by Pratt, Lulu
After much internal debate, I’d come to a decision. There was nothing for it but to go back into the military. That was the path of least resistance. It would save my parents, save the shop. What were four more years in comparison to guaranteeing the people who raised me an easy retirement, and final days spent in ease and relaxation? To put anything before that would be the utmost betrayal.
And with that decision had come another. For her own sake, I had to push Cybil away. It would be the ultimate cruelty to leave her wondering about what could’ve been between us as I was sure that under other circumstances our relationship would have gone from strength to strength to make her think that there was some chance I would come back the same man and we could pick up where we’d left off. Normally, I wouldn’t inflate my own importance in another’s life to this extent, but by God, I knew the feeling was mutual. The only way to give Cybil the chance to start again was to ruin her image of me for good. It was going to be awful, and hurt every step of the way, but it was the singular kindness I could show her.
I arrived at La Belle early. I’d been up all night, tossing and turning with anxiety over today. By five, I’d decided to just get up, go to Bills and deep clean the space. I finished by nine-thirty, and elected to drive over to the café and wait. What else was there to do? Might as well arrive early to your own funeral.
That’s a little extreme, my brain offered.
But it wasn’t. What I’d already chosen to do felt like my funeral. I was, essentially, resigning myself to a life without love. And if that’s not death, I don’t know what is.
I ordered a small black coffee and a blueberry muffin. The coffee didn’t perk me up, and the blueberry muffin tasted like dust in my mouth. I pushed the items across the table, rejecting any human pleasure. It was a good start to practicing an austere existence, I thought bitterly.
Overhead, a single light bulb. Other than that, the corner was dark. La Belle was famously a writer’s retreat, a perfect little slice of peace, with no windows into the messy outside world making it the best café to look inside, if you know what I mean. How fitting that I’d brought us to a known spot of reflection. Had I done it on purpose? I didn’t think so, but the subconscious works in mysterious ways.
I sat up stiffly in my armchair, refusing to recline. That seemed wrong, given the gravity of the situation. The siren song of the phone didn’t call to me, so instead I pulled a small book off a nearby shelf while I waited for Cybil. Turning the novel over, I noticed that it was The Catcher in The Rye.
I was up to Holden saying goodbye to his former history teacher by the time Cybil walked in, looking for all the world like a picture of sunny, youthful happiness and well-being. A knot in my throat tightened, threatening to choke me, and I blinked away black spots from my vision.
“Hey!” she said, strolling between tightly packed tables, each manned by at least one person bent over a computer, eyes wide in concentration. She shifted easily amongst them, slippery like a carp in a river.
“Hey,” I replied, standing to attention, an automatic action I hadn’t been able to unlearn. “Here, let me get that for you.” I pulled out her armchair, and laughing at my chivalry, she sat down. Damnit, I had to cut out shit like that. Remember, Cash, it’s time to be the bad guy.
With that in mind, I sat back in my chair, and felt my heart strings snap with misery as I put on an expression of contempt. It didn’t come easily. How could anyone look angry in the face of Cybil’s sunny countenance? She lit up the room, her lips curling at the corners. I thought helplessly of our first kiss in the middle of the concert. Simpler times.
“So what’s up with you?” she asked brightly. “How’ve you been since…” she trailed off with a sexy grin, allowing my memory to fill in the blanks.
I shrugged. “Fine.”
There was a long pause as she waited for me to say something else. Realizing that I wasn’t going to offer another word, she swallowed and continued with determination:
“The comedy show last night was great, my friend did awesome. Sorry you couldn’t make it. But it’s once a week, so maybe some other time?”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Yeah, maybe,” I said noncommittally. “I dunno.”
Last night, it had taken all my willpower to ignore her text messages. Of course I wanted to go out with Cybil, to spend time with her, to wrap my hands around her shoulders and hold her close. But by that point in the night, I’d already resolved to sever our ties, to make this operation a clean cut. My delayed response had been the perfect set up for this very conversation.
