by Katia Rose
She whirls around, and I see the panic welling inside her. “We aren’t even dating!”
“I know. I know.” I do my best to stay calm. That’s what she needs. “I just—I need to know, DeeDee. Is that what’s going on? Are you ending this?”
Her eyes are so wide, searching for something, and I don’t know how to give it to her.
“I don’t want to.” She gives a tiny shake of her head, and something in her crumples. “I don’t want to.”
Twenty-One
DeeDee
FLAME: the act of setting an alcoholic drink on fire
Why can’t I do this?
I keep asking myself over and over again as Zach holds me in the alley. I take the deepest breaths I can, fighting not to cry again. I hate crying so fucking much.
Why can’t I do this?
Why can’t I just tell him everything is all right? Why can’t I go back in that bar and high five all my friends as they tell me how cute Zach and I are? Why can’t I be the perfect girlfriend in the perfect couple everyone sees when they look at us? I’m like a girl in a painting full of happy people and butterflies, but I’m not standing in the right pose. I’m close, but something about me just doesn’t fit. Something about me won’t let me fit.
“It’s okay,” Zach is murmuring. “It’s going to be okay.”
But it’s not. It’s been getting worse, not better, and the closer I get to him, the more I realize I’m not ready for this. I’m leaning on him too much.
That’s not a relationship. Being with Zach has taught me that even after all the boyfriends I’ve had, I barely know the first thing about relationships, but I know that. I know that what we’re doing isn’t working.
“It isn’t.” I pull away from him. “It’s not.”
His face is a pained grimace as he stares at me in the shadowy alley.
“If it’s not okay now, then it will be. I know it’s hard, but we have to believe that. It’s the only way this is going to work.”
I stay silent. The longer I look at him, the more I feel like something is shifting into place, like some big idea is growing in my brain, inflating like a balloon with a message on it I really need to read.
“DeeDee, I will give you all the time you need,” Zach continues, “and this can be whatever you want it to be, but I just...I need to know that you want it, that you’re in this with me. Maybe it’s selfish to ask for commitment so soon, but I really need something. I have to know you want it.”
I do want it. I want it so bad my arms are aching to hold him. My legs are trembling with how bad they want to close the distance between us, and my mouth wants to kiss every part of him I can reach instead of saying what I have to say next.
But I have to say it. I can’t keep running into the arms of every guy who happens to be there—even if that guy is Zach. Especially if that guy is Zach. He is the last person in the world to deserve this, to deserve the way I use other people to fill myself up.
I can’t keep turning the people around me into walls to keep the wolves away. The wolves aren’t outside, anyway. They got in a long time ago, and they’re just chewing me apart. They’re going to chew Zach apart if I let them.
“That’s not selfish, Zach.” I ball my fists at my sides and breathe deep. “I’m the one who is selfish.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It is true. I keep asking and never giving. I don’t think I really know how to give—at least not what you’ve given me. You shouldn’t be with someone who can’t give that back to you.”
“You’ve given me so much—”
“I haven’t,” I cut him off. “We...We have to be honest, Zach. Do you really think I’m giving you everything you need?”
He stays quiet, and I know that even if he doesn’t want to, he’s starting to see the truth just like me.
“How do we fix this?” he begs. “Tell me how, and I’ll do it. I’ll tell you what I need, and you’ll tell me what you need, and we’ll—we’ll make it work! You are too important to me to just let go.”
I can’t stop myself from crying again, but I don’t go to him. I can’t. This will only repeat itself, and I can’t do that to us.
“You are too important to me to keep hanging on.”
He throws his hands up in the air before dragging them through his hair, and it’s one of the only times I’ve seen him get truly angry. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Yes, it does,” I argue. “Have you ever heard of facing your fears?”
“Of course, but I fail to see why that means we can’t be together. You’re scared of being together, aren’t you? So let’s face it!”
“Zach.” He’s started pacing up and down the alley, and I wait for him to stop. “Do you want to know what I am really, really afraid of—what I have spent my whole maudit life being so scared of it feels like I can’t breathe?”
He stares at me, waiting.
“Being alone. I am so, so scared of being alone. I feel it every single day, and I hate it. I hate that I am always running from it. It feels like I can never, ever slow down. It makes me feel faible. Weak. It makes me feel like I am grabbing onto everyone in my life like some kind of...of...monkey! I am a monkey, and you’re not going to want me on your back forever, Zach. I don’t want to be like that forever either. I want to choose you because I am running to you, not because I’m running from something else.”
I’m panting by the time I finish, and Zach is staring at me like I just threw a sack of bricks at his chest. I don’t blame him for being shocked; I didn’t even know I had all that to say until I was saying it.
He stumbles back until he’s leaning against the wall of the bar. We stare at each other for a long, long time. I can see his chest rising and falling. He looks so handsome with his hair all messed up, and the little flowers in his shirt pocket are so sweet all I want to do is kiss him, but there’s no going back now.
“Is that true?” he rasps. “That’s really how you feel?”
The tears keep streaming down my cheeks as I nod once. He stares at me for a long moment of agonizing silence.
