by hannah
June 3rd, 2010
From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 10: LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR)
I always believed in “The One”: your one true love, your soul mate, your other half who completed you. I believed we were like penguins, who mated for life and died suddenly when the other didn’t return from a hunting mission. I didn’t believe that being with The One was always perfect: birds chirping, flowers blooming, and rays of sunshine; but I believed it lasted forever.
Walking out of that elevator at nearly two in the morning, I felt this great belief of mine shattering. Maybe there wasn’t such a thing as The One…or maybe I hadn’t met him yet.
To Be Continued…
by hannah
May 27th, 2010
You know what? I’m calling your bluff this time around, ladies. Although I commend you for playing the I’m-stronger-than-my-gender-stereotype card and voting in favor of dumping the wishy-washy womanizer, I’m a little skeptical. Don’t get me wrong; I’m fully confident that you’re all competent women who can flip a U-turn on a dead-end fling (parallel parking, however, is a different story). But I’m willing to bet you’ve found yourself in the following scenario at least once:
You’ve been playing the field for quite some time, and have found yourself at a crossroad. Nick Niceman and Paul Player are two suitors who have captured your attention. Both are equally mind-blowing in bed, fun to talk to, and only slightly concerned by the array of phallic produce under your bed. Only one thing differentiates the dudes: Nick desires a relationship with you, and Paul just wants a regular bed buddy. Well, that makes things simple, right? Uh, wrong.
While Nick makes plans to meet your parents, travel to Europe, and go in on a pillow-top mattress together, you find yourself thinking of…Paul. You’re quite certain your parents wouldn’t like him. You wonder if he’s ever left Santa Monica, much less been to Europe. You know a pillow-top wouldn’t do much to help his back problem. And at every step of this thought process, you kick yourself, because you know the only thing Paul is thinking about is if you like it in the butt…
by hannah
May 26th, 2010
From Sex, Life, & Hannah::Volume 1, Spring Season (CHAPTER 10: LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR)
I’m sitting on the floor of the elevator with my head tilted back against the wall, the ice pack covering my face again. The Ex is beside me, his dress shirt back on, his undershirt glued to my nose. The bleeding has stopped, but the elevator hasn’t started. According to the maintenance man The Ex got ahold of, it’s going to be a while. Apparently all the elevators are down, and a woman in labor is stuck in one too; so we’re not a priority. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself elsewhere.
I always thought The Ex was The One. When I was thirteen, we had to make a poster of what we wanted our future to look like, and he was it: tall, dark, and fashionable. Not that my whole collage was of the perfect man—I had included my fantasy wardrobe, too—but the male model I’d cut out of the October issue of Cosmopolitan was the centerpiece. And when I strolled up to the Beverly Hilton concierge that fateful Saturday morning looking for directions, I had an eerie feeling I’d just met my centerpiece.
We were in love—through the growing pains and the glory. Even when he broke up with me eighty-seven days ago and I ran after him, tears, mascara, and eye shadow streaming down my face, screaming: “Are you sure? Because this is it!” and he stopped, and I went on: “There’s no going back after this! I’m done. No need to hang on to that engagement ring! Are you sure this is what you want?” and he paused, staring at me, and finally said, “I’m sure,” his voice cracking and his head turning away quickly, and I yelled out: “You’re dead to me!”—I still believed we would be together forever.
I sigh deeply, wondering how the hell we got here: broken-up, broken, in a broken elevator.
“How’s Genie?” I ask flashbacking to our last drama that took place on an elevator. We were at Nieman Marcus, going up to the men’s shoe department, when The Ex’s annoying little micro dog decided to take a whiz all over Charlie Sheen’s shoes. I started apologizing, and The Ex started yelling at Genie, before picking her up and realizing she was getting pee remnants all over his new polo…and pushing her onto me. Then he blamed me for not taking her out for a walk earlier, and I reminded him it was his dog. And worse, just another trendy phase he was going through. He handed Charlie his business card, apologized, and said he’d comp him an all-inclusive weekend stay at the Beverly Hilton. I rolled my eyes.
“I moved into a new place that doesn’t take pets, so I gave her to one of the front desk girls at the hotel.”
Figures. I move the ice pack, and then turn my head around to face the brushed steel interior of the elevator wall. I am immediately horrified. “I look like the pet project of Dr. Frankenstein gone wrong.” I want to cry. “I’m probably scarred for life. I’ll probably need plastic surgery.”
I feel him squeeze my arm. “Hey.” He tugs me to face him. He puts his other hand under my chin. “You’re still sexy as hell.” He smiles.
My stomach curls into an anxious knot. Sitting next to The Ex, on this sterile elevator floor, stuck between floors two and three, on this first day of spring, exactly three months before our six-year anniversary, in the midst of this chaotic night, and painful memories, and awkward small talk, I realize that…I am still in love with my ex-boyfriend…
