Crazygirl Falls in Love

by Alexandra Wnuk

  But is she really all that strong, or have I just been projecting an illusion to help myself with my various relationship issues?

  And as young feminists of a new age, have we all morphed into the same type of women? Beautiful, assured, all broken in different ways?

  The thought angers me. Why does it have to be this way? Why do men do this to us? Treat us like rubbish, wear us down, whittle us away until we’re nothing more than brittle toothpicks? Chloe was right. What Antonio did wasn’t funny, and humouring that sort of behaviour just condones it and leaves the guys free to do it again.

  I’m finally home. I carry my bike upstairs and hang it up on the wall in my hallway. I’ve made my decision. I am going to set things right with Chloe no matter what. Falling onto my bed I pull out my phone. Four messages flash up. I hope one is from her but no luck, and that’s completely understandable because I have been a selfish bitch.

  The first message throws me for a loop. It’s He Who Shall Not Be Named.

  Looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting?

  I don’t have the time or energy to waste on this sorry excuse for a person so I delete the message immediately. Thank goodness Stalker is representing our team tomorrow, as long as he is manning the job I never have to worry about Voldemort again.

  The second is Mags. She’s responded to my semi-panicked text from this morning as to the whereabouts of Chloe (and whether spiders survive in vacuum bags),

  Hi hun, I got a text from her Friday night after she left Antonio’s. She didn’t have the nicest words to say about him. I haven’t heard from her since, will try calling her now. Sam and I went out last night and he’s invited me out AGAIN today! I really like this guy! Oh and about the spiders, don’t be afraid, you’re bigger than they are.

  Thanks Mags, thanks a bunch. I’m also bigger than grenades and guns and viruses, but I’m scared of them, too. Ah well, at least she didn’t do the usual “they’re more afraid of you than you are of them” line. I hate that line, my Dad used to use it all the time. Trust me, those hairy balls of death are NOT more scared of me than I am of them. Spiders are fucking scary!

  The third message surprises me. It’s the Stranger.

  Hola florecita. I am sorry about yesterday. I needed to be with my football team.

  Fuck you.

  The fourth is Stalker,

  Yo P-Diddy! Know of any fly Indian joints I could take Mags to tonight? The one near me ain’t got no flow

  This one just never learns, does he? I ignore Stalker’s message. There are loads of nice Indian places to choose from. Instead, I type two quick messages. The first is to Emma,

  Hey, are you out with the Beautiful People today? If so, where and can I join?

  One to the Stranger (just in case Emma doesn’t respond),

  Are you doing anything today? If you are out with the rest of the guys I would love to meet up.

  I go to the laundry to change the bag of my Dyson 2000. Feeling relieved, I crack open a cider and head to the sitting room, where I’m intending on indulging in Happy Sofa Time until Emma or the Stranger respond. But then I see it....

  Mother of God. It’s another member of the spider clone army, staring at me with its beady little eyes from the sitting room’s curtain drapes. It’s quite high up, so I grab a newspaper and try to squish it, but I miss. It scuttles further into the drapes in that creepy-as-fuck way they have of darting around, and I can’t see it anymore. Terrified I’m sharing a room with a living, breathing, and most importantly hidden, arachnid, I shakily open my laptop and type ‘When you kill a spider do its spider friends seek revenge?’

  Mercifully, Emma messages back that very moment.

  ***

  I forgot today was the summer solstice. Strolling down from Notting Hill Gate I can’t quite believe it’s 9:00 p.m. and still broad daylight. The first thing I see as I wander into the Ladbroke Arms is Emma. She’s at the bar laughing with some people I don’t recognise. I stealthily sneak up behind her and lightly tug her ponytail. She turns around and smiles when she sees me,

  “Hey sis!” she gives me a hug.

  “Hi chicken, how are you?”

  “Great, how was the wedding?”

  When I finish telling her about yesterday (she displays suitable expressions of revulsion after the Stand Up and joy when Blue met me on the DF), I get straight to the point of why I came,

  “I need to speak with Antonio, is he around?”

