Remote Control

I'm back in my hometown. I'm on vacation from work and in some some respects on vacation from being a girlfriend. Rene has been staying with me the last two weeks because his living arrangement fell through and he's been trying to find a new place. He just found a place and he's escatitic. Silently, so am I. He's moving in over the course of the next few days.

He's been occupying my place while I've been gone. He says he cooked breakfast yesterday, our breakfast, the one we usually eat. Chopped up bacon folded into scrambled eggs with grated sharp cheddar cheese and scallions. French bread from the bakery next door. He said our breakfast didn't taste the same without me. He says the apartment feels empty. It's sweet to hear these things but sun results in illumination and shadows. I miss him too but food still tastes good to me. Is there something wrong with me?

I've never understood why this man loves me so much, why he has always loved me. I don't mean to be self deprecating. I just know that he loves me way more than i love him. And because of that, i don't feel like I deserve it. Because I can't give it back.

So right when I get off the plane my brother told me that Nicaragua called the house last week and my mother answered the phone. Not good.

Backstory: Nicaragua was my first boyfriend ever. High School. I was 15. He was my first. My mother never approved of him because he didn't comb his hair. Plus, she caught me sneaking out to be with him so that didn't help. Our relationship was doomed from the start. He was a very loving boyfriend and I'm one of the few out of my friends who doesn't regret her first sexual experience. I thank him for that. Thank him for not being a jerk I regretted later. He and Rene are both Aries and I see a lot of similarities in them, interestingly enough.

The problem was, Nicaragua wanted to be the badboy. Got kicked out of two schools while we were together for miscellaneous mischeif. Was sent to a juvenille detention center for robbing a convenience store. That's when I broke things off with him. Shit, I was making honor roll while he was behind bars. After we broke up (we were a popular couple, mostly because of him--I came out of nowhere, really) I became the hottest girl on the market.

Nicaragua's parents thought I put a spell on him because he was so depressed after we broke up. I started my pattern of heartbreak from then, I suppose. He escaped from the detention center. He started hanging around my high school, the one he got kicked out of. He started dating a friend of mine to make me jealous. It didn't work and it frustrated him. We kept loose ties over the years. So loose that we ended up losing touch. I don't think Nicaragua and I will ever forget each other. He was my first kiss, my first love, my first partner. And I was the first girl who ever opened his chest and stroked that cantalope heart of his. I charmed the pants right off him. I've been thinking of him recently because Rene is the boyfriend of mine who has reminded me of Nicaragua the most. Their style of loving me feels strangely similar.

So, Nicaragua called last week and my mother answered the phone. He asked for me. She asked who he was. He told her, then asked, "do you remember me?" My mother said, "yes, I remember exactly who you are." I imagined her voice cold. steel. But not the kind of steel you beat to make music. The kind you heat to make weapons. I realize now that my mother will always have a sore spot when it comes to Nicaragua, the young man who took her little girl away, her accomplice in this art of growing up. I realized that her grudge is not about me sneaking out. It's about me growing up faster than any parent wants. Nicaragua pressed on. He asked her if i still lived there. She said no, that i lived in new york. He asked for my number. She said she didn't have it. He asked her if he can leave his own. She said no and hung up.

I was outraged when my brother told me the story. How could my mother make decisions for me this way? Even still. That wasn't her decision to make. I understand if she wasn't comfortable giving out my number but she should have taken his. But i realize how powerless my mother felt all those years ago when her daughter became a secret wound wrapped in flesh. After all these years, she's finally taking her power back. I know hanging up on his punk ass made her feel good.

So, I thought and thought about it. This whole thing stirred up a lot of shit in me. Nicaragua didn't deserve that. Though I didn't necessarily want to get back in touch with him for any specific reason, it made me curious about why he wants to reach out though I knew deep down he would look for me, that he will always look for me. I don't want him anymore, but we have a strange connection that way. So this afternoon, I called his phone number, the one I recall from high school. It's one of the few numbers I still remember after all these years. My heart was beating against my chest like it was in a psychiatric patient in a locked room trying to pound her way out.

An androgynous voice answered, the familiar patois. I knew it was still the number of his household. The voice didn't sound very coherent. I pictured the person on the other end. Was it a grandparent, jolted out of a nap? His father, drunk in the middle of the afternoon. I asked for Nicaragua. The voice asked me who i was. I said my name. The voice repeated my name but only the second half of it so it sounded all wrong. It said that Nicaragua wasn't there. I was trying to find out if he lived there and wasn't home or didn't live there period. The voice hung up on me, the same way my mother hung up on Nicaragua just a week ago.

I'm annoyed at my mom but i understand why she reacted the way she did. I just hate the thought of someone, even my mother, having control of my affairs in this way. I just don't know the last time i've felt like this, when I wasn't allowed to talk to someone because mommy said so. A part of me is furious in a way that I haven't even allowed myself to express. I'm not in high school anymore. and no one, not even my parents should dictate my alliances, my friendships. not at this point in my life. and i've questioned if i'm arrogant for this line of thought or if I'm just fiercely independant. I am controlling in my own right. I see it more than ever in my relationship with Rene. But am I so controlling that I can't even fathom being controlled by someone else?