prophomore somotion lines

She saved my life, Gabe. She really did; she breathed life back into me.

Good. That’s great. I’m glad…What?

What are you thinking?

What do you mean?

Come on, I know you, I know that look…

I’m just listening. You don’t want me to say anything, right?

Oh, Christ…

No, isn’t that what you told me?

I said that to you…when I was still very raw…

Oh. And you’re not so raw anymore? Well, what are the rules then? You’ve gotta fill me in here, pal, I’ve gotta know the rules so I don’t step out of bounds.

Gabe…

Okay, you want to know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking: I hear you talking, Tom, I hear these words coming out, and you sound like a fucking moonie to me, Tom, you really do…

I’m trying to tell you…I was dying! You don’t understand that, do you? I was losing the will to live, isn’t that dying? The life I was leading had no relationship to who I was or what I wanted. It was deadening. The constant logistics of “You pick up Sam and take him to lollypop tennis, I’ll take Laurie to hockey practice…”

But that’s…

This is what we talked about! No, really. This would pass for conversation in our house.

I know, but…

…How do you keep love alive when you’re shoveling shit all day long?

We’ve all made sacrifices to our kids. It’s the price you pay for having a family.

Yeah, but you have to really want that.

What do you mean?

You and Karen: You really wanted it. That’s what I realized: I never really did.

What are you talking about?

I don’t know what I was thinking. It was completely against my nature.

What was?

Settling down, having kids. It was just one more thing I did because it was expected of me, not because I had any real passion for it. Like law: It was a foregone conclusion since the age of ten I’d be a lawyer like my father. I always felt, I don’t know, inauthentic living this life.

What, you were a party boy trapped in the body of a family man? Tommy, I could swear I actually saw you enjoying yourself on a number of occasions in the last decade or so.

Well, sure. but honestly? Most of the time I was just being a good sport.

A good sport?!

You know what I mean…

Wait a minute. You were faking it?! You mean to tell me that all those years- all those years, Tom!-you were just being a good sport?

No…

Then what, Tom, I don’t get it. I was there, as well as you. This misery you describe, the agony. Gee, I thought we were all just living our lives, you know? Sharing our humdrum little existences. I thought you were there, wholeheartedly there. And now you’re saying you had an eye on the clock and a foot out the door?!

You’ve got to stop taking this so personally.

How would you take it? You say you were wasting your life, that’s what you said.

I don’t mean you and Karen. I don’t mean you, I’d never mean you; you’re my best friend, I’ve got to be able to say this stuff to you. I’m talking about my marriage.

But it’s not that simple, Tom. We were there. Karen and Danny and Isaac and I, we were all there, we were all a big part of that terrible life you had to get the hell away from. Isaac’s totally freaked out by this, by the way. So when you repudiate your entire adult life…

That’s not what I’ve done…

That’s essentially what you’ve done. You build something that’s precarious in even the best of circumstances and you succeed, or at least you make it look like you’ve succeeded, your friends think you have, you had us fooled, and then, one day, you blow it all up!