("Leave it Behind" clips)

Segments from an 8page essay originally written for an upper-level english class, sophmore year of college

"....He smoked a cigarette in pants that were just too short, a rumpled leather jacket, and an intellectual twitch. At least, I had always thought it was something of intelligence. More of a way to get someone to agree with him, completely in spite of their own beliefs. It was like giving up, or giving in; it never felt real. Ned and I were constantly at odds, constantly without his knowledge.

And I stalled, stealing a couple more minutes in my car outside Starbucks, before actually starting this awkward encounter.
[...] I imagined we were people with a stronger grip and better stories; different people. It was so typically romantic, and so typically un-relatable. We were always the people outside. I opened the door, and walked into a round of deteriorating memories.

[A week after Halloween...] [...] Curled up on the couch, Ned’s haziness seemed fun. He had a contagious smirk. The other party revelers of our romanced room were submerged in busting Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin through the amps.

                   Ned was an inch away quietly playing “Foxy Lady” in interrupted sections. There was sincerity, and there was anxiousness in the way he half-glanced at me. 

 So nearby, patiently teaching me the “F” cord or something similar. Something part of the dance I didn’t let him in enough to have. 

He said he’d be right back.

Over an hour later I walked outside, after making “friends” deep inside during one of Ned’s regular disappearances; a cheap habit, all his, that I found excuses for. 

             His eyes bloodshot, cigarette in shaking hand, he was going down a list of decorated drug cocktails to a salivating crowd. That was when I hoped for a punch line in that naïve little way. I hoped for an excuse, I hoped for him to live again. 

              There was no punchline. There was reality. And there was that small town, and our small way. Rehab loomed in the future.

              Ned just cackled, with “….that’s all the ones I’ve done. Top that.” I grimaced, and no one ever could.
            “Aww, C’mon Little Girl” he said to only me. He wanted to play a muse’s game. I never did play along. Narcotics medals weren’t funny decoration. Each metallic-tongued one kept me away.

In the Starbucks my knee rested against his. He smelled like his same brand. 

I moved away, sat up straighter, and Focused. 

               He was telling some perverse story, something about boy scouts liaisons, and honestly thought I’d find it all entertaining. He still wanted desperately for me to be listening, with all these months passed....

[...] In Ned’s psychedelic deviant ways, there’s something he just couldn’t find to keep him high enough, or keep others listening enough. Someone said it was something like selfishness and arrogance; like he couldn’t ever love. I once said it was lack of passion.
              Maybe he’s just indifferent. He still smokes and he still drinks and he still loses. I deleted his number, but can always recognize his voice when it says “Hello Kate” from so far away.
             And I still think sometimes of the teacher of a chord I still can’t play.             There’s nothing else to do.
              I never felt engrained into his crowd. Maybe I never wanted to, maybe it was fear, maybe I seriously narrowly missed devastation. I never understood his stories or his addiction. I never understood the boys he’d dated all before me, or the drugs he loved instead... "

*Name has been changed.

Daily headphones: "Wish you were here", by Pink Floyd