Fiction: Untitled
February 20, 2007“But, but — there hasn’t even been any talk! You and I haven’t even talked,” I said. The girl was in a hard place. But what the fuck: “There hasn’t even been any innuendo. It’s there, sure, but what do you want me to do?”
She said: “I don’t know.”
“I like you [Chloe]. Sure, I like you a lot. But Jesus Christ — what do you want me to say? You want me to be here waiting for you to figure out what’s what with your boyfriend? And this while there’s no talk between you and I about what’s going on with us? No between the line readings?
“Is that what you want? Can I wait? Clap your hands. I wait here with my hands in my lap?”
“Well — It’s not like that. I’ve been with the guy for years. I can’t just walk away from that.” A compelling point if she hadn’t been the one manipulating my heart with her bare fingers. Her sleeves rolled up past her elbows so that she wouldn’t get goo on them. She had me in her palm. She had me hostage. “I can’t just turn that off overnight. Act like he don’t mean a thing.”
“Sit here while you make nice with that guy? You’re with me. Here with me. Then you go home. You’re with him. I can’t do that. I can’t be thinking like that. About that. I’ll go crazy.”
“Don’t make me choose,” she said. “Don’t make me pick. You might not like what I decide.”
“What you decide? Jesus. You’re a cold hearted bitch, you know that?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“At least I give a shit! Look: I’m not asking you to do anything. I just can’t wait for you to get things right.
“If you weren’t with him, then maybe — maybe things would be OK. If you needed to get things straight in your head — set things straight — that’s one thing. I could work with that.
“But I can’t watch you and this thing slowly wind down. I’ve been here so far, sure, but I can’t take it anymore. I can’t watch you feel things about someone else. I can’t watch you make the tearful goodbyes with someone else.
“You remember when you and I did that? I can’t watch you do it with someone else.”
She just looked at her pancake breakfast.
“I mean: I hurt. I’m hurting. I ache for you. And I die a little every breath you take while with him. I go to bed thinking about you and him naked together. Holding each other deep into the night. I can’t think like that.
“And don’t think I don’t know. That I don’t appreciate what you feel or what you’re going through. That’s what makes it hurt more. But I can’t share you. I can’t. You’ve got your things, but, I just can’t. I can’t be watching that. It’s just — it hurts too much.”
Her pancakes had been stabbed one-hundred times by her fork. She didn’t look up.
“What would you do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. She was quiet for a while. “It’s hard.
“I don’t know what to do.”
“I know. I know. And I’m not saying it’s him or me. I’m not forcing you to choose. But that’s essentially what this is. I’m not here for him. And if you’re not here with me, then you’re over there with that guy. I can’t take that. I’d rather visit the guillotine.”
“Don’t say that,” she said.
“Say what? Say anything! You have it tough. But you have it all.
“It’s me. It’s either there or I’m on the outs. And maybe either way I’m a loser. I lose. I don’t know.
“And every time I know you’ve told him you love him, and every time I imagine that, every time you say that, it’s like a knife in my throat. And you keep on saying it. And saying it. And what am I doing?
“I plan my day around the half hour I get to see you. Between this and that. That’s what I’m doing. And you’re at home and telling him you love him. Fucking hell.
“And I don’t even know what else you’re doing. I don’t want to know. But I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve got a vivid imagination and he’s no friend of mine. And I do what I can to get you out of my head.
“But you’re right here,” I say with a finger on the temple. And I wish I could push it through to the other side. I wish my mind was like a putty I could pull out and smear on a newspaper. Lift off a photo to bend into funny faces.
“You’re right here.”