No One Asked for This

by Cazzie David

  Holy fucking shit.

  I knew I had to be strategic when grabbing her because if she heard or saw any movement, she’d run away and I could lose her forever, despite having been given a second chance. I also knew waiting to grab her would be a mistake. So I leaped for her, but she freaked and trotted into the neighbors’ yard.

  I didn’t have time to panic. Emily monitored exactly where Link was as I pressed the neighbors’ call button over and over again.

  “Hello?” the homeowner answered with concern.

  “Hi, I’m sorry! My cat is in your front yard, I need to get her!” I said with even more concern. She buzzed me in, the noise so jarring I was afraid that it would make Link run away again. I somehow also had time to note that a lost cat is an incredible excuse to break into someone’s house.

  Link was now on the right side of their house behind the hedges that lined their property, but there was still a good chance that I’d lose her again. I quietly moved over, inch by inch, monitoring her body language, until I was close enough to reach out and grab her. I got her right before she could run away. I couldn’t believe it. She was in my arms, but there was no time to celebrate, I had to get her in the house.

  I ran home holding Link so tight she clawed her nails deep into my chest. I didn’t care that she might be scratching off my nipple, I was not going to let her go.

  My sister, Emily, and I burst into the house with Link, hysterically laughing in disbelief. “Close the door!” I screamed at my sister.

  “What?!” my dad said. “What happened?!” He couldn’t believe he was hearing laughter. I held the cat up to his face and his jaw dropped. The four of us laughed and literally jumped for joy for twenty minutes. To this day, my dad, sister, and I believe it was one of the happiest moments of our lives. And I am eternally grateful and indebted to Emily and her positivity.

  Ironically, I discovered that the only thing more embarrassing than losing your cat is finding your cat. The next day, I walked around my neighborhood ripping down all the flyers I had put up just the day before. “I found her,” I said as people stared at me tearing the flyers into pieces. Passing joggers asked how the search was going. “Yeah, I found her,” I’d say, as if it had been as easy as looking in my closet and discovering her under a pile of clothes. I knew that if my cat ever went missing again, I’d be too embarrassed to say anything. I couldn’t go back to all of the same houses and say, Hi! Yes, you are correct, I’m the girl who lost her cat. So, my cat is missing . . . again. I’d just have to be even more careful than I’d been before.

  Since that day, I have weekly nightmares about losing Link. I thought no fear could match that of waking up in the morning knowing I had lost my cat. But it turns out the anxiety of still having my cat and knowing I could lose her again is pretty much just as bad. This cat has brought more anxiety into my life than I knew was possible, and looking back, I can state that my life would definitely be easier if I’d never gotten her. It might even have been easier if I’d never re-found her. Anyways, something to think about if you ever find yourself debating whether to start taking medication or go another route that you think might be more “fun,” like getting an animal. I suggest the meds and, more important, birth control.

  * * *

  This Essay Doesn’t Pass the Bechdel Test

  It’s always felt out of character for me to be someone who could self-describe as “boy-crazy.” It’s the most stereotypical of all the stereotypical girly characteristics, and I like to think I don’t fall into clichés. As a kid, I prided myself on being the opposite of girly, well before it became trendy for hot girls to wear cargo pants and everyone and everything became fluid. Anyways, my point is that pre–destruction of gender stereotypes, I was (and remain) the opposite of girly. I hate the color pink; my voice is debatably deeper than Alan Rickman’s; I’m shockingly athletic with catlike reflexes (although that likely can be attributed to my ancestors being persecuted for generations). And I refuse to be in group photos if there are more than four girls in it because it seems like we’re all screaming, GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS! GIRLFRIENDS! THE FUTURE IS FEMALE! I LOVE MY GIRLIES! PUSSY POWER! WOMEN SUPPORTING WOMEN!

