Creative Nonfiction: Take Me Home, or The Power of an 80's Power Ballad

By Anna Gorman

I am sitting on his couch, my head resting on his shoulder. We are watching his favorite show, the one where Rami Malek hacks big evil corporations. In the scene, a guy in a park puts on a mask and lights a pile of money on fire. As the flames flicker and burn, “Take Me Home” by Phil Collins crescendos, the chorus in perfect timing with the on-screen flames. He looks over at me and squeezes my hand. I can feel his warmth radiating into my palm. I have never felt more loved, more cherished.

 

Three months later, we’re in his Camry with the windows down. We are broken up, in that weird “We’re still friends” phase. How am I supposed to be friends with someone I have kissed so intimately, his hands squeezing my shoulders tenderly? Staying friends is painful now, but I honestly can’t imagine a life without him and can barely remember what I was before him. As I am thinking all of this “Take Me Home” starts to play on the stereo. He gives me a knowing smirk and we both feel the lines wash over us as the wind whips against our faces. I have never felt more free, more alive.

 

A couple nights later, we are in the lobby of the Hyatt hotel. As I come out of the bathroom, “Take Me Home” starts playing. I look at him expectantly, pointing towards the ceiling. He looks confused at first, but then his face lights up with that smile that I first fell in love with. Later, we walk hand-in-hand through different local places.. He buys some new rings; I buy a paperback at the used bookstore. The book is called “Women on the Case”, a collection of stories about women fighting crime and serving justice. It reminds me of the legal career plan that's loomed over my head since I was 12; I’m not nearly as excited about it as I was then. I look over at him, his blue-green eyes shining in the moonlight. I know we haven’t been dating for a while, but I can’t help but wish we still were. I have never felt so confused, so heartbroken.

 

It has been several months now. College exam season has been crushing my soul little by little. Today is the day LSAT scores came out. I did worse than I’d hoped. I can’t help but feel the perfect life I had scripted for myself crumbling right in front of me. What do I have left? What am I even here for? I pull up “Take Me Home” on my laptop, hoping for something, anything other than the sorrow and abject misery I am currently experiencing. And, as the chorus crescendos, something inside shifts. All of the memories flood back: of love, of loss, of longing. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be alright after all. I have never felt more hopeful, more determined.

 

Months have gone by. There has been a graduation, many interviews, a very short stint at a fast-food restaurant, a seat deposit paid to a law school (turns out that LSAT score wasn’t that bad after all). I’ve been much too busy to think about Phil and his catchy tune. Life has a funny way of bringing everything around. He and I’s quasi romantic jaunt-turned friendship has begun to crumble. I have been too naive, too desperate for his companionship to see that he is not good for me. My friends have told me so, and I ignored them. My family has told me so, and I have ignored them. He is like a sugary cocktail, so enticing and tempting you don’t even realize it’s dissolving your insides. He refused to listen to my desperate attempts for help. He fucked someone who looked like me and then shamed me for being upset about it. He asked me for date ideas for him and someone and then expected me to not feel bad about it. I recommended a park that I had previously talked to him about when we were together, but he doesn’t notice. As I lay on the floor in tears, it dawns on me that the very thing I thought was keeping me together may actually be tearing me apart. I finally get the courage to hit that blue “block” button and begin to detox myself off the drug that is his very presence in my life. Of course notices and makes desperate attempts at contact, doing everything in his power to make me feel guilty for doing the right thing. I will not let myself fall off the wagon and into the trap like I have so many times before. This time, I am really finished. 

 

Despite how toxic his presence in my life has been, the detox feels like a breakup all over again. However, this break up has a different tone to it. It is not tinged with the same mental anguish, the feeling that my life is incomplete without him. In fact I feel more complete than I have since the ordeal began that long year ago. As I pull out of my neighborhood, Phil’s face stares back at me. I put the CD in and let the song once tinged with love and heartbreak wash over me once again. The line where sings about being a  prisoner all his life looks at me head on and dares me to disagree.. It is proof that music is often the constant in a world with no constants. “Take Me Home” has been with me through the loving, the breaking, the tribulations, the triumphs. Because of the mighty words of Phil Collins, I have never felt more prepared for what is to come.

Anna Gorman is a recent college graduate. She received her Bachelors' degree in Media and Communications with a minor in English. She hails from Tampa, Florida and can often be found reading, writing the next great American novel, or otherwise staring into space.