  She says the Beautiful People are outside. I leave my empty pint of cider on the counter (between the start and end of the Wedding in Brighton Saga Emma had bought me a drink).

  I find Antonio, the Stranger, David and Juan in the beer garden. As I approach I overhear Antonio saying,

  “… fifty crunches, then twenty five pull ups, fifty push ups, fifty floor wipers and twenty five more pull ups.”

  I walk into the middle of the foursome, pushing a confused David and elbowing an irate looking Juan, so that I am facing the Stranger and Antonio.

  “Mi corazón!” the Stranger smiles as he sees me, “your eye looking better, no?”

  The world momentarily blurs when I meet his navy eyes, long thick eyelashes and pearly white smile. He’s wearing a tight, chestnut coloured shirt with those light coloured trousers the men of this island are so fond of. Damn.

  I shake myself,

  “Look, I’m really, really not here to speak with you, because you’re an utter twat, but I think you should know that that colour really works on you, and you should seriously consider investing in more maroon.”

  My piece to the Stranger said, I face Antonio. My eyes are as glaring and fierce as I can manage. I probably look like a squinty, malnourished Chihuahua, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I point my finger into his twenty-five-pull-upped chest,

  “What you did to Chloe makes me sick!” I yell.

  “Sorry?” Antonio asks, clearly surprised by my tone.

  “Don’t give me that crap. How could you have sent her that photo? What kind of a creep are you?”

  He laughs,

  “Chill out mi amor. Here, have a drink with us like a good little girl.”

  He shoves his half finished pint unceremoniously under my nose.

  “I don’t appreciate the callous attitude and I don’t appreciate your smelly beer!”

  I knock it out of his hand and it goes flying, glass hitting the side of a table then smashing onto the pebbled ground. The group sitting at the table look up sharply.

  “Whoa whoa whoa, easy tiger!” Antonio laughs, putting his hands up.

  “What you did is not on. Sending a photo of your butt to anyone is not on!”

  Antonio shares a look with the other three. Juan is looking uncomfortable, staring down at the ground and shuffling his feet. Video Game David looks utterly discombobulated, and the Stranger seems… absent. He’s smiling that same vacant smile he always has.

  As Antonio continues smirking my internal anger fit helixes through and around my chest and mouth and brain, and I start hearing that familiar English accent speaking to me from the realms of my psyche…

  Back Satan, I can handle this on my own.

  “You know what Antonio? You’re not worth the toilet paper you wipe that butt crack with, and if you ever pull something like that again…”

  “What? You’ll hit me over the head with your rolling pin?”

  Antonio looks at the Stranger and they begin to laugh. I look at my crush in amazement (did he really just laugh at me?). I look back at Antonio with angry hatred. Rolling pin? A misogynistic one-liner delivered to an accomplished female lawyer with Polish heritage and a violent temper? Is he insane? I start shivering with the injustice of it all.

  “I am *this* close to beating the living shit out of you, you unscrupulous prick,” I threaten, raising my hand into a pinch motion.

  “I’d like to see you try, chica.”

  I take in the cobblestone abs poking through his tight t-shirt, his chiselled shoulders and bloa
ted ‘roid arms. He is testosterone incarnate, and shit me I would have zero chance if we faced off, mano-a-mano. That doesn’t deter me though. In those documentaries on BBC sometimes the animals that succeed aren’t the bigger predators, but the smaller prey species. Like the mamma sparrow who charged the hawk. A sparrow has zero chance against a hawk. But because she charged aggressively it freaked him out, and he flew away from her nest. That was a good episode.

  “Bring it, bitch!” I yell, Mamma-sparrow-posturing with all my might, “you’re such a piece of shit! If you were in my toilet I wouldn’t bother flushing it! My toothbrush means more to me than you ever will!”

  Antonio smiles at the other three, who are looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Antonio nods to the Stranger as he says,

  “You were right hombre, she’s a live one. Anyway, que quiere otra cerveza?”