  But underneath it all, I’m secretly the girliest girly girl ever because I am downright obsessed with boys. Being obsessed with boys is basically the equivalent of loving makeup, sparkles, rosé, and your own birthday, but I can’t help it. I’m consumed by them, in a “girls at a sleepover eating ice cream and trading stories” type of way. I’ll obsess over mediocre boys, boys who are mean to me, boys who are good on paper but shitty in life, boys who are shitty on paper but good in life, sad boys, shy boys, confident boys, boys who are willing to give me attention, and, of course, boys who give me none whatsoever.

  In elementary school, when I wasn’t panicking over being alive or getting a stomach flu, I spent all my time fantasizing about boys. I’d often force myself to have a crush on someone who I didn’t care about just to make class more interesting. Instead of learning long division, I’d opt to stare out the window daydreaming hundreds of different scenarios for me and my crush of the week. They usually involved him saving me from some man attacking me in a dark parking lot. Or saving me from being hit by a car in a dark parking lot. It always took place in a parking lot. So romantic . . .

  By the time middle school began, I had already been in love multiple times. One-sided love, but love nonetheless. The first time I realized I was in love came when I was six years old and my crush and I had to escape a thunderstorm on the beach. I will never ever forget him because escaping a storm on a beach as small children in love is the straight-up most romantic thing I can think of. I thought about him almost every night until I had my first kiss in middle school. I obsessed over both my first-kiss person and then my second-kiss person for months afterward, playing reruns of every word they had ever said to me and every time they ever touched me (once) until the memory was so worn out I didn’t know whether it was real anymore. Like, did both kisses actually take place in a parking lot?

  No one obsessed over me back until I was fifteen and met my first boyfriend. I hate the sound of relationship girl just as much as I hate the sound of any [adjective] girl. They’re all bad: girly girl, it girl, horse girl, cool girl, party girl, VSCO girl . . . if you haven’t noticed, it’s tomboy, not boy-girl, because only annoying types of girls get titles with girl at the end. But despite fighting these classifications, it took me no time at all to become a die-hard relationship girl.

  Being in a relationship felt like walking through a portal into another world. For the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered because there was someone who wasn’t a member of my family who cared if I was alive or dead, happy or sad. To be valued every day for just existing is SO TIGHT. You’re admired all the time for everything you say, every move and face you make. It doesn’t get better than that. The fact that there were even more amazing things about being in a relationship besides self-worth felt too good to be true. Like getting FOREHEAD KISSES when you have a headache. The fact is that you scientifically fall asleep faster. When you’re both in pajamas and your legs are intertwined. The wonders of snuggling . . . the first time I felt the cuddly sensation of skin-to-skin contact with my boyfriend, I had a reaction like a kid who had never tried chocolate or seen the ocean until that moment. Before, true coziness was only something I had experienced on those mornings when your bed is miraculously comfier than it’s ever felt, where the comforter is cold but your body is warm, and if you just shut your eyes for two seconds, you can drift back to sleep with more ease than on any night you’ve ever tried. Having a boyfriend is that morning every day. A constant feeling that you are a baby getting wrapped in a towel after a bath. So I pledged never to go back to the other side of that portal, the one where I don’t exist and where mornings hurt. My status would permanently be In a Relationship.

  My high-school boyfriend wasn’t the type of guy a mother would be entirely excited about her daughter dating. He re
eked of Marlboro Reds and “toxic” (as my mom called it) cologne (“the chemicals will seep into his skin and yours!”), had amateur tattoos all over, loved an elaborate prank, and was a drug addict. But a really sweet one! And my mom didn’t know that, so it’s basically like he wasn’t.

  All in all, he was exactly my type and would influence what my type would be forever. While I might have outgrown other aspects of my teenage rebellion, my predilection for questionable dudes remains. Questionable is generous, though. My taste in men is straight-up trash. If I was the Bachelorette and they had to handpick a group of guys that they thought I’d be interested in, it would be a roomful of rightfully convicted felons, trauma patients, narcissists, drug addicts, and cult members. My kink is tragedy and my only requirement is a tortured soul. I love fucked-up guys so much that literally no one I know would be surprised if I started fucking the demon from The Exorcist.

