking about. “Who?”

“Ugh. Never mind."

She smiled. “Emma’s good. Married.”

“Oh yeah? To who?”

“Adam. The one she met right before you moved out.”

I immediately thought of the windows in my old sorority house. “And she’s happy?”

“Yeah. She’s got two kids. She’s happy.”

“Where’s she livin’ now?”

“You gonna hunt her down?”

“Are you serious?!” I said.

She chuckled. “It wouldn’t be a good idea is all I’m sayin’.”

I took a last sip of my drink and threw my money on the bar. “Forget it.”

“Wilmington.” She said. “She’s a teacher.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “A teacher.” I repeated and then I stood up to leave.

“Yeah. But I meant what I said. It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to try and get in touch. He doesn't like her hangin’ out with girls from college. Except for me and Patty.”

“Why’s that?”

“She never told him who it was.”

“What do you mean?”

“She would never tell him which girl she was in love with. Which girl it was that broke her heart.”