Neptune = confusion, dissolving.
Uranus = eccentric friendship.
Venus = love and relationship

And this is how relationships go when outer planets are involved…

“Did we ever break up?” he asked. “I don’t think we ever did manage to break up.”

“I don’t know,” I said. It was 2003 and I didn’t remember.

“Well I don’t think we ever did and I’ve always thought this was strange. How come we never got in a fight? A real fight, I mean. A fight where someone says, I don’t want you anymore. I don’t want to see you. I don’t love you and not only that, you can kiss my ass and go to hell!! Do you know we never had a fight like that? Because we never did.”

“Really? But we separated all the time. How?”

“Oh, well 9 times out of 10, or 10 times out of 10, you just threw me out,” he said.

“But that’s not breaking up?”

“I don’t think so. You never said, I don’t want to see you anymore. You never said, don’t come back tomorrow. You just said get out. Or get the hell out, is what you’d say. And when you said that, I’d just go. I didn’t want to be around you when you were like that anyway, so I didn’t care. She doesn’t want me here, I’m gone. I’d just get on the bike and go wherever. I’d call my friends and we’d go out.”

“Yeah? Then what?”

“Then a day would pass. Or sometimes a few days would pass and then we’d wind up on the phone for some reason. One of us would call. Hi, you’d say. Hi, I’d say. And we’d be glad to hear from each other of course.”

“Oh,” I said as the memory started to come back to me.

“And then we’d sit there on the phone for awhile and try to figure out if we were broken up. We had no idea, either. We’d have to figure it out. We’d ask each other, are we broken up? Did I break up with you, you’d ask. Are you still my boyfriend, or did we break up?”

I laughed.

“And I’d say I don’t know if we’re broke up or not. I don’t think I broke up with you. Did you break up with me?”

I snorted.

“No, I don’t think I broke up with you. Why would I want to do that? I don’t know why, Els. I don’t know why you’d break up with me. Does this mean we’re not broken up?”

“Oh brother.”

“I’d ask you this. Are we broken up, then? Are we or are we not? I guess not, you’d say. It sounds to me like we’re still together. So I guess you’re still my boyfriend, you’d say. I think so. I think I’m your boyfriend, far as I know. So hey. If I’m still your boyfriend, maybe I should I come over and see you? Wanna sleep together tonight? Well yeah, you’d say. If you’re my boyfriend, you probably should come over and sleep here tonight.” He chuckled. “Next thing you know you’d be telling me to pick up some spaghetti or something. You’d be out of something and you’d ask me to get it and I would. And I’d come over there and we’d take up right where we left off like nothing ever happened.”

“Amazing. We’re freaks.”

“Yeah, we may be freaks. But nothing really did ever happen. There was never any pain inflicted in either side so there was never any reason to not get back together which is why we were always surprised when we realized we were apart. Or that we might be apart. Because we actually never were. We never did actually break up… have some kind of formal decision or something. Nothing even close to that.”

“But we thought we might have broken up, unbeknownst to us?”

“Yeah. Unbeknownst to us, we thought we might have broken up. I guess we thought it might have happened overnight while we were sleeping so we had to check. Because if we were broken up, then we shouldn’t be seeing each other. If you break up, you don’t see each other. That’s what breaking us is so we were always checking to see if we were broken up or seeing each other and we always decided we should just see each other since we hadn’t broken up or anything. And this didn’t happen once, or just a time or two. This happened over and over. It happened dozens of time. It happened more times than I can count and no one knew why or cared why. It was just how we were.”

I shook my head on my end of the phone. It’s very weird to find out how very weird you are, twenty five years after the fact. Can’t really parse it in the moment.

“Anyway, E, this is what I’m saying. We never broke up the way normal people do. Neither of us ever said I don’t love you and I don’t want to be with you anymore. We never hurt each other like that and I have always thought this was remarkable. And it’s not normal. What’s normal is at the end of a relationship is people get hurt. They hurt each other every time. But this never happened with us and I think I may have figured out why.”

“Why then?”

“Well, I just don’t think either one of us could say something like that to the other.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, think about it. What would you have done if I’d have told you I didn’t love you and didn’t want to see you anymore?” he asked.

“I’d have laughed at you,” I said. “I’d have laughed my ass off and said you were completely full of shit.”

“Full of shit. That’s right. And I’d have done the same if you said it to me. So I guess that’s why we never bothered, huh? Nobody is going to believe it so you don’t even say it.”

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