Becoming The Overman

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Briles,


SOMETIMES, IN PERSON, I'm not so good with words. Sometimes I muddle up what I want to say, swerve into unintended tangents, and quite frankly end up looking stupid. I just wanted the chance to explain everything, as shortly and distinctly as possible, in the hopes that what I consider to be our friendship through your daughter goes undisturbed. You may not care what I have to say--and if that's true I'd understand it if you tossed this in the trash right now--but I do believe that it's important, if not immediately to you then at least to Beth.

I've been tutoring Beth in math, English and college student success for the past few weeks now. I help her with online algebra tests, write posts for her discussion boards, and was in the process of helping her write her first English paper, a narrative. I enjoy this, because I enjoy teaching; it's what I'm going to college for, after all. But there is a college student success test that we took together last week, scoring an eighty-five if I'm correct, that we took again logged in under my name, thus giving me a hundred. Considering how much I was helping her with all of her other grades, I prematurely presumed that this would not bother her--and it didn't. That is, until this past Sunday. When we were about to take the new test, she stated her discomfort at doing it the way we did last week. So, in trying to find the fairest way to take the test, I proposed us take it separately (that way we would both get the grades we deserved bereft of outside help). She agreed, took her test first, and when I asked for the laptop to take mine she said, "Don't worry, I took it for you. You got a hundred."

When I asked her why she took the test anyway, she said that the only reason I'd been helping her was to "hold it over her head." I told her I was just trying to help. She responded by saying that she didn't need my help, and that she could just go to school and pay a tutor to help her with math and write her essays. She told me to just write the beginning of the paper for her and go. Considering that I had spend every night of the past two weeks helping her take her tests and even writing her posts for her, spending hours making sure she got good grades, I felt insulted by the idea that she thought so little of my assistance. I gave her the laptop back, told her she was the most ungrateful person I had ever met, that if she wanted any help for school she wasn't going to get it from me anymore, and that I hoped she failed her class. And, in the heat of moment, I told her that if asking to see a movie with her was hanging it over her head, then I'd go see the fucking movie by myself. And that's all I said...everything. I walked out, politely refused dinner, and left.

First and foremost, I apologize for using that language in your house, and I really never do--the worst I ever curse is gee-whiz and holy-molie, sad but true, and I never said anything but what's written above--but after two days of waiting for her to contact me, I realized the only way I was going to continue my friendship with her was to actively pursue it myself.

So that's what I did. After Steve's, I stopped by your house and apologized to her for saying what I did. That didn't really work, so I apologized harder. And when that didn't work, I explained to her that I still loved her, even after she broke up with me, and that no matter what happens or what she does to me, that love will never change. She apologized for her insults as well and still wants me to help her study. We hugged, made-up, and she told me what she told you...she told me what you said about her being better off without me. And while she was saying it all, I started to cry (not the most masculine reaction, I know). I couldn't help it, mainly because I desire your respect just as much as I desire the love of your daughter. I couldn't stand the idea of you hating me for reasons explained to you by an emotionally distraught Beth, one who may have told a slightly exaggerated, one-sided story. I want you to respect me for who I am, not who Beth told you I was that night.

Like I said before, I love your daughter and I respect her decisions as well as I respect you. In this case, her decision is to let me be her friend, and I only hope that, in time, I can be considered a member of your family once again as well.

Sincerely,
Cody Nicholas Walker

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 4:13 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN a sucker for the love bug; even as far back as elementary school, my philosophy with relationships has always been all or nothing, you either feel it or you don't. But when you do feel it, when it washes over you so quick and so hard you don't even know how to express yourself but with a smile, it is something unmistakable. It's love.

That's how it is with Beth. When I was in high school, I'd always be watching those Maury episodes where some girl tries to explain why she loves the man who beats her, cheats on her, and in some worst-case scenarios tries to kill her. It never made sense to me. Why be with someone who makes you unhappy? Why let yourself be hurt? The answer of "love" seems like such a cop-out, like just the easy answer that makes you not have to think about it anymore because "love" does all the thinking for you. But now I understand, because, like I said, that's how it is with Beth.

I believe there was a time--and this time may have genuinely existed for mere seconds--when Beth was in love with me. It wasn't in the beginning, and it wasn't in the end, and I would even venture to say that it wasn't in the middle either. But there were days when the thought of love for me poured out of her head by the gallons; on days like that I hardly had to read her mind, she thought so loudly. One day recently, she asked me when I knew, one hundred percent, that she didn't love me anymore. I couldn't answer then, but I know the answer now...

Whenever we would get into a fight, if it really escalated to some irreversible boiling point, I would test the waters of her love. I could smell something in her thoughts, something that reeked of emotionlessness, and I wanted to see if it was true. So, I'd get into my car and drive away, and every single time I did, I'd get to the stop sign, turn around and come back. Because I just couldn't do it. Because I just couldn't leave. Because without her, I'm just that lonely. And when I walked back through the door, I could smell the smug realization that she controlled me wafting through her brain, and I could almost sense a smile in there somewhere. But it was never the same with her. When we fought, she kept the same axiom set resolutely in her mind: I don't need him. It was something that had been there since she was a child, placed there by a mother who made certain no man would tell her little girls what to do.

Well, she succeeded, but at the cost of severing their connections to self-actualization. Sure no man would ever control them unjustly, but neither would any man ever feel truly loved by them because, in the end, those little girls would never be able to fully trust their men. And so there it was, sitting in the back of her mind, a thought so opposed to love that the two could never peacefully coexist. And when she got in her car and drove away, the stubbornness innately drilled into her head as a child made her never come back; that stop sign didn't mean a damn thing to her, not like it did to me. She didn't love me like I love her. She didn't need me, and she was happy to say it. And for the very same reasons, she was never able to fully understand or appreciate my love for her and all that came with it.

The ironic part was, she didn't have to give it back. My love doesn't require her to.

Posted by C. Nicholas Walker at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments