Just My Color

When I was little my favorite color was purple. I loved purple so much that when I was in third grade all I wore was purple, purple shirts, purple pants, purple sweaters, and purple shoes. But these kids kept making fun of me for loving purple so much; to them it didn’t make sense. They lived in a kaleidoscopic reality when I was satisfied being monochromatic. So I decided that I would try to make me favorite color blue. I bought blue clothes, wrote with blue, number-two, sparkly pencils, and even painted my room Tiffany Blue at my father’s house. No matter what though, I just kept coming back to purple. As much as I desperately tried to love blue, purple was just my color, and I couldn’t help it.

That’s what loving Anthony was like.

Even when tried to move on, even when I attempted to get away, even when he broke my heart, I just kept coming back. Anthony was just my color.

We met at a party, as all teenage romances do, and it wasn’t how much that we hit it off, it was how much that we didn’t that intrigued me.

“You talk a lot,” was one of the first things I told him.

“Then don’t listen,” was one of the first things he told me back.

After exchanging phone numbers, our mutual annoyance with one another blossomed and I found myself texting him constantly throughout my school day. We went to different schools and confiding in him about all of my crappy classmates and incompetent teachers seemed like a novel way to create a human diary. He became my lifeboat, I would pour into him whatever the world threw my way and he would keep me afloat. I began telling him all my secrets, letting him shine light into the deep, cavernous walls I had built around my calloused, child-of-divorce heart. But as much as I told him, he told me little in return. His whole life revolved around the breakup of him and his ex, who he refused to name. The more I let him in, the more he shut down regarding his past, and the more I realized I loved him, the more I began to worry about what he was keeping from me.

Anthony and I never dated. We never even kissed. But I watched as our emotional reliance on one another orbit around like two unsteady planets, one gravitational pull away from a crash.

“What are you guys talking about?” Anthony and our friend were giggling as I returned from the coffee shop bathroom.

She began waggling her finger at me, “Anthony finally told me who his ex was, I can’t believe you never said anything!”

“That’s because I don’t know who it is.”

Gasping, she retorted, “Has he not told you?”

“I asked him not to…” My voice got quieter as her octaves jumped with each exclamatory statement. Was I crazy because I trusted him enough not to ask who his ex was? I had always assumed he would tell me when he was ready. Was this missing piece of the puzzle something that would change things? I hadn’t really thought so until now.

“Want me to tell you?” She was back at it.

“No, he will tell me when he’s ready.” I looked to Anthony for support. He shook his head like the idea that his ex was a big deal was something we hadn’t spent three months perseverating on.

“It’s ok, it’s no big deal.”

I felt powerless as our friend and him laughed at my knowledge gap and helpless and she whispered into my ear the name “John. His ex is John.”

I shutdown. In that moment I wanted to like any other person except Anthony, I wanted to love any other color except purple. I felt duped, like the whole reality we had created together was a lie. On the ride home he kept turning to me sheepishly, as if his lopsided grin would be all the apology I needed for him being attracted to men and never saying anything. I had known that he didn’t feel the same way I felt about him, but I had always assumed that it was because I wasn’t pretty enough, not because I wasn’t his type entirely.

“You should have told me.”

“You never asked!”

“How was I supposed to know that it was going to be a dude?!”

“Why does it matter?”

“Well I guess it doesn’t now.”

We stayed friends, but the uncomfortable tension of knowing that you were in love with someone, who after we had this talk, decided to come out as gay persisted. I began trying to control him, trying to change him, hoping that one day he would turn around and realize that maybe there was more to a relationship than just physical attraction.

We became entangled in one another, he loved me as a friend, a best friend even at this point, but I wanted more and I refused to settle. We rode a roller coaster with unstable ups and downs, littered with screaming matches and “friend breaks” where we would take a week to cool off. I became clingy and jealous; he became manipulative and cruel, knowing exactly where to shoot his poisonous arrows that would render me speechless.

“I love you,” was one of the last things I said to him.

“I know,” was one of the last things he said back.

At some point I realized he was holding me back. But I didn’t mind, it was comfortable, safe, purple. I was afraid of treading the water alone, and even though we had tried to “stop being friends” I always came crawling back hoping that each time maybe it would be different.

I surprised myself when I was the one who decided to end things for the final time. Words just started pouring out of me, disappointment, bitterness, and heartbreak, all of the hurt I had kept relatively bottled shot out like a cannon of emotion I didn’t want to stop. He understood, and to my ultimate regret he didn’t fight for me either, because why would you fight for someone who’s just your friend?

Sometimes we still talk, but it’s not the same, not because the bridge is too burnt to walk over but because I know what will happen if I walk back. I stopped feeling like I’m drowning and found other swimmers who encourage me to reach the finish line in ways he never could. I learned to step back and appreciate all of the colors of the rainbow, even if purple is still my favorite.

Anthony was always my color, maybe just not the right shade.