The Gorgeous Slaughter

by Christina Hart

  “Try harder,” I say.

  And I start the timer.

  Reset.

  It is 10:38pm and it’s still early. Charlie usually stays up for a while, another three to five hours, on a good night. And I’ve changed my sleeping patterns for him. I stay available longer, for him. I do this all for him. And I hope that he sees it.

  But how can you see Love when your vision is clouded with hate? How can you see hope when you’re getting by on regret? How can you remember what it’s like to smile, to really smile, when all you think of is the bad?

  Twenty-Five

  I am drying my hair off with a towel when my pre-paid rings. I don’t have to look before I know who’s calling. It’s the ringer I have set specifically for him. That’s how close we are now. He has his own ringtone. I love the nights he calls me like this, almost as if he’s right on cue, knowing I’m freshly showered and clean and relaxed. I often wonder in the shower if he would like the smell of my shampoo, my conditioner, my body wash, but we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about me.

  “Good evening, Charlie,” I say when I answer the phone. I lie down on my bed, on my side, trying to sound like an older woman who knows what she’s talking about.

  “Hi, is this a good a time?” he asks, unsure.

  So unsure, so unknowing that my nightly ritual involves waiting for him. Always waiting. Always waiting. Always for him. “Yes, now is fine. How are you?”

  “I’m all right,” he says.

  And he ends it just like that. Like he thinks he can get away with it.

  “Was today a good day or a bad day?” I ask him, pulling for more.

  “It was a good day, actually. I think.”

  I sit up. “You think? You don’t sound very sure of that.”

  He sighs.

  I know when he sighs that he’s about to reveal. It’s the witching hour for him. It’s almost midnight and he’s restless. Thoughts turning. Can’t sleep. Can’t fathom what his life has become. This is when he needs me most. “What is it you’re thinking about?”

  “Everything, as usual. I got into another fight with Tracy. A big one.”

  Hope sizzles in my chest. Is this it? Are they over? Is the ending finally approaching? “What were you fighting about this time?” I toss in this time for good measure, to remind him this happens often now. The fighting, always the fighting.

  “Her coworker. Again.” He gulps something down.

  A drink, I presume. Probably Gentleman Jack, his favorite. And no, he can’t afford it, but Tracy has her cool older college friends buy it for him. Impressive, isn’t it? Impressing, that’s what she’s about.

  I wait for him to go on, but he doesn’t. I take a sip of my drink, too. It’s only water, but I’m better than him. More skilled at hiding it. He doesn’t hear me, I’m sure of it. I am quiet, too quiet. I stop waiting for him to speak and I pull again. “Again? This is a recurring issue.”

  “Yeah, well that guy’s a piece of shit. He knows she has a boyfriend. He doesn’t care.”

  And this is when I know for certain that he’s been drinking. The sober Charlie, the soft Charlie, would never call someone a piece of shit. He would refer to him as “that guy from work” or “you know the one” but never “a piece of shit”. He gets a little hostile when he drinks, a little riled up, a little more monster and a little less human. But that isn’t uncommon. I overlook it. I overlook it because I forgive his flaws, and I forgive his flaws because I have my own.

  And this is exactly how people get stuck in toxic relationships. Relationships that are unhealthy, for both people involved. This is how people trap themselves. This is how they wind up in cages they can’t escape from, cages they may never want to escape from. This is part of the maze I am in with Charlie and Tracy. They are stuck. Two mice, racing through life at a lazy, hazy speed, hoping there’s cheese at the end. Hoping there is an end, that there isn’t one. Praying for something worthwhile and hoping against all odds that all this time has meant something instead of being just another thing that will end.

  But there is no cheese. There is no hope for them. The time has been wasted and we all hate wasting anything, don’t we? So we waste more of it hoping to gain something, hoping it has all been for something.

  “Are you sure he knows she has a boyfriend?” I ask.

  “I’m pretty sure he knows. She said she told him. She said he knows. So I don’t know why he keeps texting her so often. It doesn’t make sense,” he says.

  “Could it be possible they are talking about work? Just work?” I ask. I am poking the bear. He hates when I do that but it’s my job.

  “I mean, I guess it could be possible. From a guy’s standpoint, though, I don’t think so. Even if they are talking about work, he has an end goal. He wants more. He wants her. I know it.”

  “But what is the actual issue here?” I ask him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What you’re worried will happen,” I say.

  “Someone else taking her from me?” he asks, and it’s a question, like he isn’t sure if it’s the right answer.

  “I don’t know. Is that what you’re most afraid of? Losing her to someone else, or just losing her in general?”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, of course I don’t want to lose her. To anyone. Or at all.”

  “Is this a possession thing?” I ask him. And I want him to answer. I want him to say yes for a few different reasons. Maybe I want him to want someone that much. Just maybe I want to know he will want me like that in the future.

  “Maybe,” he says. “If someone is mine, they’re fucking mine.”

  My heart beats wildly but in a disappointing rhythm, knowing those words are not about me. “She is yours,” I say, but I’m not sure I even believe it. From what it sounds like, they do talk a lot, her and her coworker. And as a girl, I know you only talk to a guy that much if you really want to talk to him. Look at me with Charlie.

