Must Love Hogs

by Xavier Neal

  “Well aware sweetheart, and I plan to stomp you down the other two.”

  “Please go,” I instruct.

  Once Mama is successfully out the front door, Carol Ann sighs, “I don’t understand why she’s never liked me.”

  Turning around I pin her with mocking expression. “Not at all?”

  She folds her arms across her chest.

  “Could be because you’ve been running out on me since when we were sixteen?” I take the same action with my arms. “Could be because I have wasted almost half my life chasing after you, waiting around on you, always…forgiving you. Maybe she doesn’t like how you didn’t appreciate me? Or maybe she hates your hair style. I don’t know.” With a shrug, I bite, “What the hell are you doing here, Carol Ann? This isn’t your home. It hasn’t been in a long time.”

  “That’s not true, Ford.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “No. This will always be home,” she meekly argues from her position across the room. “Come on, Ford. We both know, no one…and I mean no one will ever love me like you do.”

  The words tug at strings they shouldn’t.

  “Daryl was no different than any other guy I would date when I…just needed some space.”

  “Space?” I growl. “When you needed some goddamn space?! You were constantly cheating on me, Carol Ann? How the hell did you need space?”

  “I-”

  “No,” my voice viciously bites. “I don’t fucking care. Whatever reason you’re here, whatever conclusion you think you’ve come too, I. Don’t. Care.”

  Her face falls to bafflement.

  “We’re done, Carol Ann. Permanently.” All of a sudden, an epiphany slaps me like a splash of cold water in the middle of dead sleep. “I think the only reason I didn’t take that key back from you was so I could look you dead in the eyes and tell you that. Truth is Carol Ann, a huge part of me hates you. Everything about you. How you treated me. How you cheated on me. How you constantly left me and wanted me to change because you never thought I was good enough for you.” A small smile slides onto my face. “The tiny part that doesn’t is thankful you did what you did because it brought me Ollie and she’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  For the first time I can recall, tears seem to fill her eyes.

  “You need to leave, and I need to go make things right.” I take a couple steps back towards the door and open it to usher her out.

  Her jaw trembles as she snatches her purse off the long dark wood coffee table. “Ford-”

  “Keep the key,” my arm braces itself against the frame, “to remember us by. The apartment is gone next week, and I’m having the locks changed here first thing tomorrow.”

  Carol Ann stomps her high heel covered foot in objection. “For-”

  “Goodbye, Carol Ann.”

  She rushes off towards her car at the same time Ollie’s peels off the property.

  Defeat swiftly overpowers the momentary pride I felt kicking. My hand gives the back of my hair a good ruffle as I let out a deep breath into the chilly morning air.

  Unlike when Carol Ann would walk out of my life, I plan to put up a fight. Ollie may be upset, she may not want to talk to me or deal with me right now, but things are not over. I’m not giving up on her. I’ll never give up on her…Or us.

  I swallow another shot of whiskey and offer Camilla the controller afterward.

  She gives me a sarcastic expression. “Are you so drunk already you have forgotten what it is I do for a living?”

  Unfortunately not.

  As I pour another shot into the glass, she sighs, “Video games and booze. Adulting at its finest.”

  I ignore the comment and toss it back. The brown liquor smoothly runs down my throat desperately trying to soothe my senses.

  Worst. Day. Ever. Once upon a time I was convinced it was the morning after my birthday. The morning how pathetic my life truly was set in. Now I know it’s not. This is. Falling head over heels for someone only to realize you were the rebound. The side piece. The in between.

  My train of thought causes me to reach for the bottle again except this time Camilla pops my hand. “Enough. You’re not entering a Frat. You don’t need to drink it like a fish.”

  But I do. I need to get so shit faced I completely forget what I woke up to this morning. So shit faced I can convince myself I imagined the past six months, rather than dwell on the truth I fell for someone who wasn’t ever really going to fall for me.

  When I reach for the controller, she moves it away. “Ollie, we need to talk about what happened.”

  “We don’t.”

  “We do,” she pleads. “That’s what friends are for.”

  “I thought you said friends were for good times and especially for the fuck him times.”

  “They are.”

  “Well this is one of the fuck him times. Now, like the wise woman once said, let there be booze or let there be games or preferably both!”

  Camilla rolls her eyes. “She said cake, Ollie. Let them eat cake. Not let them get wasted and lay carnage to a high school full of zombies and super charged up math teachers.”

  Einsteins, one of the stronger infected, but not quite boss zombies, bear a strong resemblance to my 10th grade Geometry teacher, Mr. Pace. Maybe Ford had a point. Maybe I do let my art reflect life or whatever the saying is.

  His name roaming around my head forces me to groan and reach for the bottle again.

  She repeats her previous action. “No.”

  “Be a good friend!”