“Okay,” he finally says. His face is all hard lines. “Okay. I...Okay.”
He drops his chin to his chest and stands like that for another few seconds.
“If this is what you need, I want you to have it,” he tells me after raising his head.
I watch him turn and reach for the door handle. He doesn’t pull it open, just stands there with his hand wrapped around the metal, his back to me. I see his shoulders start to shake.
“But if you really want to know what I need, I’ll tell you.” His voice is shaking too. “It’s you. From the second I met you, it’s been you.”
A splash of light and noise spills into the alley for a second, and then he’s gone.
I’m alone.
I’m so, so alone.
I sink to my knees right there in the dirty alley and finally start to sob.
Twenty-Two
DeeDee
SHOOTER: a straight shot of liquor meant to be consumed in one sip
My apartment buzzer goes off just as I’ve finished cleaning my breakfast dish and putting it away. Valérie isn’t home, and I’m not expecting anyone. I push the button to open the door without asking who it is. It’s probably the mail. I bought a bunch of stuff online to restock my hair dyeing kit. I thought some new gear and a fresh shade of pink might make me feel better, but the urge to run down the stairs in my pajamas and hug the mailman that I always feel when new hair stuff shows up doesn’t appear today.
It’s been three weeks since I ended things with Zach. He accepted Monroe’s job offer, so I haven’t seen him at the bar since.
I don’t know if there’s a hair dye powerful enough to snap me out of the haze these weeks have passed in. If I thought some sort magical lightning bolt of change and independence was going to hit me as soon as I left him, I seem to have really guessed wrong about the weather. It’s like I decided to sell every
thing I own and set out on a grand highway adventure, only to realize I don’t have a car. I don’t even know where to get a car.
Usually packages just get left in the building’s entryway, so I jump and swear with surprise when somebody knocks on the apartment door just as I’m walking by. I stare through the peephole and see a stretched-out-of-shape Roxanne looking around the hallway. She smiles when I pull the door open.
“Roxy? What are you doing here?” I ask in French.
“I came to see you!” she answers like it should be obvious. “Duh.”
“How do you know where I live? And when did you get back from Paris?”
I step back so she can come into the apartment. She peers around the tiny entryway before taking a couple steps forward to get a look at the living room.
“You know what I realized the other day?” she asks instead of answering my questions. “I’ve never been to any of your apartments. Not one. I’ve known you since I was seventeen, and I’ve never seen anywhere you’ve lived.”
“Well, you see me at the bar. I basically live there.”
She chuckles and comes back to stand in front of me. “True, but you know what I mean. I was hanging out with Monroe yesterday, half-dead from jet lag, and we both realized we’ve never hung out with you at your place. Monroe had to give me this address from your employee records, which is illegal, by the way. I promised you wouldn’t sue her.”
“I’ll think about it,” I joke.
Roxanne looks so out of place standing here in my doorway—she is right; she’s never been to any of the many places I’ve lived in Montreal—but these past few weeks have been so blurred I probably would have opened the door for a serial killer and said, ‘Salut, you want some tequila?’
“You can take your shoes off,” I tell her. “We can sit down.”
She shakes her head. “I came here to take you somewhere, but first I just want to say...I’m sorry. You always seem like this little ray of sunshine bouncing around and partying all night long, having the time of your life. You always seem like you’re having so much fun that it’s hard to think of you as having problems too, but I know nobody’s that happy all the time. Your friends are supposed to be the people who know you’re not okay even when you say you are, and I...I haven’t been that for you.”
“Ben là, Roxy, that’s not—”
“It is true,” she cuts me off. “I’ve known you almost as long as I’ve known Monroe, and whenever one of us is down, you’re always there to take us out on a crazy adventure and make us feel better.”
She smiles at some memory, and I’m pretty sure I’m thinking of the same thing.
“Do you remember that night at the club—” I begin.
“With the shoe!” Roxy bursts out. “Mon dieu, the shoe!”
“I thought Monroe was going to kill me.”
“I thought Monroe was going to kill me, and I didn’t even do anything,” Roxanne admits.
“I think she wanted to kill everyone.”
We both start laughing so hard we have to lean against the wall, reliving one of the very few times we got Monroe to go into a night club.
“But do you remember why we went out that night?” Roxanne prompts when we can breathe again. “It was because that asshole who used to own Taverne Toulouse was being a dick to Monroe, and Cole and I were fighting again, and the two of us just kept moaning at work about how much our lives sucked until you said enough was enough. You somehow convinced us to close the bar early, wear those horribly unflattering sparkle shirts and ridiculous heels, and get very drunk before marching into a club full of college kids—and somehow, it made us feel better. You always make everyone feel better. I...I want to be there to make you feel better too.”
I sniff and run my hand under my eyes.
No crying. No more crying.
I have cried so much lately.
“Aww, chérie, that is so sweet. Really. You are the best, but I’m okay.”
She gives me a look that tells me to cut the bullshit.
“Okay, so I am a little not okay, but I will be fine. I am always fine.”
Her face doesn’t change.