  My high-school boyfriend and I were happily together until my senior year when I found out he’d had sex with two of my friends. I also found out he was doing heroin, which I considered a reason to break up despite it being a risk I knew I was taking once I established my type as “red flag.” I was inconsolable for months but not enough to keep me from scavenging for a new boyfriend desperately. Contentment just didn’t seem possible without regularly having sex with a guy who was in love with me or, at the very least, getting consistent affection from someone who wasn’t repulsed by me.

  There weren’t many boys who were my type at my liberal arts school in Boston. I wasn’t into greasy film bros in flannels who called themselves auteurs. To paint a picture, the most popular guys at school called themselves the PTA boys (they were in a Paul Thomas Anderson fan club). My best option was a clean-cut guy from New England, which meant he was whiter than a J.Crew statement necklace and came complete with a catalog of old Facebook photos where he appeared in a variety of highlighter-colored polos with at least ten other friends who were also wearing highlighter-colored polos. All of which clashed with the fact that he always, at all times, smelled like a fresh bong rip. He was very “nice” and “normal” but still had eyes like he might get in a bar fight at any moment, which was ultimately what drew me in. We couldn’t have been more incompatible, though. For one, he had no understanding of my anxious nature. When we’d walk down the street together, instead of protecting me from the outside world like I desperately desired, he’d literally push me into things he knew I was scared of, like flocks of pigeons and people talking to themselves, as some psychotic form of exposure therapy.

  He also had no discretion, which I find to be one of the most important qualities a person can have. I’ve valued it from the first time someone said to me, “Don’t turn around but . . .” and to their surprise, I didn’t turn around. You’d think no one would ever turn around when asked not to, but most people have no control over it whatsoever. It’s as animalistic as a dog chasing after a bunny. To sum up, there are two types of people in this world: those who turn around when you tell them not to and those who don’t.

  My college boyfriend always turned around. Zero discretion. One time we were at a friend’s house for dinner and it was getting late, so I tried to send him vibes that I wanted to leave, poking him in the side as he was talking to his friends and tugging at his arm like I was a child. Once I mentally leave, it takes everything for me to be present in a conversation. In my mind I’m already back home, washing my face and getting in pajamas. So when he didn’t pick up on my Let’s go gestures and glances, I texted him Can we leave now? from the other side of the room. Before he even opened the text, he said, “Why’d you text me?” out loud in front of everyone.

  I stared at him, expressionless. “Just . . . sayin’ hey and miss you!”

  “Awww,” everyone said, eliciting an immediate eye roll from me.

  Then there was the time we were in an Uber and I tried to discreetly express to him via silently mouthing and a hand motion that it smelled bad, stupidly forgetting he’s the least discreet person alive.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  “No, tell me! What is it?!”

  The driver was naturally listening much more intently now.

  “Never mind, it doesn’t matter.”

  “I hate when you do that! I want to know anyway!” he whined.

  I groaned and resorted to texting him: IT SMELLS BAD.

  “Ohhhh!” he said out loud. Then he opened his window and shot me a thumbs-up.

  “You’re such a burn,” I whispered with a defeated laugh.

  “What’s a burn?” he asked, again at a volume much louder than necessary.

  I took a deep breath and texted him what being a burn meant. SOMEONE WHO IS UNAWARE THAT THEY ARE REVEALING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT MEANT TO BE REVEALED.

  “Ohhhh. Got it,” he said, again too loud.

  For a while, I thought the worst thing about a lack of discretion was how it led to awkward social encounters, but one day it occurred to me that it could also be a death trap. The epiphany dawned on me when he and I went to the movies one rainy Sunday. There we were, sitting in the theater watching trailers, when I had the same fear many of us have every time we enter a movie theater: A man comes into the back entrance with a gun and shoots. The scenario played over and over again in my head. What would we do? I knew immediately.

  The man comes in and pulls out his gun. He starts shooting. A bullet lightly grazes my arm but causes no serious damage, so I use it as an opportunity to fake being dead. I dramatically drop to the floor, eyes closed, because I don’t want to see what’s happening anyway. And as I’m praying for our survival . . .

  “NOOOO! SOMEBODY HELP!” my boyfriend screams. He gets on the ground, puts two hands on my chest, and starts loudly performing CPR. “One! Two!”

