[ WP ] `` Do you still think about what you did ? ''

`` Nah,'' I said, tossing back the last of my bourbon. `` In fact I do n't even remember what I did.'' The bar was dimly lit, too loud, too hot. Stereotypical sort of place for a stereotypical sort of guy and I motioned to the bartender for another and he took his goddamn time before coming down to my side of the bar. The girl beside me, she was asking me all sorts of stupid questions. Asking about who I was, where I'd been. She'd been asking about my divorce, about why it ended, about what she'd done and what I'd done and wanting me to wrap up years worth of experience into a single tidy succinct statement about what my contribution to the downfall had been. Did I still think about it? Ha. Did I still think about it. Every goddamn day and the bartender refilled my drink and I downed it and I mumbled, *another*, and the girl beside me laughed and said, `` Damn, you really like that whiskey.'' 
 
 What had I done? Shit. Love is n't an hour-and-a-half chick flick with a clear theme. Love is n't a science that can be easily modeled. Love is a messy web of comments and gestures, of sweet kisses and bitter arguments, of differences and solutions and broken doors and hearts and fist-shaped holes through walls. Love was n't a battleground -- it was the battle. It was as fluid and unpredictable as a waterfall and I had n't figured out any other end to it but the rocks below where the water inevitably crashes and the river picks up the pieces. So what had I done? I motioned to the bartender, who was trying his best to ignore me as he hit on a couple of young, hot blondes who laughed at his jokes down on the other side of the bar and I murmured hardly loud enough for anybody to hear, `` another.'' 
 
 So what had I done? I do n't know. Years of trying to improve myself. Years of tearing myself down with alcohol. Years of fighting the good fight, whatever the fuck that was. Years of trying to make it work. Years of thinking of myself. 
 
 The bartender refilled my drink once again, god bless his pretty little soul, and the girl beside my yammered on about something and I nodded in quiet contemplation but the only thought in my mind was her original question of, `` Do you still think about what you did?'' 
 
 What did she know about what I'd done. What could she possibly know? Was I selfish? Sure. But who was n't? Love is a tug-of-war of wills, a battle between the strong and the weak, and when that equilibrium is suddenly upturned and the rope starts making headway in your opponent's direction, that's when things get real messy. And they had. And I'd reacted like any self-respecting man would. With broken vases and insults hurled like bullets from a sling and quick jabs to innocent walls who'd never even seen it coming. 
 
 So what had I done? I'd destroyed that house, that quaint little piece-of-shit house that we'd spent years building. I'd torn it down and seen how cheaply-made it all was, how little value there was in the scraps. I'd thrown the photo albums in the trash because memories are as good as the moldy leftovers in the fridge when it all comes crashing down anyway. What had I done? What had she done? The answers to these questions would take five years to tell. It was not as neatly-packaged of an answer as the girl at the bar beside me would like to hear. 
 
 `` You wan na get out of here?'' she asked. 
 
 `` Yeah,'' I said, resigning myself to whatever the next rollercoaster of lust and love and self-destruction had to offer me. `` Yeah, I do.''