“Okay, you got me!” I hold my hands up like I’m guilty. “Everything is bad, and I don’t know what to do, and instead of trying to learn to be alone like I’m supposed to, I just lie on my couch and cry into bowls of potato chips and think I’ve made the biggest mistake of my life.”
I stare down at the pile of shoes Valérie and I keep by the door. We’re supposed to get a shoe rack, but we both keep forgetting to buy it. I wait for Roxanne to ask me what the hell I’m talking about. I’m sure what I said didn’t make any sense. She can’t know everything that happened with Zach because even Monroe doesn’t know everything that happened with Zach, but when I finally look back up at her, she’s watching me like she knows exactly what I meant—like she’s felt it too.
“I know it’s hard. Trust me, I know. Walking away from someone you don’t actually want to leave is...There’s no pain like that, and knowing it’s the best thing for both of you doesn’t make it any easier, no matter what people say. It actually makes it harder.”
I blink at her, and she shuffles a little closer to me along the wall so that our shoulders are touching.
“I know you feel like you have to be on your own right now, but...how about we spend the day together? We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. We can just do something fun.”
I sigh. “I always do something fun instead of feeling sad. Maybe I just need to be sad.”
“Wow, so emo,” she jokes, bumping my arm. “No offence, but you said yourself that you’re not getting anything out of lying on the couch all day. Just take a little sadness break. Please. You can go back to your potato chips later.”
“I ate so many.” I groan, holding my stomach. “But they’re so good. They fill the emptiness in my heart.”
“Drama queen,” she teases. “Come on. I already bought tickets, so you have to come.”
I perk up a little in spite of myself. “Tickets?”
“Yes, tickets, but you won’t find out to what if you don’t come.”
Letting Roxanne pull me out of the house to do something fun and forget about my problems sounds like opposite of dealing with them, but I meant what I said: the only thinking I’ve done has made me feel like a total connard.
I pushed away the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I pushed away the guy who I’m starting to realize was the only one who ever really cared, and for what? Potato chips? I thought walking away from him would turn me into this strong, badass woman who makes responsible choices, but all it did was leave me waking up sweating every single night and wishing I could run through the streets of Montreal in my PJs to find him and let him hold me.
Not that he would even want to hold me now.
It’s been three weeks, though, and reading self-help articles on the internet and procrastinating about calling my psychologist before dragging my ass to the bar for my shifts hasn’t done anything for me.
Roxy coaxes me into putting some real clothes on. I put my hair up in space buns to hide how greasy it is and to make me feel like I can still be cute. After a little lipstick and some mascara, I look like a human again.
“Where are we going?” I ask for the millionth time as Roxanne and I take the metro down towards the river.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“Ugh!” I lean over and butt my head against her shoulder. “Tell me!”
She doesn’t give in. We get off near the Old Port and walk along the boardwalk for a while. The tourists are still showing up in huge crowds that will only get bigger as the summer goes on. Everyone is drinking slushies and eating things like pretzels and cotton candy. I hear a few kids begging their parents to ride the giant Ferris wheel.
“Are we going on it?” I ask Roxy as we get closer.
“Good guess, but no. That’s not it.”
We continue for another
few feet before I recognize the booth we’re heading to. A chill runs up my spine.
“Come on!” Roxanne turns around to face me where I’ve stopped walking and motions for me to follow her.
“Wait. Roxy, are we going on the zip line?”
She shuffles her feet. “Maaaaybe.”
I don’t move.
“What is it? Are you scared of heights?”
“Non, I just...”
I trail off and lift my head to watch a guy shoot down the zip line over our heads, kicking his feet and swearing at the top of his lungs. I stand there watching as he reaches the bottom and the next person comes flying along. It’s a girl this time, and she’s laughing.
I shudder, my heart getting faster and faster as the blood thumps in my ears.
I don’t mind elevators or tall buildings. I’ve climbed a lot of fire escapes while drunk before. I even spent one summer hooking up with this guy who was a skydiving instructor, and he took me out to the airfield to go with him one weekend—but I was strapped to his body the whole time.
There’s no one to strap onto up on that zip line. It’s not like a fire escape ladder where there’s always someone climbing up behind me or waiting to give me their hand at the top. It only takes a few seconds to go down that line, but it’s a few seconds all on your own.
Just the idea of it makes my chest feels like it’s too small for my lungs. It’s the same breathlessness I felt when my dad drove away, or when my sister’s dad drove away with her. It’s how I felt during all those years our house was way too quiet. It’s how I felt sitting in my apartment waiting all night for Clém to come home while the hours ticked by on that stupid, stupid clock. It’s how I felt when I fell to my knees in the alley after ending things with Zach: like I couldn’t get enough air in, like I needed someone else to help me breathe.
Helpless.
I am so fucking sick of being helpless.
I lift my shaking hand to shade my eyes from the sun and watch a third person launch off the edge of the platform. She can’t be any older than thirteen. She leans back in the harness and does some kind of gymnastics straddle while she shouts, “Woo hoo!” A bunch of girls her age stand by the edge of the boardwalk with their phones pointed at her, cheering her on.