Say You Will

Tonight is the wrap party for NaNoWriMo, where all of the participants are supposed to get together and read an excerpt from our (probably) half-formed novel fragments and congratulate each other on making it through November with anything on paper to show for it. I think I am the only person who is actually excited about it, save Gabriel. I am a total ham, of course, so getting up on a stage to do anything is something I usually need to be held back from, not something I am afraid of. I'm really just looking forward to reading some of my writing out loud, in front of people, because so far, this thing I am working on has felt like this weird little secret. My sister has read it, my niece has read it, and I sent it to two other friends, but they are relatively safe people to show it to. I haven't shown it to anyone who will give me criticism that will really hurt. My niece told me she thought it would be longer, which made me laugh, but that other than that, she liked it. I told her it is just a piece of a larger thing, and that it was written in one month. My sister gave me surprisingly useful feedback, suggested that I tighten up some sections and use certain characters more, and I was really appreciative of her input. I have not heard anything from the other two friends, but they probably haven't read any of it yet.
I told Gino about the reading last week, after our weekly AHS viewing party. We have kept the TV watching component of our relationship going, but removed the part where we have soundless mutual orgasms after the show ends. He told me it is because he doesn't feel right about it anymore, seeing as we are currently waiting for a court date to finalize this divorce, but I think he actually might just be a little bored with it. Even without living together or seeing each other more than twice a week, we have fallen into another routine. I'm not angry with him for getting bored. I'm bored with it, too. Trying to leave out all of the emotions and make this just about satisfying our urges has made it feel completely dispassionate, to the point where I don't even feel like I am having sex with someone that I know. Anything that feels too intimate gets left out of it, and the end product just doesn't feel satisfying. It's worse than a one-night stand- it is a one-night stand that happens every week at the same time for twenty minutes. I can honestly take it or leave it.
I was on my way out the door after watching Asylum (and not having sex) and I did let slip, off-hand, that I would be reading from my micro-novel at yBar the following Tuesday and that he could come if he felt so inclined. He hemmed and hawed, as usual, and said he didn't have a way to get there. "Borrow your dad's car," I told him.
"He won't let me," he said, pulling at his sideburns the way he does when he has to think about anything.
"Tell him it's important to me," I said, knowing what was probably coming, "Maybe he'll make an exception."
He kept tugging on those short little hairs near his earlobe, looking down at the floor. I turned heel to leave, and he called me back, suggesting that he could go if I could pick him up from the house. I knew he was going to ask this, and I knew I was going to say yes, because even though I didn't want to be his chauffeur on that night, I did kind of want him to be there. Gino has been, historically, unsupportive of my creative endeavors. I understand that coming to see me emcee a panel discussion on zombies or taking the time to read a short story I wrote is not the most fun thing in the whole world, but isn't that what you do for someone you love? Support their silly dreams and clap for them over even their dumbest achievements? The fact that he would be willing to even sit through me reading my own work is a step forward, even though I know he is really only looking to get out and socialize and doesn't care what he has to sit through.
I told him I would, but last night I sent him a message telling him that I am too busy and won't have time to come and get him, but that if he can get there, I will be happy to see him. It might not be the best thing for me, however, to know that he is listening to the story of our breakup from my perspective. This is why I do not want him to read the novel once it is actually finished.
If he does read it, he will want to argue with me about my opinion of everything that happened, and he will make me think that my emotions, and how I processed my grief, are not valid. He is entitled to have his own opinion, just like I am entitled to mine, but I do not want his opinion bleeding into my opinion. What I like about what I have written is that it is honest, even down to the parts that cast my main character in an unforgiving light. It is fiction, but there is a lot of me in there, and a lot of Gino, and a lot of our divorce. It was not easy to write, to look at the parts of my breakup that were just as much my fault as they were Gino's, and not use literary trickery to make it seem like I am the innocent in all of this. Still, I know that Gino would make me rethink all of it, and make his character more sympathetic, and make me shoulder all of the responsibility for the the dissolution of our marriage. I told him as much, and that I don't think he can handle reading it because he is too sensitive. That is not a judgement, that is just a fact. He will admit that he is sensitive, and emotional, but he is also kind of selfish, and he would not be able to accept blame for how much he hurt me during the immediate aftermath of our separation. I know that letting him read it, if he had any interest in reading it, would hurt him too much, and that he can't handle that kind of reality. I've gone easy on him, downplayed my own hurt over this for his sake, and letting him see what it was really like would be too much for him. I know that it might be kind of unhealthy to still be protecting him after what he did, but I will never stop caring about him. I don't need him in my life the way that I once did, but I do still want him in my life, and I don't think that will ever change.