Page 13 of Unnecessary Drama

Tristan was cute. He photographed well, he always smelled nice, he smelled clean, he was the kind of guy who always washed his hands before eating, he wore button-down shirts, he got regular haircuts, he had excellent manners. Both his parents are psychologists, and he is their only child, the focus of their lives. He rarely swore. He helped me at school. When I had a lot on, when I overcommitted to things, he would say, ‘What can I do?’ And he wasn’t just saying it, he really meant it. He was organised, and smart, and he challenged me. He was the best study partner I ever had.

Tristan was also good at romance. Or maybe not good, but enthusiastic. He wrote me a poem once, which on the surface sounds like a beautiful gesture. But when he handed it to me to read in front of him, I felt my soul briefly leave my body. Reading a poem in front of the person who had written it for me was my worst nightmare, I suddenly realised. And Tristan didn’t even like English, he was a science and maths nerd. Whenever I talked about books, he would remind me that he read The Lord of the Rings every year, or he said he did, although sometimes he just watched the movies instead. That was the extent of his involvement in literature. But maybe he was a poet. I don’t know who gets to decide these things. I also don’t know how you know if a poem is any good, but I didn’t want to try to figure that out while someone was watching me.

I thought maybe the poem would rhyme, and be sweet and fun. My darling Brooke, my heart swells at just a look—something like that. I could enjoy that.

The poem wasn’t rhyming.

I read it, twice, in respectful silence, and then looked up at him. I still remember it, line for line.

The sky, limp and grey

The ground, damp and hard

My life, plain like an empty field

And then you came along

And made my buds bloom.

He was leaning forward, his face open, excited to hear what I think.

‘I love it,’ I said, swallowing and smiling hard.

‘I thought you would,’ he said.

I didn’t love it.

I loved that he’d written it for me. No, that’s not true either. I wanted to love that he’d written it for me. I definitely appreciated that he’d written it for me. Some people will go through their whole lives without someone writing a romantic poem for them and now I could tick that box off, nice and early.

There were just so many words in it that I didn’t like. Specifically, the word limp. And the word damp right near the word hard. And I definitely wish I had never seen the word buds in there. I made his buds bloom. It’s a very aggressive image. Especially when you factor in that I had touched the penis of the person who wrote it.

And it was just printed on regular A4 paper. Arial font, size 12, left aligned at the top of the page. Then his name and, for some absurd reason, the copyright symbol after it.

Did he choose that font and presentation, or just go with the default when he opened a Word doc? I thought maybe he might have bought some nice thick, creamy paper, increased the font size, framed it, laminated it, just put more effort into the final product. Now I had a loose piece of paper to deal with, and I wasn’t sure if I should fold it up or keep it crease-free and put it in a manila folder or something. I had a home laminator, but I didn’t want to commit to lamination.

In a fit of mistaken need, I shared the poem with Mum, Nanna and Lauren. Mum said, ‘Before anyone says anything, let’s remember that we like Tristan.’ Lauren screamed with laughter, and committed it to memory almost instantly. Nanna asked to read it on the page, and spent a long time staring at it. ‘Do not marry this boy,’ she said to me. ‘If you do, do not let him read this at the wedding, because he’ll want to.’ I was then in the awkward position of defending this poem that I didn’t even like, but I felt obliged to not let Tristan become an object of derision among my family.

Tristan made me anxious when we were alone, because I was worried about him saying I love you and then me having to say it back. I felt deficient as a girlfriend, maybe as a person, that I didn’t love him. Because Tristan was a sweetheart, perfect for me in every way, so who was I to not love him. Did I think I could do better than him? Certainly not. But I didn’t feel it. Whatever it is. The spark. Chemistry. Love, the beginnings of love.

The whole thing was complicated because while I was afraid that he liked me too much, I was also deathly afraid that he didn’t like me enough. I didn’t want him to love me but I didn’t want him to not love me, because that would be worse. It was kind of a lose–lose situation.

When I posted a picture of the peonies he bought me for our three-month anniversary on social media, it was my mostliked post all year. When I put up pictures we took in one of those little photobooths, our faces squished together, being as cute as possible, people posted love hearts in the comments. It felt so good to not only feel like I was adored, but to have others witness it. In my head, secretly, I was still escaping the incident with Jesse. Look everyone, look at my life, my enviable life. Look at how much Tristan loves me, even though he has never actually said that and the thought gives me anxiety sweats and nausea late at night, and I’m terrified I am not capable of either giving or receiving love.

And then, Tristan caught me off guard.

He said we need to talk about something serious. Here it comes, I thought. I braced, ready to receive his declaration of love.

‘I’m in love with someone else,’ he said.

I almost laughed, I was so shocked.

‘Who?’ I said in disbelief.

His childhood friend, Kendra. They’d been best friends for years. I knew her, but she didn’t go to our school, so we’d only met a handful of times. He had been in love with her for a long time, he said. As long as he could remember. He’d just never admitted it to himself until now.

It was a gut punch. Tristan was my emotional safety net. I had thought he was the kind of guy who would never leave me, never hurt me, never choose anyone else over me.

But he had never truly wanted me at all.