I'm not crazy. I know how that sounds—defensive, as if I am in denial—but it's true. I'm like everyone else: insecure, down at times, but most of all just getting by day to day with mediocrity. Tony disagrees. He considers me a typical over-reactive, self-centered female, a bitch. See, a couple of months ago when I was feeling insecure with Tony, I got pregnant by a guy named Louie, who is a stoner, with sun bleached hair and dreads. I tell my sister about it, who tells my mother, but I don't tell Tony at first. You know how it is. A mistake like that is better off kept to yourself to feel guilty over. Everyone including Tony finds out because my mother has a breakdown and kicks me out of the house.
     The thing is, things with Tony were starting to look good until I found out I was pregnant. I was feeling okay for the first time in my life. My head was feeling stable, if you know what I mean. I was able to enjoy the day and actually breathe. My life was on an upswing. Tony was calling me and asking me to go places instead of just getting drunk on the weekends, coming over at two in the morning expecting sex.
     We went through this phase where we'd go to the beach in the afternoons and then eat mac & cheese at Lola's for dinner. Tony and I are obsessed with the mac and cheese at Lola's. It's as if we can taste it from any distance. The top has a thin layer of bronzed crust. When you take a bite, it evaporates slowly in your mouth. You can feel the smooth and warm cheese-drenched macaroni texture linger in your taste buds. We took turns paying for dinner, but Tony promised that soon he'd be able to take me somewhere nice.
     He even started to pick chick-flicks at the video store. We watched all these "happily ever after" Meg Ryan movies like When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. We even watched When a Man Loves a Woman with Meg and Andy Garcia. I have a mega-crush on Andy Garcia after watching that movie. I want him. Meg is so crude and mean and Andy is there for her. He doesn't go out with the guys and bitch about her or screw around with some skanky stripper. What does he do? He takes her to an exotic island to adjust her attitude. And there is this insane sexy make-out scene in a private pool. I kept thinking that Tony was comparing Meg and Andy to me and him. No matter how nasty she gets in the movie he is always there to love and support her.
     I thought Tony and I were in love. We'd sit naked on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night when my mom was out of town and smoke pot. Just me and him. I was sure we had a future forming.
    "You're so fucking hot," he says to me stoned out of his head.
    "Shut up," I respond. "Tell me that when you're not high."
    "Dude, I'm not," he says. "Come here." I rub up against him and we start making out. I squeeze his fingers tight but my hand goes right through. I am extremely high.
     I have to tell you more about Tony. He is like a sex god covered in tattoos. He's his own walking text. He's got an eagle and snake on his right bicep, a big cross wrapped with vines laid out on his back, and the Chinese symbol for long life on the outside of his right calf. He is annoyingly proud of his tattoos and constantly shows them off. "My tattoos are part of my spirituality," he tells people when they ask about his tattoos. "Through submitting to the pain, I have created a beautiful piece of art." I've heard this rehearsed mini-speech a million times. I think he really thought it out. "When I die, I'm going to donate my tattoos to a museum," he says.
     His bushy eyebrows are so sexy. And he's got this thick dark hair that gets curly on the ends when he lets it grow. I can run my fingers through Tony's hair for hours. He loves it. "Rub my head," he asks in a childish voice when we watch T.V. or lie in bed after sex. I can't resist resting my head on his smooth broad chest rubbing my fingers in circles in the hair above his ears. I stare at him in a trance as he closes his eyes in ecstasy.
     I have a thing for Tony's hands. He plays guitar, so his long fingers are rough and calloused. I am drawn to the way he moves his fingers: the quick way he dials a phone, snapping the last number with confidence and precision, and the way he extends his finger to push an elevator button. I have images of Tony waving at me through his windshield. He holds his palms out flat, stares at me and then snaps his hand together twice.
     Tony wants to be a rock star, not because he wants to be famous, but because he wants to communicate to people through his music. "Music should be its own language," he always says in a serious tone. He used to drag me into his garage every Friday night for band practice. When the other guys didn't show up, Tony still put in a full night of rehearsal, writing lyrics and experimenting with different chords on his guitar.
    "What do you think of my new song?" he'd ask me after every rehearsal.
     I'd usually come up with some vague answer like "It's cool" or "It so sad, I want to cry."
     I'm scared to tell Tony how I really feel. My emotions are so intense that I can actually feel my bones vibrate when Tony plays his music. I can feel the vibrations from his vocal chords in my head and in my heart. He is the mirror of his own emotions and I am his reflection. His music can be on a rampage and then grow quiet and I am right there with him. He sends my blood pressure soaring.
     Tony says that when he plays guitar that he becomes the music. His guitar teacher gave him a poem by T.S. Eliot called "Dry Salvages" and he has it thumb tacked on his bedroom wall:

Music heard so deeply
that it is not heard at all,
but you are the music
while the music lasts.