Something smooth and cool turned on my table. I look at the cover, “Take 5” it says. Oh Dave Brubeck if only it were that easy.

I find five being a constant number in my life. Five months since I met and broke up with him. Fifth boyfriend (Well, some of them don’t really count). And five times the pain in the ass. So what’s the deal? Why am I writing a story about it? Well truth is, what happened in the past five months seems so surreal that I can only turn it into a story.

So our story, as many do nowadays, began with a text message. Hey. How’s it going? “Well that’s original”, I thought. So I said something equally as suave and sophisticated. “Nuthin much. U?” And so back and forth we text, me all the while attempting to drag information at of my new friend. “What’s your favorite movie?” “What kind of music do you like?” I’m lucky if I get one word answers. One night he asks if he can call me. I, of course, oblige. We talk. The conversation is sparse and forced. Yet still we persist at the notion that we have something in common. That we are compatible in any way.

Well the date night comes. We have Mexican food, his favorite. Like the phone conversation the talking is rare and I shift in my place. Well after that we have some private time and pretend that we’re a real couple. A few days later he invites me to his friend’s house. When we arrive I am met by a very loud, very annoying girl. And here in lies the real story. Everyone around me at this house is on some type of drug. Some of them can deal with it (when I say that I mean they are mentally stable, as drug users should be). Others, however, cannot. Others like my “boyfriend” and his friend.

What I saw that night… was his soul. I saw that he was new to this earth. Therefore still young in its ways. So here is this innocent soul (or as innocent as they come), thrust into a shallow world full of drugs, a lot of sex, and the amazing ability to not give a shit about anyone but yourself. This dark dank rabbit hole was not how I conceived I’d live my youth, or any part of my life for that matter.

I see a pattern emerging. No, not a pattern, an obsession. THC, LSD, PCP and most likely many other mind altering acronyms. All of which he coveted. It started to worry me. A tortured soul can always recognize one of their own. And I saw his tortured soul. His mother was a drunk, he hated his father. He was so confused about who he was and where he was going in life.

I found all of this out when he was drunk. And believe me this little man got drunk quite easily. He no longer used drugs to alter his mind, but to alter his reality. A reality he never wanted to go back to.

After five months of the same old song and dance (it felt like a dance marathon), in a mass of his self confusion we broke up. Now I check on him every once in a while to make sure that he hasn’t gone and done something rash. All through these five months that was my duty. I was to babysit and make sure he was alright. Little good it did though.

So as Paul Desmond’s sweet and smooth saxophone notes flow into my ear like air, I know that my life is once again on a smoother more beautiful path.