  “You be a good friend and tell me what made you call me in a fit of tears and cancel my nail appointment.” She leans back against the arm rest. “I’ve been fairly patient with you all afternoon. I let you make me watch Kubo and the Two Strings-”

  “It’s artistically brilliant!”

  Even Ford fell in love with it…

  “Which I gave you a pass on because of that and the fact even as a bug Mathew McConaughey makes my panties melt. And then I sat through Finding Dory-”

  “Pixar animation-”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. But the movie is sad as shit and not the happiest especially when you’re drowning your sorrows in expensive whiskey and Skinny Popcorn.”

  I glance at the empty bag and a memory of Ford and I fighting over it floods my mind.

  My eyes instinctively shut.

  Why can’t I have thoughts that don’t revolve around him? Why is he so tightly wound around everything I do and love? When the fuck did I let myself get this…attached? I don’t attach to people! Life alone is my thing! I am independent! I was raised to be independent!

  “Look, I have been patient, but Ollie you have to talk to me. You have to trust that as your friend I can do my part and be your friend.”

  Her words lift my eyelids.

  “What happened?”

  An exasperated sigh escapes at the same time I let my back hit the couch. “His ex showed up at his house this morning.”

  Camilla’s expression doesn’t change.

  “She was…waiting for him downstairs.”

  “In like a corset top and fish net stockings because so far this story is very uneventful.”

  She could’ve been wearing one or butt ass naked for all I remember. Only image of her that sticks out in my mind? Her smug expression. The victory gleam in her eyes. It was as if she knew she had broken me not once, but twice and adored it. Geez, it was like having a sociopath make googly eyes at you because they realized you are their new favorite plaything.

  “Ollie.”

  I shake away the picture stained in my mind. “No. I mean, I don’t think so.”

  “Then…what’s the big deal?”

  “She was there, Camilla. Waiting for him in his house.”

  “Little Fatal Attraction, but not picking up your feelings of being betrayed yet.” She pauses briefly. “Who let her in?”

  “She let herself in.”

  The information upset finally receives a change
of expression.

  “She still has a key, Camilla. A fucking key! They’ve been broken up for six fucking months! Six goddamn months and she still has a key? That’s not cowardice! That’s not an accident! That’s a statement. A bold as shit fucking statement you still want her in your life! You still want her to come back! You still want her around and that I mean nothing to you!”

  “First off,” Camilla lifts a finger, “I don’t know why I’m being yelled at. I don’t have a key to anyone’s apartment.”

  Her attempt to calm me down fails.

  “Second of all, that’s an awfully big assumption you’re making.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it really?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t just forget someone has the keys to your house. Especially not an ex. Not an ex you dated for like a million years specifically.”

  She gives me another sarcastic stare. “A million years…specifically?”

  “Yes.”

  “You might be drunker than I thought.”

  I bypass the comment and continue my rant, “The only reason you don’t get your key back is because you know at some point they’re going to use it. At some point you are going to want them to use it.” She attempts to speak when I cut her off again. “And let’s pretend he didn’t want her to use it. Let’s pretend I am completely wrong. He hadn’t changed the locks. Why not? So that the door to that relationship physically as well as metaphorically never closes?”

  Camilla reluctantly nods seeing my point.

  “Most importantly…how can you say you love me while holding out hope someone else comes back. Because not taking that key back, not changing those locks, were both examples of what someone does when they’re not quite ready to give up on that person yet.”

  My word vomit finally ceases and Camilla reaches for the bottle, settling in my favor. Once my glass is filled, she pours herself one, and leans back into her position. I drink yet she silently stares. The look of contemplation creases my brow, but I patiently wait for her to agree with me because there is no room for an argument here. I’m right. Even if it hurts like hell, it doesn’t change the unequivocal facts.

  “I see your point.” After a small sip, she says, “But let me offer you this piece of advice, Ollie. As someone who has had numerous failed relationships…all of which they were the problem, not me-”

  “Obviously.”

  She grins playfully, and I’m tempted to return the expression. “Can I just suggest you talk to him about it before assuming it’s all over? Before assuming what you’ve made up in your mind to be concrete evidence rather than heavy speculation?”

  My face slightly softens.

  “Here’s the most accurate comparison for relationships I’ve ever come across. I learned it, shockingly, from a law student. Relationships eventually have a huge case that wants to go to court. One of you thinks you’re the victim, the other the wrongfully accused. You’re both so emotionally involved it makes it damn near impossible to exam the facts objectively. Of course you want to consult with your separate council, who is going to favor whatever it is you say, but the best solution is to have a true mediation with each other. Get your feelings out. Listen to how the other person interpreted it. Then decide if the case is worth continuing to battle like bastards or if maybe…it might be easier to settle shit. To…find a happy medium. And I will gladly be the first to say it, Ollie. The two of you have a remarkable meeting in the middle track record. Don’t ruin it now just because you’re afraid your heart is on the line. Have a little faith in Ford. He’s respectfully earned that.”

