Part II in our continuing series of The Weekend that Was...

So we left off drunk and texting and possible regret as such.

Ashlee and I get up 10ish (me more at like 11). Order from Gracie's, very gently with the scrambled eggs. My head is pounding and I'm amazed I'm alive. This is a feat unto itself.

I check my email. Something from him. Oh lord, in my head I'm thinking I'm going to be chastised for breaking our Month Apart Plan and contacting him.

Instead, it's him breaking our Month Apart Plan. Turns out he couldn't pay his phone bill and will not see said text message for many a moon until he can afford to have a phone. He says 28 days is appropriate since it was our Romantic Detox. I saw 28 days and I thought of 28 days later; you know, where you wake up and everyone's turned into a brain-eating zombie.

I should just post what he wrote. But eh, too much effort. Needless to say, all my resentment towards him and the handling of our break up wasn't erased, just forgiven. It was a very redeemable message and pretty fucking funny since he was wasted when he wrote it.

My favorite part (which I guess I will post):
"This email is brought to you by the letter "WASTED" and the numbers "DESPERATE" and "PAINFULLY HONEST."

I almost fell out of my chair laughing. But, in the state I was in that morning, that's not really saying much. He wants to see me and though I know it's against better judgement because we all know how this little dance goes, I want to see him too. And so I write him to let him know Ashlee and I will be around eventually. We have plans to hang out with her brother.

Who, by the way, is wicked cool and awesome. He and I never chatted while he was helping us move. But a totally solid guy and I can see why he and Ashlee have the connection and history that they do.

We eat South African food and it is good. And then we proceed to drink. The original idea was to drink our way up the West Side of Manhattan (stopping at points on the way back from Brooklyn). But dinner took a little longer than I anticipated, and I knew for a fact that approaching midnight, Justin would be a little concerned that I was about to stand him up. And while I enjoyed knowing that he was probably sweating a little, he also knows that I hate the late night subway so we cut the Magical Mystery Drinking Tour a little short so we get to Hell's Kitchen a little past midnight.

Sure enough, as we were exiting the subway, I get a call. I don't know whose phone he borrowed, but he sounded a little meeker than I remembered.

Ashlee and I stop to get beer at the amazingly shutting down bodega and he's there stocking up as well. He gives Ashlee and I both kisses on our cheeks. I laugh and cock my head to the side.

He doesn't look like I remember. He not wearing any stuff in his hair, but still, he looks different. This always happens to me. If you've seen me naked, my brain starts to erase you the next day. It happened all through our relationship, too. I'd have seen him the day before and then when I saw him again, I could've sworn he had a different face. It's why on the down-low I try to get a picture of all the guys that have seen me naked, for sheer posterity and for the love of God, you should be able to remember these things.

I don't have a picture of him.

I had warned him to be nice to Ashlee, since he so royally fucked up any attempt to make a good impression on Abby. What I said in my email back to him?

"Abby will just kill you. Ashlee will make you wish you were never born."

He took this to heart. I also think he knew that if he wasn't on his best behavior, Ashlee's opinion would quickly become my own. If he wanted to salvage any good feeling between us, Ashlee is the deal-breaker. It's actually very amusing for me to watch: He averts his eyes and makes sure she always has a beer and he'll open it for her; she watches him with a look on her face that says "I know you. Just try it."

But he's being as polite as he can and it's hilarious.

We look at each other and the understanding that now it's time for Our Talk. Ashlee gives me a nod of approval: she understands that this is what I have to do. She's done it, too. Because she's dated this guy. Only his name was Alex. They're even both Cancers. So she knows how this story ends but she knows I need to write it myself, even if it is all plagarism and prescribed.

We talk like giddy schoolgirls. We are happy to be in each others' presence again. And while it's not the intense talk that I think we were either hoping/expecting, it's amusing all the same.

He says something about the duality of my nature: the child vs. the old soul/sex kitten/filthy-mouthed sailor. It's the first time I realize that while I've been doing this character study on him, he actually did the same to me. I don't know why that was a realization, but it was. Maybe because everything was always on his terms, I always wondered where I fit and whether or not he ever really knew ME, as much as I knew HIM.

But turns out, he does know me. He gets me. And it was a surprise to me. Of course, all of this is too little too late, but you should always learn something new everyday.

He's sitting closer and closer to me. In his email to me, he promised to keep his hands to himself, but we both knew that this is a lie. It always is. For as honest of an effort as we try to make to Close This Thing, our gravity fields always draw us together in that way. His arm is barely brushing mine, and this I think, might have been the hottest moment for me. Not that the sex wasn't great, because it was, but sometimes the sheer anticipation of it all is exciting enough.

I don't know how exactly it happens, but I know it wasn't me and I know he didn't make the Pre-Kiss face that Ashlee and I were mocking earlier. You ladies know what I'm talking about. While you're in this conversation that you know is leading somewhere, the guy will come at you with THAT FACE that says, "I'm going to kiss you." I can never take a guy seriously who does THAT FACE.

He doesn't do THE FACE. The first kiss is always the sweetest. And I felt a little self-conscious because I'm wearing my glasses and that's odd to me.

The first time is about as close to "making love" as we get. Which I find odd, because this was a month in the making and you would think that it would be like frenzied monkey love. But he was so gentle with me then. A little discombobluating, to be sure.

He grabs me and cradles me in his arms. He nuzzles into my neck:

"You smell just the way I remember."

He doesn't. He smells different to me, too. Good, but different.

And then we sit, naked and talking, for God knows how long. I've never been so comfortable being naked with someone like I am with him. Maybe because we joke about our imperfections: his beer belly, my junk in my trunk. I was joking about my small boobies and he was like:

"Just stop. You have a great rack."

"Oh, I know that. Just they're small, is all."

On what planet would I normally be okay with all this?

And the next time is more like us. At some point, I said something to the effect of "I wish we could stay like this forever." And if he remembers the comment at all, I'm sure he took it to a meta-extreme that I want to still be together. But I meant it more like, "This is the only thing we ever got RIGHT." All the knowledge we have of each other and we can't translate it into the real world, only into the little microcosm we create in his bedroom.

Sometime during the night he had a bad dream and I went to reach for him like I used to. We both are plagued by bad dreams that we comfort each other from, but I realized it's not my job anymore. I let him whimper and I turned to hold onto the cat.

I woke up in the morning and looked down at him. When he's sleeping is the only time he's not covered in the muck and mire he creates for himself. I felt sympathy for him, since what we have is something worth holding onto, but neither one of us know how to actually proceed. So it won't proceed. And he'll lose the best thing that happened to him. He'll realize it eventually, but like everything else, too little too late and I'll be on my third marriage by then. And I'll be cynical like he is now and he'll be hopeful like I am now and once again, our paths will just miss each other. There's a Deep Thought that says "If you're traveling forward in time and you see someone traveling back in time, it's probably not a good idea to high five." Yup. Sounds about right.

An Ani quote came to my head (go figure):
"Too much is how I love you
But too well is how I know you
I've got nothing to prove this time
Just something to show you
I guess I just wanted you to see
That it was all worth it to me"

I smiled kissed him on his head and retrieved Ashlee from the futon and we went onward and outward.

And thus ends Part II of the Weekend that Was.