Her eyebrows creased, and she crossed her arms defensively over her chest, as though she were scared of who I was at that moment. I didn’t blame her. It had only taken a few sentences of my douchey dialogue for her to realize that something was up.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice quivering with uncertainty.
“Yeah.” I hoped that, if I were terse enough, maybe she’d just get fed up with me, storm out of La Belle, and that would be the end of it.
Naturally, I’d underestimated her. Cybil wasn’t going anywhere.
“You don’t seem okay,” she observed. “I guess we don’t really know each other all that well, but I can see that something’s up, and I think you should just tell me what it is. And then we can talk about it because, because that’s what people who like one another do. They talk through things. And I’m not scared of any subject. I’m tough, you can tell me, I’ll take it.”
She finished her speech quickly, racing as she rounded the end of her thought. I wanted to say I know you’re tough, and I’m doing this for you. Instead, I remained silent, like an imposing oil portrait of some dead ancestor.
“Cash?”
It wasn’t enough. I was going to have to push her further.
Slowly, I began, every word like a nail in my tongue. “This has been great and all, but… I’m not sure I’m ready. For anything serious, that is.”
“What?”
That word pierced me like a bullet flying through armor, cracking a perfect veneer. I could see her black eyes were beginning to shine, and she was blinking furiously to get rid of the water. I’ve made her cry too many times, I thought absently. That’s horrific. Indeed, this was different than the last one. It wasn’t an outburst of emotion, a signifier of rage and confusion, but rather, the slow cry of heartbreak. The pain in my stomach threatened to stop me in my tracks, but I had to finish what I’d started.
“Yeah,” I continued, hating every word I said. “I don’t want to be tied down.”
God. I was a piece of shit. Even if I was doing this for her.
Cybil’s face was blank. “Tied down?” she repeated, as though learning new words.
“Right. You’re cool, but we’re both young, and I’m guessing we both wanna fuck around a little more before really settling down.”
I had transformed before my own eyes into the ultimate asshole. Hell, I was even copying phrases I’d seen my buddies use on past women. This wasn’t even a fresh playbook. My coffee cup shook on the table, and it took me a moment to realize my own leg was bouncing so hard it was unsettling the wooden legs. I put a commanding hand over my thigh, willing it to stay put.
Cybil whispered, “But the other day, you… you said—”
“I know what I said.” I didn’t need to be reminded of all the feelings I’d professed for Cybil. That would just make it all the harder to accomplish this task.
“Everybody’s nervous about settling down right now,” she said louder, as if suddenly beginning to formulate an argument. “I am, definitely. Like, society is fucked up. Life is fucked up. So I get that starting a relationship right now might seem like, uh, you know, a death wish, but what if we just did this one thing, selfishly, just for us? Would that be so wrong?”
Oh, Cybil. What else was there to say? There she was, again trying to excuse my inexcusable actions, putting everyone before herself. She was right about one thing at least — she needed to
do something selfish for once.
I wanted to reassure her that she’d earned the right to put herself first, but instead I resigned myself to digging the hole deeper, saying, “We’ve only hung out a couple of times,” I managed to spit out. “It’s not really enough to be talking the way you are.”
Cybil gasped, which seemed like a pretty mild reaction in comparison to the bile I’d just spewed.
“This isn’t you,” she said.
“You don’t know me,” I replied, my tone grim, that of a man on an execution block. “And I don’t know you. We went on one date and fucked. Nothing else.”
That one set her off. “You’re forgetting the part where you tattooed your name on my ass,” she shouted, causing other patrons to turn briefly away from their computer monitors and survey the scene. “And declared your love for me. That is not nothing, you son of a bitch!”
It was, finally, working. She would hurt for a while, but eventually, she’d forget all about me. That was for the best. I wanted her to be free to pursue a life of love, and unfortunately, that life couldn’t include me. Maybe one day, when we were old, I could track her down and tell her about it, why I’d made the choices I had. After all, it’s not like I was ever going to forget Cybil.
