Oh, Jesus. Not now. Please not now.
"What's wrong?" she decides to ask, in the middle of something that feels a lot like a nervous breakdown. Cindy Jacobs has this ability to ask the right questions at the wrong time. This is something I've always despised about her.
"What time is it?" I'm foolishly attempting to change the subject. This is all I can think of.
"It's almost eight..." She pauses, just long enough for me to rub my wrist. I forgot my watch at home.
"John? John."
In addition to her aforementioned ability to ask the right questions at the wrong time, she also has this tendency to say my name like it's an accusation. As if just using her ridiculously soft and uninviting lips to awkwardly form patterns that somehow resemble the word that is my name is all it takes to force out a confession to a crime that I didn't realize I commited.
"What?"
I'm stuck in a conversation I never wanted to have.
"What's wrong?" she asks. There is no simple answer to this. I'm contemplating telling her so when a better response speeds directly from my brain right to my throat, and before I have a chance to stop it or even turn it over a couple times in my head, it comes out:
"Everything." Apparently, I was wrong. Apparently, there is a simple answer.
"What do you mean?" I haven't the heart to tell her that this isn't working. That this isn't what I want. I haven't the heart to tell her anything, because my heart is a fucking stone at the bottom of some vast body of water in no man's land.
Shit. Now I'm being overly dramatic, and she'll no doubt call me on it.
"I don't know," I hear myself saying. "I'm just tired."
Tell me that you love me and that we belong together.
"John, is everything okay?" God, I hate her fake attempt at compassion. I sometimes wish she'd just shut the fuck up and let me think.
Oh, dear God. Not again. This is fucking ridiculous.
"Don't worry, sugar. Everything's peachy." I'm faking it again because I have no desire to get into an argument here. Not here, not anywhere. But especially not here. Tonight, we'll fuck and I'll pretend I love her, and she'll assume she's the only one.
I remember when I was a good guy.
"Do you want to go home?" she asks, noticing me noticing the blonde that just walked in.
"Huh?" I heard her just fine, but I sometimes like to give the impression that I'm not paying attention.
"I asked if you wanted to leave."
Oh, fuck. I'm so not in the mood for this.
"We can go if you want," she adds.
Yeah, right. Like I'm in control. Like I'm ever.
"No. It's fine. We can stay."
She hears what she wants to hear. I talk in muted tones to avoid having this go in a direction other than the one I've had my eye on for the past couple minutes.
Goddammit. Why can't I just tell her to get lost?
"Well, if you want to go, just say so," she's saying, and I'm seriously considering smacking her over the head with the shovel I've got in my back pocket.
Fucking chicks. Chicks fucking chicks fucking chicks.
