You Love Me(You #3)(122)

Whoever said that the truth just sounds different was right. You’re taking it all in and I really won’t be hearing from RIP LoveSick anymore. She was never the same after she lost her brother and if there’s a heaven, she’s with him, and if not, well, she can’t hurt me anymore. More importantly, she can’t hurt my fucking son.

You wave at my wounds. “Did her brother do this to you?”

“No,” I say, getting off on all this delicious, cathartic truth. “But I’m happy it happened.”

You sigh and that was too Phil-ish and I correct. “I mean that it was a wake-up call about what a hypocrite I’ve been, hiding the ugliness of what it was like with Lauren, as if anyone can just ‘erase their past,’ sneaking out on you with that stupid half-ass note. This gunshot, this beating, it was the universe telling me that playing the hero for Lauren, swooping in to ‘save’ her… well, you can’t call yourself a hero if you’re lying to someone you love. I won’t make that mistake again, Mary Kay, I mean that, not with you, not with anyone.”

I take the ring out of my pocket. No YouTube-style show. No flowers. No string section rounding the corner to serenade us with U2. I just put it on my middle finger. “I got this on 1stdibs.”

“Oh,” you say. “Well, that’s nice.”

“It made me think about why I ran away, what rings are for people. Because some of us… we don’t ever learn about object permanence, not really. I mean I was with that shrink because I refused to leave my jacket and my backpack in my locker because I thought if I couldn’t see them at all times… they’d be gone.”

“Are you asking me why I didn’t wear a ring when I was… when Phil was alive?”

I close my hand around the ring. “Yes.”

“Well, I don’t have one. I lost it when I was pregnant.”

“How?”

“I lost it at the beach…” You scratch your elbows. “He was never home. Anyway, he finished Moan and Groan, all these songs where he’s complaining about me and the baby ruining his life… The album explodes and he was so happy and I was so lonely. I was pregnant. I had homework. Everyone acted like I should be different, Oh, you’re still getting your masters?” You ball up your fists. “Nomi was born. He bought me a new ring. I told him I lost that one, too. I was lying. I just hid it in the attic. But I thought I was doing a nice thing. I thought he might get a song out of it… two lost rings… Anyway, a couple years later, Nomi must have been about three… Phil goes up to the attic. He found the ring, the one I said I lost. He didn’t yell at me. He didn’t cry. He left it on my pillow and I know what you mean. You’re just as evil as me.”

“You’re not evil, Mary Kay.”

“I’m gonna be completely honest with you.”

Good. “Good.”

“I loved not telling you about Phil. I got off on the danger, the reality that you might find out and hate me. It was a game and I finally got to be the horrible woman that everyone around here secretly thought I was.”

“It’s not your fault that I was stupid. We’ve been through this. It’s on me, too.”

You smirk and I see this new side of you. Haughty. All velvet ropes and there’s no one in the room but you and I want in. “Joe” you simper. “You’re earnest. And I’m… I’m not sure that I’m even a whole person. Sometimes I think that everything I do and say… it’s all a reaction to what everyone thinks about me… She thinks she’s hot stuff because of one album. Her poor husband was right. She dragged him down just like he said she would! And she won’t even wear a ring. If she had any dignity she’d leave him and maybe then he’d write good music. She acts like she’s some kinda saint, keeping him on the wagon, but the man is miserable! And she just walks around that library pretending to be some independent woman. What a joke. What a lie. Who does she think she’s fooling? What is she looking for? When’s it ever gonna be enough for her?”

“Now,” I say. “This is enough. You don’t scare me and with this ‘not a whole person’ bullshit, either. Good try though. You almost had me… almost…”

It’s time to go hard but not too hard, soft but not too soft. I open my fist and the ring is right there. You spent your entire adult life pulling Phil out of the quicksand of stardom. I won’t ask you to marry me. You know what the ring means. I go soft so that you can go hard—please, please, please—and finally, you pick up the ring and slide it onto your finger and your face lights up and you are the star, my star.

“Okay,” you say. “I get it now. You really do exist.”

“I really do exist. And I really did fuck up. But I learned my lesson, Mary Kay, because we’re in the same boat. I never thought a woman like you existed either.”

You look at me. “And I do.”

“Yes you do.”

When we kiss, the Meerkat hollers and we look into the library and she’s there with a few of the Mothballs and a couple patrons and they couldn’t hear us talking but they were watching. Everyone loves a proposal, even one as simple and ass backwards as ours and you’re laughing. “Well, I guess I can’t take it off now!”