  He starts to walk in the direction of the bar but I grab his shoulder with my hand and swivel him back around,

  “This conversation isn’t finished, Antonio. You owe Chloe an apology, which will include grovelling and a bunch of flowers. A mixture of lilies and gerberas should do the trick.”

  “For fuck’s sake Penny, it was a joke. Comedians don’t have to apologise for their jokes so neither should I.”

  “Comedy is not your profession you knobhead. Why are you being like this? Why are you being such a cock? I don’t understand why you’re being such a cock!”

  I’m close to tears as the anger and frustration and pain start brimming to unbearable levels. Why? Why is he acting this way? Why can’t be just admit he make a mistake and apologise? It feels like my chance of making things right with Chloe is being forcibly and maliciously stripped away.

  I’m so upset I’ve barely registered the smirk disappear off Antonio’s face, replaced by a scowl,

  “You birds, you’re all the same. You go psycho when you don’t get what you want. You don’t get a text back immediately, you go crazy. We don’t invite you to meet our parents or say we love you or give you a spare set of keys, you go crazy. Why can’t you just get that we don’t give a shit? I don’t give a shit about Chloe, or any girl. No guy does, and if you’ve deluded yourselves into thinking a guy does care it’s because he’s pretending, because he wants to get his dick wet. Eventually he’ll get bored and hook up with someone younger and hotter anyway, so you need to get it through your thick skulls that no guy gives a flying fuck about you.”

  As Antonio turns around a second time to go back inside, something very strange happens to my body. I don’t know how to cope with the nuclear fission levels of fury running through my system. Overwhelmed, I feel the soles of my feet press down hard into the ground. My knees bend.

  Do it, Satan-voice urges.

  And I do.

  My body flies through the air as I launch myself into Antonio’s waist, throwing him to the ground. He yells out as we both hit the pebbled surface, both landing on our sides. His torso cushions my fall a little and I see that his head was only centimetres from whacking the edge of a tabletop. I could possibly have killed him, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore. I am Zena, Warrior Princess, as I kick and scream and punch and flail, shouting the vilest obscenities that come to mind.

  Antonio yells back and tries to hold back my arms, but I’m too quick. I have no technique but figure so long as I jerk my limps around wildly, kneeing and scratching and biting and clawing, he’s bound to get hurt (hey, it works in Aussie Rules). And I want to hurt him. My god I want to hurt him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.

  It’s all over in a few seconds. Just as I’m about to land a punch on his throat (a move I remember from Rambo First Blood) I feel arms pulling me up, up, up and away. I’m panting as I struggle against the Stranger’s arms. As I’m lifted I see every pair of eyes in the beer garden is staring, along with people on the street who have stopped as they walk past. A couple walking their cocker spaniel stand with their mouths wide open. People sitting at tables have stood up to get a better view. The window glass has faces pressed against it, those still inside desperate to see what’s going on. I don’t spot Emma in the sea faces.

  I continue screaming as the Stranger grips me close to him (funnily enough, in spooning position). I struggle to free myself. Antonio stands quickly and wipes a smear of blood off his nostril. He looks like he’s about to lose control himself,

  “What the fuck Penny, have you lost your mind?!” he yells.

  I am about to yell back that I hate him, that he’s a dick and that his days are numbered because I know the address of a very efficient and resourceful cyanide dealer. I shut my trap when in a moment of sanity I take in the fifty-plus witnesses around us. Witnesses to what would be a declaration of imminent bodily injury, also known as criminal threatening. Breaking and entering might not lose me my practicing certificate, but that definitely would.

  Instead, I stop struggling. The Stranger’s vice like grip is too strong. He feels my body relax and eases his hold a little.

  I give Antonio squinty Chihuahua eyes again,

  “As you wander through this cynical joke you call a life, I hope that one day, hopefully just a few seconds before you die, you understand what caring about someone really means.”

