happy birthday drinky crow

Yesterday was CBs birthday. After the conversation we'd had the night before I wasn't sure I wanted to talk to her at all for awhile. I debated all day at work whether I would call and I'd pretty much decided to try calling at some point after I got off at 4, but she beat me to it. She called me a half an hour before my shift ended. She started crying when I said "happy birthday" and told me she'd been waiting all day for me to call, that I was the only person she wanted to hear from on her birthday, though all these other people had been calling. She said "Aren't you planning to spend any time at all with me today?" Her ability to ignore or just completely not remember the awful, terrible conversations we have is amazing and unnerving to me.

So I agreed to go over there to hang out with her. When I got there, she was working on a glass of wine, she wasn't drunk yet, and the house was full of lit candles. It was sweet and creepy and reminded me of the first few weeks of our relationship when she would light all the candles to greet me on our "dates." I gave her the jacket -- she loved it. It was too big, but she can return it. And at least she didn't seem inclined to "woodstove" it. Still, though, within minutes we were arguing. Rehashing. Useless. Useless to even recount. Within an hour we'd decided just to go to a bar. (Because, really, what else can we do together at this point?)

We had a stupid misunderstanding in the car and she was freshly angry with me when we parked. She kicked my car door open, then slammed it shut. As we approached to cross the busy, wide street, I knew from her angry, stalking walk that she was going to walk into traffic, and she did. She hesitated, but then stepped right off the curb. Not stumbling drunkenly, not out of confusion, but defiantly. An SUV came within a foot of slamming into her. He barely stopped in time and she just waltzed on across as if nothing had happened. The guy driving the SUV was pretty shaken. He stopped and followed us into the bar and screamed at CB for a few minutes before the bartender told him to leave. "DO YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE YOU WERE TO BEING SCUM SPLATTERED ON THE ROAD???" he screamed. "I'M GONNA CALL THE COPS AND TURN YOU IN FOR... RECKLESS WALKING!!" That last part seems pretty comical now, but he was so big and so angry, it didn't seem comical in the moment at all. My back was to him when he began. I let him get a couple of thoughts in, then turned around to try and deflect some of his anger. CB stood there facing him, talking quietly, I can't remember what she was saying, but she seemed so small there before him, all 5 feet 4 inches of her. And he was easilly 6'6" if not taller. I turned to him, put my hands up, spoke soothingly, behaved as I would at work with an angry psychotic client. Then he started yelling at me, which I preferred. CB seemed helpless and hurt and I couldn't let him keep yelling at her. That's when the bartender intervened and the guy left w/o another word.

Everything in the bar had stopped and the silence was shocking once the SUV guy was gone. A long moment passed and the noise returned. A guy in the other room coughed and said "Well..." We took our beers to a table and I went to the restroom. I could hear people at a table near the restroom talking about near-misses they'd had with cars or pedestrians. A male voice said, in my opinion generously, "Oh, I've definitely been on both sides of that one. Neither one feels very good." I think CB's size and the fact that she'd seemed meek for a change made it hard for the patrons of the bar to sympathize with the SUV guy, regardless of how right he probably was. When I got back to our table, CB was fighting back tears, shaken.

And then, an hour had passed (of tears, more arguing etc) and we found ourselves sleeping side-by-side in her bed, not touching. And that was that.