I ran into Asya often over the years that followed our break up. We went to the same high-school and Tel Aviv felt so small it was like living in a kibbutz.
And then, one Friday, something did. Between the sounds of the musicians jamming and the smell of urine wafting up from the filthy tarmac, I saw her.
After she told me we were breaking up, I asked for breakup sex. There is nothing more embarrassing, sadder or less passionate than breakup sex. The predominant bodily liquids were my snotty tears, and although this was my idea, I somehow felt it was forced on both of us. And when I got up from the bed afterwards, I stepped on my glasses, which I'd thrown on the floor.We walked silently from my mom's house to the bus stop.
I took it hard. I got fat, I got stoned a lot, and mostly, I shut down. I learned to f*** around and to lie, I learned"to be a man" in the worst sense. I managed to abuse even my sensitivity. I became the sensitive guy who wants everyone to know how sensitive he is; the most dangerous kind of douchebag—a douchebag in disguise.
I managed the pain that surfaced whenever I saw her by convincing myself she was bad for me, that she was my kryptonite.The years went by, as they tend to do. But in 2016, aged 29, I felt like I needed a break. There's something so elusive about scent and memory. It's easier to recall the memory of a body, a face, a conversation, a dress or a smile, but smell is something so non-corporeal and the instant I smelled her I fell into a time vortex. Her smell was like a drug, one that had effects similar to a time machine.I came to, eventually, and as we kept talking, it felt like being with Asya was flicking switches"on"—reviving good memories I had suppressed to deal with the breakup.
Today we're both grown ups with careers and concerns and routines and petty arguments about dishes and laundry, and a whole new set of memories. Sometimes it feels like our entire high-school romance is the story of some other teen couple, not our own.
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