“You’re being clingy,” I murmured. The job was nearly finished.
She was silent for a moment before replying, “Do you know how rude it is to call a girl clingy? Do you know how crazy that makes us feel? Like, it’s the crazy ex-girlfriend stereotype. It’s the thing we’re all terrified of becoming, or being accused of. I don’t know why you’d pick the actual most hurtful thing to say, but damn, you really nailed it.”
I didn’t mention that I’d picked it because it was the most hurtful thing. Instead, I sat quietly and allowed her vitriol to rain down on me. In fact, it was maybe the only thing that made me feel better, knowing that at least I’d give Cybil the chance to kick me, beat me up. I wanted someone to physically beat me senseless. It’s what I deserved.
“God,” she said aloud, mostly to herself. “You let me know what an asshole you were from the jump. And I let my feelings for you go to my head. What a rookie fucking mistake.”
I watched as the anger seeped from her face, leaving only hurt and despair.
She said, “I don’t care if it makes me sound crazy, Cash. I was starting to fall for you. How stupid. Thank you for showing me that letting people in too fast is always a mistake, that you can’t have uncomplicated love in this day and age, that fairy tales are only for stories. I needed the reality check. Maybe now I’ll be a stronger, tougher person.”
I wanted to cry out, ‘No, stay innocent, stay affectionate, stay you,’ but I wrapped my hands around the seat of my chair and clamped my lips shut. The more she hurt, the faster she’d move on. Then I’d be in the military, either stationed in the U.S. or overseas, alone at night, thinking of Cybil. That was fair. I should be chained with her memory. That would be my penance.
“Say something,” she whispered into the silence. “Anything.”
“I’m sorry,” I croaked out. At least I could offer her this one truth.
Except she didn’t see it as such. She scowled, and muttered, “Don’t lie. Not on my behalf.”
“It’s not—” I broke off, mid-reply. There was no point in going down that line of thought, not when this was, technically, accomplishing exactly what it was supposed to. There was no purpose in undoing all my hard, horrible work.
She nodded at my self-interruption. “At least you have the good grace not to deny it. I just… I wish you hadn’t… I wish we’d never met. Then I wouldn’t feel this broken.”
The words were simple, but they cut right to my core, sliced into the essence of me and carved out a Cybil-sized hole. I could already see what I would try to fill it with in the years ahead — meaningless women, alcohol, self-harm. I was effectively signing my own death certificate, all in the name of preserving Cybil’s happiness.
It’s better this way, I reminded myself one more time. Leave her hating you.
“You were just some random girl at a bar,” I said in a strangled voice. “Don’t make this out to be more than it was. It’s not my fault you got… invested.”
“And that tattoo on your thigh, it meant nothing?” she inquired, desperate for an explanation.
In my best petulant, paternalistic voice, I replied, “Oh Cybil. You think you’re the first girl whose name I’ve gotten tattooed?” I bared my forearms to her, outstretched like a man waiting to be cuffed. “That’s sweet.”
She looked at my forearms, and sucked in a breath. Interspersed across my forearms were a number of names, running across veins and moles and freckles — Dylan, Jamie, Madison, Christina, Ashley, Max, each in perfect print.
Some of them were actually women’s names. Most were men’s names that could also sound like they could be women’s names. And, for the record, they aren’t names of old lovers. They’re names of fellow soldiers who died in combat. People I’ve served with, people I’ve served under, a collection of memories so that I never forget the sacrifices my peers made.
It was so ineffably fucked up to pretend they were past romantic partners, but this is the life of a military man — one filled with constant death and loss. These names were the exact reason I had to make Cybil hate me. Because there was a very real chance I’d become a name like this, just an inky memory on some random dude’s arm, gone from time the minute that person passes on, or gets laser removal. Someday, I too might be a part of these fleeting, moveable graveyards.
I kept it all to myself and Cybil shook her head, dumbfounded.
“So this really was just part of your game.”
