What Seemed Promising
She was shorter than average, maybe 5’ 4”, tan completion, deep cocoa brown hair, eyes that radiated throughout the course of the day, a smile that reflected the years of work put into it by the orthodontist. A sporty physic rounded out her characteristics, she loved to run, any kind of movement really. It was rare to not see her on a sports field engaging in one way or another with others. What was so wrong with her? She was a saint; as close to her family as anyone could possibly be, she was charitable, she smiled constantly and laughed often, but she was a princess. Not in the sense of riches and jewels, but she did no wrong. Her idols were Disney heroines, Cinderella, Jasmine, the whole lot of animated characters. If they were never wrong, how could Colleen ever do the world an injustice? The typical night consisted of the two of us sitting on a coach in the downstairs of her house, huddled together under an afghan to stay warm, peering over the blanket at a T.V. screen projecting…you guessed it, some Disney movie. Jasmine was her idol, Aladdin my label…how cute. Her house was built in a glorious fashion, angled roof like a gingerbread house, yet rustic wooden walls mimicking yet modernizing the log cabin design. The house smelled like one would expect, of freshly cut timber, numerous spices lingering in the air. The family dog was a clown, running amuck throughout the house, constantly causing trouble only to get out of any form of punishment by laying on the guilty eyes. The downstairs consisted of a few rooms; the two most important were Colleen’s bedroom and the T.V. room, where we were presently residing. Lights dimmed, smells of pine from the wood burning stove behind us, afghan providing heat from our mingling arms and legs, we sat entranced by Pirates of the Caribbean and Johnny Depp’s heroic figure swashbuckling across planks and poopdecks, plundering the endless treasures of the sea.
“Did you know they filmed all three on the films at the same time?” Colleen’s sister Nicole would chirp in.
She was sitting on the couch perpendicular to ours, knees bunched up to her chest, eyes gleaming as if she hadn’t already seen the film twenty times. She was almost identical to Colleen, only her hair was lighter and she was a little bigger in stature for being two years older.
“You know, come to think of it, I hadn’t,” I’d respond with a slight smirk.
Nicole had a few learning disabilities and always took for granted that I was entering college as a film student. Most of the time she’d share information with me in a bragging sort of fashion, but to keep the spirits high, I’d usually brush it off as if it were something new to learn. These were the types of nights that made up the majority of those three years.
The Demise
A week before college, I ended the relationship. All hell broke loose, a flood of tears washed over me through the phone’s receiver, followed by a slew of derogatory names, a few pinches of swears were sprinkled on, and to top it all, there was the disheartening, yet strangely satisfying click of the phone suddenly going dead. I’m sure Colleen was still on the other side, switching from enraged ex to sobbing ex. The previous year had been miserable. She was away at college, explaining to me she never had time to talk to me, to call me, to come home for my senior prom. Yet, she always had time to go hang out with friends after she told me she couldn’t talk or call, or that she went out salsa dancing the night of my senior prom. I became the sad boyfriend. What I got from her were small little hellos and goodbyes, rarely anything in between those two words to build a conversation upon. When it was my turn to enter college, the tables turned. I was the bad boyfriend for talking to other girls, for not calling her during orientation, for going to a school so far away from home. The night I walked way from her indefinitely was the night that she screamed at me for coming home an hour later than expected from living in New Jersey the entire summer. I felt restrained. I walked away with dignity from the Luczynski residence in Vermont, head held high, not turning back to see her enraged yet tear-lined face. Crossing the plain into my own home, I immediately crumpled in my mother’s arms and sobbed the entire night through.
