Thursday, May 17, 2012

Bathroom Monologue: Unbelievable Girl


God sent her to harass me. Girls that pretty don’t laugh at my jokes. I mean, yes, I could have met a girl who looked like her at the AIDS Quilt. People of every shape, even mine, do that. But girls that pretty do not compliment my eyes. They don’t look at them; even I’d never noticed my freaking eyes before. And without the deliberate and cruel intervention of a divine entity, I couldn’t possibly have run into her later that night at the second-run theater for Cabin in the Woods, or that weekend at Tom Waits. Those things do not triangulate on their own.

The long, stringy hair that keeps getting stuck between my teeth. Jesus, everything about her was designed to mess with me. Every morning I have to come up with some dumb explanation for how that happened, even though I was asleep, and she knows it. Every morning she looks at me, preemptively bemused with the apology to come. Nobody would do that unless God made them to mess with my head.

She never has emergencies; she never needs to go to the hospital in the middle of the night. She never even needs help reaching anything; she reaches things for me. She never misses work, and finds all the good music long before I do. I’ve never introduced her to one band she didn’t nod along to and say, “Oh yeah, them!”

When she needs me, it’s extracurricular. Like she couldn’t balance an account if she wanted. Half the time I think she makes up her fear of driving in the rain so I’ll feel important. I keep glancing at the passenger seat, hoping to catch her with her guard down and not cringing at thunder, and at the same time, I hope I never catch her doing that. Maybe she’s not a trick? It’s a nice thing to believe.

I want to believe in her. That’s the worst part. That someone who’s taller, and smarter, and healthier, and just better than me would actually want me. But I don’t have the faith. God, am I going to kill this relationship by waiting for it to disappear?

5 comments:

  1. Painfully adorable. I like the suspicion that she's made up her one fear. That's excellent. This whole thing is excellent.

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  2. She would never say this, so I will in her behalf.
    "You gotta have faith, faith, faith". George Michael.

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  3. Was it Groucho Marx who said that he wouldn't want to belong to any club which would have him as a member? This is a twist on that - if she wants me it is a mistake. And yes, keep doubting and it will go.
    Brilliant piece. Thank you.

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  4. Ah, believing yourself to be someone that a good person could love...

    Note perfect, John.

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  5. Great piece. So sad when we can't enjoy what we have. Saying that maybe she's an alien and this is the start of a really cool conspiracy story. Or maybe she's Sharon Stone and she's just been placed to observe the narrator.

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