The quiet made it that much worse. I yearned to hear the piercing buzz of my alarm clock. I desperately wished it was already Monday, that I had to get out of bed and get something done. Frost bordered the windows; it was pre-dawn on a cold, gloomy, Saturday morning in December. It would be hours before even the dog arose for his morning piss. I stared through the ceiling, waiting for something from nothing. My stomach was in a knot, and the percussion of my own thoughts pounded my skull.

“I’m just not ready for that right now,” she had said.
I wished for anything that I didn’t know better. I desperately wanted to believe what she told me, but no, better to be just a loser than a loser and a fool. Still, I could see it so vividly. His lips pressed against her lips, his thighs against her thighs. His hands enveloped her body, exploring increasingly personal space by the moment, his weight now subduing her, the disgusting serpent of his tongue contaminating the virgin soil of her mouth. I squirmed in the sea of limitless cruelty that was my imagination, gasping for breath. I was drowning.
“Stop! This is absurd. Get over yourself.”
I uttered these words over and over again, but they held no meaning. I didn’t understand the hurt. I was healthy. I was safe. I was warm. But I was a mess.
“It’s not you James; you’re such a nice guy. I just think we should stay friends.”
She said this with just enough hesitancy to make me almost break down right in front of her. I already knew I was a “nice guy;” I prided myself on being a “nice guy.” What she meant was so self evident to her yet so foreign to me. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be bad; I wanted to make fun of those below me, to talk behind other’s backs, to say dirty things to girls when I got the chance; to be mean, aggressive, and insensitive–anything to not ever be called a “nice guy” again. In that moment I hated myself and everything I previously stood for. I wanted to scream.
I calmed down again. My anger melted into melancholy. I knew who I was, and I was not about to change. I fell into the most pathetic sorrows of depressed and disgusting self-pity possible, more commonly referred to by my vulgar grandfather as full “why me?” crap.
I had to move. I needed to go somewhere or do something just to feel alive. I threw on a sweater, a pair of sweatpants, and some old, dirty sneakers and went outside. I started walking down my street, very slowly at first, my feet crunching against the light layer of snow on the ground. The world was still–the light low. It must have been about six in the morning. I sped up a little, then a little more. I broke into a light jog; I took off, running as fast as I could for about a half mile, icy wind whipping across my face and obscuring my vision, causing the roadside to move by in a gray blur. I stopped, exhausted, and resumed a leisurely walking pace. I loved the way the frigid, winter morning air felt as it filled my lungs and then rushed out when I exhaled. I saw two black squirrels scurrying through the tree tops high above the empty street, bounding from limb to limb, leaping and just barely catching the tip of each branch that they aimed for. Suddenly, one of the squirrels missed its target; it fell helplessly out of the tree and onto the asphalt below. It did not move. I went up to it and saw that it was dead. The other squirrel still in the trees paused for just a moment to look down at its fallen compatriot, and then continued on its way, just as recklessly as before. I felt very much alive and very much okay.