  She’s right. He’s not like Daryl. He’s never been like him nor anyone else I’ve ever dated. He’s been amazing from the moment we started being friends and it has never wavered. His attention has never drifted. His intent to be with only me has always rang loudly. Maybe there’s a different reason he never got his key back. Maybe there’s a different reason he never changed the locks. Between the deepening pang in my chest and Camilla’s speech, I feel I at least owe it to myself to find out.

  I reach my for sketch pad no longer in the mood to shoot AKs at zombies. “If Ford comes knocking on my door, I won’t turn him away. I’ll hear him out… But I can’t guarantee he will.”

  Camilla surrenders her free hand. “That’s fair. But try to remember if he comes knocking on your door, Ollie, it means you are where he wants to be and whatever was between them is over.”

  My eyes cut down to the mesh creation I have been scribbling. Seeing Ford’s face covering the page deepens the ache I have been trying to mollify all afternoon.

  Suddenly, Princess Pinky nudges at my legs, wet nose sending chills across my skin. Our eyes meet and the sadness I swear is swirling around hers matches mine. I wanna tell her I miss him too. I wanna tell her I pray like hell I’m wrong and how maybe her father is just a moron who made a tiny mistake. I wanna tell her I overreacted. I wanna promise her everything will be back to normal tomorrow. But I can’t. And having my sweet, pink Princess as miserable as I am just amplifies the pain so much more.

  Pop walks up onto the porch just as I finish replacing the locks on the front door. “I’m all done with the ones that lead to the patio.”

  I try to force a smile on my face. “Thanks.”

  “You done?”

  Giving the new locks one last test with their keys, I nod. “Looks that way.”

  “I meant with Ollie, Runt.”

  My entire demeanor shifts.

  She hasn’t answered a call or a text. I wanted to race over there last night, explain everything, but Mama, Sienna, and Dawn all urged me to wait. They all had different opinions on why, which only confused the shit out of me. Since the collective opinion was to wait, I impatiently did so. Texting got so out of control, Blake took my phone and used it as a hide and seek toy for our nephews. The rest of the day was shit. Everything about it. The weather was shit. Dinner was shit. Even my beer tasted like shit. My beer! I fucking make it! I know how it has an excellent taste!

  “That a yes, Runt?”

  I slump over and down onto the porch swing. “I don’t want it to be, Pop.”

  “Then what’s stoppin’ ya?”

  “She’s not answering my calls. Or my texts.”

  “So?”

  “So she clearly doesn’t want anything to do with me right now.”

  “Or…maybe she doesn’t want some bullshit technology apology.”

  His words furrow my brow.

  “You know you and your brothers amaze me with how stupid you are with all the so called ‘smart’ technology there is in the world. Sometimes, more often than not, Runt, women want a good old face to face, I’m sorry I did something that made you mad.” Pop leans against the pillar. “They don’t need memoirs in a text or for you to sing on their goddamn voicemail. They just want you to look them in the eyes, admit you are wrong, and that you wanna fight for what you have. While women are extremely complicated, Runt, their desire for basic apologies is not.”

  I silently tap my thumbs together in thought.

  He’s right. I should go over there. We should talk. We should figure out how the hell we get past this and we will get past this. Like I’ve said for quite some time now, giving Ollie up, just isn’t an option for me. Guess it’s time I do more than think. She needs me to prove it, and I’ll be damned if I don’t.

  After leaving my house, I make one small pit stop, and head to our apartment.

  It will be our apartment. I’m not going to let Carol Ann destroy my future the way she helped destroy my past. I know it wasn’t all her fault. I stuck by her when she cheated. I forgave her. I never made the effort to do more or want more. For a while I hated myself for it. Now? Now I’m relieved I waited for the right woman to show her beautiful face in my life.

  I give the closed door to our apartment a good solid knock.

  Nothing.

  I fight the urge to be discouraged and repea
t the action a little harder.

  Still nothing.

  She’s in there. I know she’s in there. We both took the day off from work because we were going to spend last night at the house and then come back to town to start moving the last of my stuff from my old apartment over here.

  Just as I lift my fist to knock again, Ollie swings the door open; sleep deprived face less than pleased to see me.

  I take a moment and drink in her messy curls as well as my sweatshirt swallowing her. Seeing her like this first thing in the morning is something I don’t take for granted. I hated not seeing this sight right after a round of good morning sex. I hated this isn’t what I was staring at while having yogurt or bagels or waffles. I hated missing her. I don’t ever wanna miss her like that again. I only wanna be with her.