I shrugged noncommittally. “Games are fun.”
“Games ruin lives,” she said.
“Only if you get too caught up in them. Stay detached, and you always win.” I realized I had accidentally confided in her one of my most poisonous, though honest, beliefs. I always stay removed from emotions to avoid further pain. It’s what I’d done with all the women before her, and though it wasn’t what I had intended to do with Cybil, I’d ended up following through on past practices. Did it make a difference that this time, I was feigning it? Probably not. The effect was the same. I still got the bitter satisfaction of knowing I’d protected another person from my destructive ways.
“Okay, then you win,” she sighed, utterly defeated. “Do you feel good now?”
No, my inner voice cried out. I feel like shit. I want to spend my life with you, don’t leave.
Aloud, I said, “I feel fine.”
She laughed, a brittle, empty laugh, sucked dry of its familiar warmth. Her eyes were vacant, as if she was already anesthetizing herself to this experience, forgetting it even as it happened, protecting herself from future suffering. I couldn’t blame her for the survival instinct. Like I said, it was a familiar one.
Cybil stood up slowly from the table, her chair scraping back across the floor. Her motion was fluid, and I was reminded of her grace during yoga, how close our bodies had been. Would it be like this forever? Me, replaying the few occasions we’d spent together, encasing each one in its own amber for eternal preservation? Or would the memories erode into something unrecognizable, a distorted casting that turned them unrecognizable? I didn’t know which option was more unsettling.
She loomed over me, the sconce nearby backlighting her face into obscurity.
“Goodbye, Cash,” she said, her tone formal and stiff. “Good luck.”
With that, the girl of my dreams walked out of the coffee shop and out of my life.
Time passed by in a daze. Before I knew it, I was back at the tattoo shop, prepared to finish my axe jobs of the day, because if you’re already hurting, might as well pile on, right?
I wandered inside and found my parents sitting in their usual positions, sprawled out across the shop as though it were our personal living room. I would miss this.
My mom realized immediately that something
was wrong. A mother’s instinct, I suppose.
“Cash?” she said, her voice rising at the end to make it a question. “What’s going on?”
“I’ve been tying up loose ends,” I said mechanically. Was that me speaking? It didn’t sound like it, or at least I wasn’t processing my own speech.
Her eyes went wide. She knew exactly what I meant. She’d heard me say that shit before, about four years ago.
“No,” she whispered. Then, in a yell, “No!”
She collapsed on the couch and my father came forward, put a hand on my shoulder, and begged. A thing that didn’t come naturally to him.
“Son,” he began. “You can’t do this. It’ll destroy your mother.” He took a deep breath, and added, “And me. It’ll destroy us both. Please. Please reconsider, Cash.”
I knew how much it took for him to say that, but there was nothing I could do. We needed this money, and we needed it badly.
“Please,” he whispered once more. This proud man had resorted to begging. A knife went through my heart, but I stood firm.
“I’m sorry. But this is what a good son does. He saves the family.”
“A good son stays alive!” my mother shouted. “Do you have any idea how many people your father and I have watched die because of someone else’s war?”
She was referring to their history with biker gangs, when anyone could get picked off for even looking at a guy the wrong way. Sure, life was fun when you had a constant bevy of friends to drink and brawl with, but the dark sides of the gang eventually colored out the lighter bits. Suddenly, the bevy of funds was becoming smaller and smaller, forcing the gang to constantly find new recruits, who tended to be even more hooligan-ish than the last generation. These days, Mom and Dad stuck to a biker “club,” not a gang — in other words, a more family-friendly affair.
But their time in the serious gang world had stuck with them.
“We’ve had this fight before,” I sighed.
Which was true. We had indeed fought many times about what it meant for me to risk my life in the military, and never come to a reasonable agreement, not even a compromise. I suppose they were kind of proud of me, but I think largely, they were disappointed in my career choices. Serving America wasn’t in our biker blood. We were more about trashing and burning the country into total anarchy.