You Love Me(You #3)(113)

“Now, there’s no refill on this prescription, but these should get you through the worst of it,” the outtake nurse says.

I grab the fucking pills and my plastic bag of papers and I bang on the elevator buttons—come on—and I hightail it to Burbank Airport but my flight is delayed and I sit there watching planes come and go, listening to Stephen Bishop songs blur into Steely Dan songs and finally it’s time to board.

We land at SeaTac and now that I’m really here, really close, it’s starting to hit me.

You might not ever forgive me. After all, Love never forgave me.

I call a Lyft and I get into the Lyft and I board the ferry and the I AM BROKEN clock is still broken and I disappeared on you. I broke my promise to you.

We reach Bainbridge and the parking lot is buzzing with tourists and bicycles and it’s not summer just yet, but the men are in sandals and the mommies are in light little jackets and time has passed. Is it too much time?

I walk all the way home and I turn onto my street and you were right, Mary Kay. This isn’t Cedar Cove. If it were, you would be watering our flowers and making a visor with your hand and waving at me. Joe! You’re here!

I walk into my house and it doesn’t smell like brownies and you filled the cat food dispensers and Licious stares at me as if he’s not sure who I am—Fuck you, cat—and Riffic hisses—Fuck you too—and Tastic doesn’t even get off the fucking couch, so fuck him the most but no. They didn’t do anything wrong.

I did.

Your shoes are not lined up on the doormat and I call Oliver and a woman with a Lebanese accent says there is no Oliver and that’s typical. He changed his phone number. He was never my friend and his house is furnished and people in L.A. just use you to get what they want and I walk to my guesthouse and I hope to see your things in here, but my second little house is empty too. You ghosted me and I have to breathe in spite of my pain. You only ghosted me because you think I ghosted you.

I would never do that to you and you know that deep down, don’t you?

I am a wounded soldier of Love home from WWIII. I clean myself up and I should probably drive to the library instead of walking but I like the idea of you seeing me wounded, struggling and sweaty. When I get there, I hesitate at the front door of the Bainbridge Public Library and then I take a deep, first-page-of-a-new-book kind of breath and I open the door and there you are in the same spot where you were the first day I laid eyes on you. You drop your book on the counter. Splat. Roxane Gay today, a far cry from our Day One Murakami, all but sucked inside.

You march across the library and I follow you outside and you head for our love seat. You don’t sit—bad omen—and you make two fists and you seethe. “Oh, fuck it.”

Now you sit—omen reversed—and I sit too. You cross your legs, tights even today, in early summer, like a widow in mourning, and do I put a hand on your knee to remind you of the heat between us? I don’t.

“Mary Kay.”

“Nope. Don’t even try.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Nyet.”

“I got shot.”

“That’s nice.”

That’s not nice and I touch the bandage on my temple and you fold your arms. “If you came here looking for pity, you may as well just leave.”

“I know I fucked up. I was in the hospital, Mary Kay. I got shot and I called you… I texted you… Hell, I tried to send you guys a pizza.”

You nod. “Howie died.”

That’s not my fault. Howie was a widower hanging on by a thread, by a poem. “I know. I saw. And I texted you when I read about it and I called you…” I can’t make this about me. “How are you? How was Nomi’s graduation?”

You uncross your legs and clamp your hands over your knees as if you don’t want me to see them, let alone touch them. Your knuckles are brass mountains. Mute.

“Hannibal, I know I fucked up. I’m not trying to make excuses.”

You don’t call me Clarice and your voice is new. “I think you should go.”

“We have to talk about this. You can’t just punish me because I got mugged.”

Foxes are nasty, they kill house cats, and you are no different. “You just don’t get it, Joe. And I’m going back inside.”

“Wait. You have to let me explain what happened.”

“I don’t ‘have’ to do anything. And this is our pattern. I see that now. It’s always me telling you that you don’t owe me an explanation or you telling me that I don’t owe you an explanation and we tried… but it doesn’t work.”

“This is different.”

You shrug. “We’re a bad fit. We’re always apologizing or making big ridiculous leaps that neither one of us are really prepared for. I don’t hate you. But I know this doesn’t work.”

“You can’t do this to me, Mary Kay. You can’t refuse to talk about it.”

“No, Joe. See that’s the thing that you don’t seem to understand about relationships, about women. Your feelings are not my responsibility.”

Yes they fucking are. That’s called “love.” That’s called “us.” “I know that.”

“So let’s be adults. I messed up too. I realize I was coming on way too strong, moving in with you, asking you to never leave me…”