An Hour in the Darkness by Michael Bailey Page B

little shy about things, I suppose. I was proud that she was next to me.
    â€œLook,” she said. “There’s a party going on at my friend’s house.”
    â€œFriend or fiend?” I said. Ronnie ignored me and moved a lovely bang of hair from out of her eyes.
    â€œWould you like to come? You could meet some of my friends.”
    Ronnie seemed to hold her breath tightly after she said it, almost as if she hoped I would say no. Hey, listen, I know that I said I would go anywhere with Ronnie, but I sure didn’t want to go and meet her lousy friends. I was so damn insecure and everything by then I wanted to kill myself. I hate all those social bashes, don’t you? I just wanted the girl all to myself. I was so terrified that Ronnie would meet someone who would make her laugh more than I did. You can understand that, can’t you? If it isn’t all about me, it just isn’t worth it. Look, I’ll love you to death, but if you start laughing at something someone else has said I’m going to leave you, okay? I won’t stand for that. It doesn’t matter if you laugh at something that one of your girlfriends has said, but if you laugh at another boy, well, I’m going to hate you for the rest of your life. It’s all very immature and insecure, I know.
    â€œWe don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” Ronnie said.
    â€œNo, hey listen, I’d love to go, of course I would.”
    I really didn’t want to go by then. I wanted to cry. I felt so damned depressed all of a sudden. I wanted to go home because everything was ruined. It suddenly felt like all the happiness had been sucked away and the walls were crumbling down next to me. One minute I’m wildly happy, the next the whole wide world is falling down around my ears. Boy, it sure is exhausting living your life like that. It’s like all the happiness rushes away because it can’t stand to be around you.
    I knew that me and old Ronnie were doomed from the start. I knew that it would all end in tears like everything else. I knew it would all come to nothing and I was happy about it in a strange, bizarre kind of way. Listen, you’d better understand that I love all that heartbreak stuff that comes afterwards, okay? I fall in love about a million times a day, okay? You’d better believe it if you’re intending to stay with me. Listen, you’d better break my heart quickly before I break yours. And listen to this next bit. When I fall, I fall pretty heavily. I mean, I fall from the greatest height you can possibly imagine and I smash into about a million tiny pieces. I know this is all sounding a little crazy, and everything, but I just wanted you to know that, you know, before you decide to start falling in love with me and everything. I’m going to try and break your goddamn heart before you break mine. It’s the only decent way.
    Don’t you just love all that kind of thing though? Isn’t it what the world is all about? Really, what else is it about, if it isn’t love? We all want to fall in love, don’t we? And we all want to be loved? Yeah, that’s right, I reckon. It’s funny; I seem to know so damn much about it, you’d think I’d get it right. I seem to hold on to it too tightly, I suppose. Like Ronnie’s hand. I’m not happy unless I’m crushing the life out of it. I’m not totally happy until I’ve completely destroyed everything.
    I’m happier when I’m wandering around, half dazed, in the battlefields afterwards. If I’m happy for too long, I start thinking that something isn’t right. I start to look around for things to go wrong and as soon as you do that things do start going wrong. It’s like I think I don’t deserve to be happy. I’m good with misery, but I’m not too comfortable with happiness. I don’t trust happiness like I do misery. Listen, you know where you are with