  He wipes a trickle of blood from his nose,

  “Right, and I’ll be sure to catch Love Actually the next time the telly’s on. Maybe I’ll invite your friend Chloe over and we’ll cry together.”

  “Oh fuck you Antonio!” I’m screaming again, “besides, we hated Love Actually. On what planet is it even remotely acceptable to cheat on Emma Thomson?”

  The Stranger feels my arms tense again (he hasn’t stopped gripping them, guess he’s worried mama-sparrow will attack again). He takes a firmer hold, squeezing my flesh so tight it hurts, and says authoritatively,

  “It is time to go.”

  I curse my piddling physical strength as he lifts my body and carries me effortlessly out the gate to the back street. I don’t protest, but I avoid the eyes of the many onlookers. I’m too embarrassed. There’s been way too much confrontation today. What the hell is wrong with me?

  The Stranger places me down on the pavement.

  “Penelope, you are wild!” he says approvingly.

  “Why didn’t you stick up for me?” I immediately interject, “you think what Antonio did to Chloe was okay?”

  He smiles that vacuous grin again,

  “Antonio no understand. You tell him to do things one way, he will still no understand. What is the point? It is okay Penelope. Please, be happy again.”

  “Have you no conscience at all? Do you really think that this is the way life is supposed to be? The way relationships are supposed to be?”

  “Yes.”

  I stand in shock.

  “Why?” I say, aghast.

  “Because it no matter. Nothing matter. We born, we live a little, we die. If we just try to be happy, that is enough.”

  I stand in shock some more, then very quietly, so quietly I’m not sure he hears, I tell him something that’s been sort of haunting me since first coining his nickname all those months ago,

  “I’m not sure if I’m jealous of you inability to feel anything but indifference, or if I pity you.”

  I’m pretty sure he hasn’t understood because he replies with,

  “You have calm down, this is good. I go back inside, if you want to come back later to my house, you send me message, yes?”

  He gives me a peck on the cheek and goes to pull away, but seems to change his mind. He cups my face in both hands. He kisses me smack bang full on the lips, and I’m hit with two emotions I’m not prepared for. This overwhelming sadness that seems to sink my whole body to the ground, and fury at myself because a few drops of salty discharge have escaped from my undisciplined tear ducts.

  He straightens, confused, but doesn’t stop holding my face.

  Time to lay my cards out on the table.

  “No Javier, that’s not
going to happen. I like you so much, but I’m not going to do this anymore. If I want to feel depressed, or inferior, or emotionally damaged, I’ll just get Chloe to punch me in the ovaries. I’m not going to do whatever this is anymore.”

  He nods his acceptance and a few more drops of salty discharge escape my eyes. He releases my face from his strong hands, pats me on the head as if I were a dog and walks back into the pub. Was it just me, or did he look downcast, forlorn, for the most fleeting of moments? It was so brief I know I’ll never be sure if it was real or imagined. By the way he is sauntering off back to his mates, I’m pretty sure it was imagined.

  And then the worst thing imaginable happens. Lizzy has emerged from behind David. She must have just arrived. The Stranger ambles up to her and puts his arms around her shoulders. While he wears his usual empty expression of blanket happiness (his version of happiness, which I’m not convinced is all that happy) she looks smug, the cat who got the cream. I can imagine them all laughing at me, the silly, needy Crazygirl who can’t control her temper.

  And you know the worst part? Deep down I always knew it was going to end badly, that I would be hurt, but this particular ending is the most crushing one I could have imagined. He has literally walked back into the arms of his old fuck buddy.

  I stand alone in the street, my side hurting from landing heavily on the pebbles earlier. My left eye has begun to throb a little and I feel like the world’s biggest failure. Antonio is unrepentant. The Stranger doesn’t give a shit about me. I’ve fixed nothing, only made things worse. No, not even worse. I’ve managed to break my own heart by falling in love with someone who I always knew couldn’t feel. This realisation isn’t so much annoying as it is DEVASTATING for my sense of esteem. I’ve reached a point where I’m breaking up with myself.