  “Shhhh, I’m playing dead,” I whisper.

  “You’re WHAT? YOU’RE ALIVE?! SHE’S ALIVE!” he screams out in joy.

  “SHHHH. Don’t be a bur—” And the guy shoots us both dead.

  I obviously couldn’t be with a burn, but because I knew the idea of being alone felt tantamount to actually being dead, I waited for him to break up with me, which didn’t take too long—I was just as unbearable in my own ways.

  I was lucky enough to quickly find another boyfriend to fill the void, extending that relationship for as long as I could, because if there isn’t a boy who loves you and knows what you did that day, did you even have a day? What’s the point of anything happening to you if you have no one to tell your daily funny anecdotes to?

  I was able to keep up my serial dating habits until my mid-twenties, when I suddenly found myself alone with no companion in sight. I was officially—cringe—a single girl. Ew. I hated the sound of it. Something about it was so much girlier than a relationship girl. I had never really been a single girl, and I definitely had never been a single adult. Because of this, it took no time at all for me to do the first thing a person who has been out of the dating game for exactly ten years thinks they’re supposed to do: sleep around.

  The newly single girl’s mindset is simple: meet a few guys to rotate hooking up with and have them all wrapped around your finger wanting more even though all you want and will give them is sex. I was like Christian Grey to my new partners, but about hygiene. I’d have a guy over and be like (sexy voice), Why don’t you follow me into the room . . . where I keep all of my toys. I’d seductively lead him into a bathroom, but instead of showing him an array of vibrators, butt plugs, and cock rings, I’d present to him spare toothbrushes, floss, and tongue scrapers. Ever used this toy? It’s a water picker . . . really, though, please use it before you stick your tongue in my mouth. Also I’m sure Christian Grey did not send his partners off with the final words “All right, bye! I’m sorry—I mean, thank you. Not thank you; why am I thanking you? Why would I apologize or thank you? But seriously, I’m sorry you had to spend time with me and thank you for suffering through being around me. Let’s hang soon. I mean
, if you feel like it. So probably never. All right, have a nice life.” (Who wouldn’t want this?)

  Something I observed during my beginning stage of being single, other than how many guys learned absolutely nothing from the Me Too movement, was that all guys, even the nice ones, hate wearing condoms. The condom excuses were truly endless: “I don’t have one.” “I don’t usually have to wear one but I guess we can use one.” “I can’t finish when I wear a condom.” “Condoms cut off the circulation in my dick.” “I’m allergic to latex.” “I just got tested so we don’t need to.” “I can’t stay hard if I’m wearing one.” And, my personal favorite, “My dick is too big for condoms.”

  One time I asked a guy I’d been consistently hooking up with for months to, once again, put on a condom. We weren’t exclusive, butI definitely wasn’t seeing anyone else, and I stupidly thought he might not be either. I had been calculating all of the time we were spending together and I just couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to fit in hooking up with someone else, and also why would he want to? Shouldn’t his dick, I don’t know, feel as tired as my vagina from the frequent sex we were having? I asked him if he had a condom.

  “Ugh, do we have to?” He moaned.

  “Only if you’ve had sex with someone between us having sex . . .” I said, waiting expectantly for good news.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll put it on,” he said grudgingly.

  Dope. You can get so much intel from condoms, that’s why I, unlike guys, love them.

  Another time I asked a guy to put on a condom and he said, “BORING.” Loud like that.

  Some guys are so disappointed by the mere mention of a condom that if you’re in the midst of hooking up and you ask if they have one, they react as if you just asked them to move in. Nine out of ten times, “Oh” will be the first word out of their mouths, followed by “Um, okay. Let’s think about that . . .” The disappointment is so palpable that you can actually see their facial expression contort in slow motion from excited and adrenalized to utterly let down, even if they didn’t know sex was in the offing. It’s like if you went to a Drake concert and didn’t enjoy yourself because Lil Wayne didn’t make a surprise appearance, even though Lil Wayne was never supposed to be there in the first place.