  “She says she is,” he says. “But you know the worst part? I only want her this much when I feel like I could be losing her to someone else. Someone better than me. Does that make me a terrible person?”

  “No. It makes you human. We tend to want things more when we feel like we are losing them. Jobs, people, items, anything really.”

  “How do I stop doing this? Pushing her away and wanting her back when she goes?” he asks me.

  “I can’t tell you how to do that. I think the question is why are you pushing her away?”

  “She’s not the one,” he says.

  “Who is?” I ask, part hopeful, part on duty.

  “I don’t know,” he says, failing.

  “One day, you will. One day you will know. And these questions won’t plague you.”

  “How can you be sure?” he asks. Another gulp, another drink.

  “That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? I think when you’ve stopped asking, you’ve found your answer. Your person.” I reassure him like I reassure the others. But the truth is, I don’t have the answer. I don’t know that the questions ever stop. I like to think that they do when we meet that one. That one person who changes everything. The one person who makes us stop asking why, and makes us start saying yes.

  “I guess you’re right. It’s just, this idea of a soulmate. Of one person being the one. Sometimes it all seems so imaginary. So invented. There are so many girls out there, so many. How can you possibly find the one? How could there only be one person for you, with all these people in the world? Can’t there be more than one?” he asks.

  “There can be. And there usually are,” I say. I state it to him like gospel. Like he will sing these hymns one day and believe them.

  “That makes me feel better,” he says. He laughs a little to himself. To me. “You know, I thought this whole thing was so weird at first, but I’m so glad I have you.”

  My heart speeds up a few beats, tries to steady itself. Tries to forget the way it sounded to hear him say that. That he’s glad he has
me, that he’s grateful for me. I pause and collect myself. “I’m glad you feel better. That’s what we’re here for.”

  “Hey, I know we’re here to talk about me, but do you ever feel this way? Like, you have no idea what you’re doing, and you’re just looking for someone to tell you you’re doing it right?” He takes another drink. His words are heavier now.

  I pause. I can’t go here, to this place he tries to take me. The place that makes me fall more for him. The side of the conversation where I can see his goodness, his depth. The part of him I want to reach out and touch. The part I’d like to bury myself into and call home. I hear it in the distance, another wall tumbling down, and this time I think it’s his. But I’m working. I’m the shrink. The cure, not the cancer. The pause is too long. The silence is too heavy. He wants an answer. From his therapist, not from Love. Not from the girl he has never actually spoken to beyond what he needs in this moment. “Well, we are here to talk about you, but yes, sometimes I want that, too.”

  As soon as I let the words slip, I try to catch that answer, collect it back in my palm and snatch it back. But it’s too late. You cannot reverse time, slow it all down, rewind the words that you said and pull them back in through your lips. And even with small truths, people always want more.

  Twenty-Six

  I haven’t seen Nikki in two weeks and she’s been blowing up my phone, the typical worried friend stuff. Where are you? Why aren’t you calling me back? And my personal favorite: Are you mad at me? Because of course, if I’m not with her every waking moment or up her ass where she wants me to be, she automatically defaults to thinking I’m mad at her. I think she asked me once if I was okay. Once. Think about that. Let that sink in for a moment.

  Two weeks, and she asked me once if I was okay. I’m beginning to think Nikki doesn’t really care about me the way I always thought she did. I’m starting to think our friendship is one-sided, all about her, and I’m just along for the ride. She probably hasn’t had anyone to hang out with and I bet that’s what she misses most. Someone to go to parties with, to go to the mall with, the lake, you name it.

  She probably wishes I was here, waiting every night for her, so I could hear more about her life and her boyfriend and her problems. Like I don’t have my own. Like I’m not sitting here, trying to talk other people through the things that keeps them stuck in life, meanwhile I’m hardly going anywhere myself.

  I haven’t left this basement much in almost two weeks. A life glued to a phone. Can you imagine? You probably can. It’s kind of sad. I spend my nights waiting for a guy who doesn’t even want me. I spend my time waiting to be available for him when he needs me. And if this were one of my patients telling me about this, I would tell them in the most polite way to stop wasting their time. But it’s easier to see and judge things from the outside looking in, isn’t it? We all can do it, so easily. Almost like it’s second nature. But when it comes to yourself, forget it. You will come up with every excuse and rational reason why it makes absolute sense to continue on in the way that you have been.

  There is a form of control and abuse that doesn’t leave physical marks. There is a way to enter into an abusive relationship without ever seeing the signs. The obvious ones you’ve read about, heard about. There is a subtle way you can slip into one without even noticing you took your shoes off and lost yourself on the way in. Maybe it happens when you love someone so much you’re willing to give up certain parts of you. Maybe some sick part of you likes the way it feels in there because all you’ve ever really known is a warped version of love or something like it. Maybe like me, it’s the closest you’ve ever come.

