Here is my current situation, in bullet-form:

• I have no money. My car payment is late and my bank account is bleak. Life sucks when you’re poor. I’m getting by, but barely.  Things should get better if I can tutor more, and I’m working for Mom at least 20 hours next week and that’s $400  cash right there.
• I have no car.  The break lights are out and I have to wait for m father to fix them – and he’s traveling for the next week. I’m borrowing my brother’s car in the meantime, strictly to get to work and back.
• I work all the damn time as is… PLUS…
• I promised my boss I’ll cover shifts if (when) the other overnight girl at work gets terminated (which will be Sunday night or Monday morning) because I DESPERATELY need the overtime.  And my assistant manager was put on probation yesterday.  We may be two staff short come Monday, and we only have six staff members. 
• Antonio is driving (a looong way) to his hometown because of a family situation.  He will be about 5 hours from where I live.

Now, I felt secretly whiny about this…  Knowing he would be within driving distance of me and I wouldn’t get to see him?  That was hard.  But I knew this was him-and-his-family time.  Not me-and-him time. 

So I busied myself with work, I planned to have stuff to do.  AND, as if to really drive the point home, this week I ended up with absolutely no money, and no car.  I was thinking, well, it’s for the best.  I couldn’t have seen him even if I wanted to.  I’m stuck, so he may as well have been on the moon this weekend.  All is well.

Right?  Ha, no.

Because yesterday he asked me what my work schedule was going to be like next week.  I told him I had no idea owing to the fact that a third of the staff was probably going to be fucked up, fired, on probation or whatever.  So my schedule is up in the air until Monday when the office opens and decides the fate of the stupider members of staff at our house.  Being as my manager said to me the other night, “You do know there are only two normal people working here.  And we’re talking to each other…” I have basically put myself on call in case she needs me…

Then he said, “I was thinking of having you meet me after work Monday morning. We could hang the day (and night) and then you can be back home (or work) the next day.”

That was enough to want to make me shoot myself.  But did he stop there?  No… No of COURSE he didn’t. He promised me all kinds of filthy things.  He promised no mercy for my mouth or ass.  He promised to smack the ever-loving shit out of me.  He promised to treat me like a whore, and he promised to really push my abilities to drink piss.

And the thing is?  Short of me walking out on my job, robbing a bank, and stealing a car – I just don’t know how I can possibly get to him on Monday. I can’t, in fact.  I have no car, I have no money, I have commitments to be on-call for work.

But SWEET MARY MOTHER OF FUCK...  I NEED to see him.

I feel like a highly trained dog behind a piece of bullet-proof glass, watching my owner beckon me from the other side.  I feel like a magnet, aching, longing, needing to press against nearby metal, but there is something between us, preventing the union I’m seeking with every fiber of my being.

And last night, he said, “Well, I guess I won’t be seeing you on Monday.”  Like it was nothing.  “That’s life” he says.  Like he doesn’t care.  “Oh well,” he says, like it meant nothing to him to begin with.

I know that’s just how he handles everything.  Once a Marine, always a Marine, and he doesn’t bitch and moan.  EVER. It’s just not part of his makeup to EVER whine or sulk or get upset over things he can’t control. He just ACCEPTS it.  Almost with no emotion.  Maybe that’s because he exercises such precise control over the things he CAN control.  I don’t know.  All I know is he brushed off the news that we couldn’t see each other like it was just a crumb on his shirt.

But me?  I feel absolutely fucking gutted.  I’ve cried twice this morning already.  (Which sucks doubly because while doing some yard work the other day, I managed to get poison ivy on my fucking EYELID.  I hate life right now, can you tell?)  Yesterday, before I talked to him, I was just upset, and a bit desperate.  Today?  I feel so lousy I don’t know where to begin.  I just HURT. 

This is MY fault, but not because of anything I did or didn’t do.  I feel like I have dropped the ball, I have screwed up, I have FAILED.  And yet?  Unlike in another situation where I may have failed, there isn’t anything I can do to fix this and there isn’t anything I could have done to prevent it.  I can usually sit and lament the things I did wrong, but I can’t even do that this time.

We won’t see each other, and though I didn’t create the situation, it is on ME.

I am guilty, but not responsible.

I can tell you this much – it doesn’t feel much better than just plain “guilty.”