What Girls Do

It’s the oldest cliche in the book, but they’re animals. Clawing, fighting for their pray. They dance after the music stops. And I realize that everything I’ve never wanted to be in a relationship, I’m not. I’ve never just gone along. I’ve always spoke my mind.

Tonight’s an experiment. I answer every question with, “Sure.” I don’t say no. Especially to the questions that have two options. I say, “Sure,” and he takes what he wants. I smile. I think it looks fake but he doesn’t. Or else he’s too drunk to tell. When he asks how I am, I say, “Fine.” he asks me if I’m telling the truth and I don’t respond. But its taken him so long to ask it that he’s forgotten the question. My unanswer is answer enough. I know I should feel something about this but I don’t.

We’re going to Courtney’s house. A girl he used to fuck. I’ve been there before. He always takes the long way. I think it’s because he savors taking me there, but secretly know it’s because he hasn’t considered the easy way. I once pointed this out to him, but now, in his drunkenness, he’s forgotten. Like an over excited child. And though I’m writing this now, in his car, on my phone, in 256 characters, he’s too afraid to ask me what I’m really doing. He thinks I’m texting an ex. I tell him I’m not.

He says he feels like he’s dragging me somewhere I don’t want to go, but he doesn’t turn around. He calls her and she says, “Who’s this?” He says, “Mike.” I know him as Michael. I don’t know this Mike.

The truth is I’m doing this because I didn’t eat today. Or I’m bored. Or I really just want to fight because at least in a fight you know what side you’re on. In this relationship, I have no clue. Am I for it or against it? And you’ll hold me in contempt and tell me I’m the same kind of cunt. But that just makes you the same kind of dick. Mike or whoever. Someone I know too well.

I know what to expect from. And this is it. This is what I expect. Why would I expect anything else? I guess I hope that it’d be different. That I’d taught him better. Yes, I’m that kind of cunt, too. Fuck me I don’t deserve to live. Not this life with these dancers. If I was lucky, I might get cast as an extra, a bar tender. But even that would feel forced--at this point.

For some reason I can’t imagine. He wants to be part of this group. I imagine them referring to themselves as a tribe. Like there was something vested other than alcohol and--well I’m sure they could come up with more than one commonality. He says he’s a watcher, but now that I’ve told him what I’m doing here on my phone, he doesn’t understand the exaggeration or the nuance.

I’ve read him this while we’re parked, waiting for Courtney to get home from the bar. He doesn’t know what to think. “Are you sure you want to be here?”

“Sure,” I say.

He doesn’t want to leave while she’s just pulling in. He thinks it’d be rude. Or that it’d hurt her feelings. My feeling are sacrificed, culled for the greater good--the tribe I’m not a part of. Better me who he has to explain himself to later.

We go in and she stands while we sit. She talks with her hands with a lot of pointing and looking off to the distance. She knows that we share a very close history although we hardly know each other. I try to feel bad for her like she lost some game. I only feel bad for myself. I act normal if not a little less talkative than I’d normally be. I’m still playing this game of sure and fine. And now Michael knows it.

At 4am I start nudging him to leave. At 4:30am, we leave. There’s little speaking on the way home and I’m no longer writing this, having lost the edge of my buzz.

We get back to my house and he now wants to know why. “What’s wrong.”

“Nothing,” I say and smile. He says he knows something’s wrong because I’ve told him in what I’ve written. I’m playing a game. He thinks two games. Not only the game of sure and fine, but also the game of telling him he’s an asshole through writing. I tell him I’m not that type of girl. That I say what I mean. He agrees but says, “That’s what girls do.” I remind him that I didn’t want to go out in the first place. I didn’t want to go to the bar. I remind him that I said it was a compromise on my part to see him. He remembers but stays silent. I tell him compromise is the name of the sure and fine game.