  There’s a knock on my door and it’s heavy. It’s Nikki. I know it before I open the door. Usually, she just lets herself right in. But I’ve been locking it lately. I don’t really want any visitors, even though she’s the only one I ever get. I have no makeup on and I’m in a T-shirt and underwear but I walk to the door anyway and open it.

  “How nice of you to answer the door,” she says.

  I move aside and let her in. It’s kind of late. Last time I checked the phone it was 10:32pm. Still no new message from Charlie. It’s been six hours. Is he with her? It’s all I can think about when he doesn’t answer. This wondering, this questioning, it’s enough to make you mad.

  “You hardly answer your phone anymore,” she says. “What’s up? Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “We went from spending almost every day together to you going almost stone cold silent on me, that’s what I mean.”

  “Sometimes I just don’t want to talk. You know that,” I say, going to the bed and sitting on it.

  “Look, I’m sorry I said you were sounding crazy. I shouldn’t have said that. I know you hate it. I felt like an asshole after I left.”

  I almost forgot about that. And she doesn’t even realize she just handed me my excuse on a silver platter, all coated with sugar. “If you know I hate it, why do you still say it? You’re supposed to be my friend. You’re not supposed to make me feel like shit about myself.”

  “I’m sorry, okay? Love, I’m serious. I’ll never say it again. I miss you. I miss hanging out with you. I don’t want to be a shitty friend.”

  And this, my friends, is how you turn a table. How you make someone think they’ve done something wrong when in reality, you’re the jerk, the bad friend. It spares you the apology, the explanation. But it doesn’t make you feel good, and it never rewinds time and gives it back to you.

  “You’re not a shitty friend,” I say. Because I don’t want her to feel bad because I abandoned her. If she did that to me, I don’t know how I’d feel.

  “Can we just be friends again?” she asks. “I really miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.” I grab her and we hug.

  “Your roots are growing out,” she says. “We need to bleach your hair again.”

  And within a second, there’s a shift in the room. The tension is gone and she’s smiling.

  She pulls a bottle of Smirnoff vodka out of her bag and shakes it. “Want some?”

  I sigh, almost dramatically. “You really know the way to my heart, don’t you?” I smile and I’m up on my feet. “Okay, wait, I have to put on a crappy shirt so we don’t ruin this one.”

  “What do you call that thing?” she points to my T-shirt with the bottle.

  “This is not crappy! It’s one of the best T-shirts to ever exist, okay? If you can rock it with a pair of panties and still look good, it’s a keeper,” I say.

  She laughs and just like that, we’re back to normal.

  An hour and a half later, after my dark roots are gone, we’re sitting on my bed, taking shots between laughs.

  “So what’s up with Dan? Is he still around?” I ask.

  “You ask that like it’d be shocking if he was,” she says.

  “It kind of would be. You don’t stay amused very long.”

  “And you stay amused too long.”

  It stops being funny and I look at her with one of those you’re doing it again looks.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I can’t keep apologizing for things. You have to let me joke with you.”

  “Not about stuff like that. It isn’t funny to me. And is it really such a bad thing that when I like someone, I really like them? You could probably learn a thing or two from me.”

  She stands up, fetching the bottle on the dresser, pouring two more shots. “It’s not bad it’s just…I don’t know. Sometimes you just have to know when to move on. I think you could be better at that.”

  “At moving on?” I ask, like it’s a secret.

  “Yes. At moving on. And knowing when to. You tend to get this idea in your head about someone and it’s like you just can’t let it go.”

  Tell me something I haven’t heard before. “I never knew holding on to hope was a bad thing,” I say under my breath.

  “There’s a difference between hope and delusion,” she s
ays. The vodka is making her honest, too honest. And she says it like it’s a fact. Like she knows me.

  She may be my best friend, but she doesn’t know about the details of any therapy sessions I’ve had. The things they’ve tried to say I have. The person they’ve tried to convince me that I am. And I hate when she does it, when she tries to diagnose me, tries to tell me what’s wrong with me. Because if one more person tries to insinuate that I’m a little off, I might just go off, actually be this bonkers person I’ve been accused of being.

  Because when enough people tell you you’re crazy, you start to believe it.

  Rage begins to take over, and then something snaps.

  Twenty-Seven

  I wake up, groggy, still drunk. My head hurts and I don’t know when I will realize this doesn’t feel good. Hangovers. They aren’t worth it. They never are. I reach for the water. I see Nikki, in my way, still sleeping on the bed next to me. I guess she slept here.

  This is the moment I realize I blacked out last night.

  I try to piece it together in my head, the last thing I remember. Her saying I was delusional. Something snapping. The last thing I remember feeling was anger.

  I nudge her a little. “Nikki,” I say.

  She moves, a little. She rolls over and I see her face. She has a fat lip.

  “Oh my god! Nikki!” I say, louder.

  She sits up, puffy-eyed. “What? Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Are you?! Your face!” I say.

  She sits up now, almost like she’s shocked into being awake. “Don’t act like you’re surprised. I don’t care how many times you say you’re sorry, I’m still pissed at you.”

  “What happened? I don’t remember.”