I was wrong about Kylie. She liked me more than I expected. Between her and my mystery stalker my phone never stopped buzzing. It seemed like I had to keep the stupid thing plugged in all the time because of how quick they drained the battery. I ignored both of them. When I woke up the morning after walking home there were 47 texts and three missed calls on my phone. The voicemails from Kylie were kind of heartbreaking. In the first one she was confused, the second one she was angry and the third one she was crying.
All those thoughts and feelings I had towards her that night were still there, but dulled. It was an ironic reversal of how booze made people feel. I still knew I shouldn't sleep with her ever again and it would be best to cut ties before anything got worse.
She wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
I wasn't mean about things. At least, I didn't think I was. Definitely Not as mean as I could have been. That was probably my problem. She still wanted to talk about things and I didn't. As much as possible I kept her from talking to me in the office. I ignored her texts and didn't answer her calls. Finally I knew I had to bite the bullet and get it out of the way, which is what I should've done in the first place, being an adult.
I agreed to go out to lunch with her. I picked a Friday, the Same thinking as when a boss has to fire someone: do it on a Friday and you have at least two days for that person to cool down. If they came back to the office on Monday to shoot you then they really wanted to do it.
We were at a trendy restaurant downtown, sitting at one of the patio tables. The waitress had given us our menus and gone away with our drink orders. We both had to be back at work in forty-five minutes (another reason I chose Friday lunch instead of evening) so it was water all around.
She drummed her fingers on the table. If she was expecting me to start the awkward conversation then she was out of luck. I knew I should just get it over with, but staring at it in the face now I would gladly wait out the time until we had to go back to work. If she wanted questions answered she would have to ask them. I kept glancing around. I couldn't look her directly in the face. What I hoped to come out of this was letting her know I didn't hate her, she didn't do anything wrong, that I was the problem. My problems were why we couldn't be together.
Except when I had told her that initially she didn't believe me.
So we were having a break-up lunch. For what I thought was just a series of hook-ups.
"Why don't you want to be with me?" she asked.
"I've already told you. I've got a lot of stuff going on. I shouldn't be in any sort of relationship. This has nothing really to do with you. All of this is because of me...oh, God, that sounds like a 'it's not you, it's me' speech. I can't believe I said that."
"I don't understand. What type of things? If you would talk to me about them then maybe I'd understand."
"I don't want to talk about them. To you or anybody else. They're not the type of things anyone would understand."
"Then you should go see a therapist," she said.
"I've been thinking that for a while. I probably will."
"I've got the card of someone. She's really good. She's my friend..."
I held my hands up, "Thanks, but I'm fine. I'll find my own doctor."
"But she's actually really good."
"I'm sure she is."
"Then what's the problem?"
"That she's your friend."
"You don't have to worry about that. You know there's doctor/patient confidentiality. She'd never break that."
"I'm uncomfortable with it anyway. If I get a doctor I want to make sure they are completely cut off from my life. I want to be able to talk about whomever or whatever I want without fear that the doctor knows who I'm talking about."
Kylie was about to respond when the waitress returned to take our orders. The waitress was clearly uncomfortable. She knew exactly what was going on. No doubt she had seen plenty of public break-ups before. I bet there was probably special cake in the kitchen they would bring out for Kylie if I suddenly left. We placed our orders and the waitress left us again to continue.
"This is about your scar," Kylie said.
"No, it's not."
"You don't like me touching it."
"I don't like you touching me. Sorry, that came out wrong. Yes, you're right, I don't like when you touch it. It bothers me."
"Where did you get it?"
"I told you: childhood accident. I fell out of a tree."
"You're lying."
"Sure, I am. Because I'm not going to tell you where I got my scars from. I don't like talking about it. It's private."
"We've been intimate together, but you won't tell me something personal about yourself."
"Just because we get drunk and fuck every weekend doesn't mean you get to know my deepest, darkest secrets. They're private for a reason."
"So all we were doing was...fucking?" she nearly choked on that last word trying to get it out.
"I thought that's what we were doing: having a little fun. Nothing serious."
"Fun?"
"Fun. Yes. Casual sex is fun for most people. It's supposed to be."
"But you don't want to do it with me anymore," she said.
"No. I don't."
"Why?"
"Because of this. This stupid situation we're in now. It's not supposed to be complicated."
"It sounds like you've done this a lot. From your expectations."
"No, I haven't," I said, "very rarely. Like once or twice. All I know is that it's just supposed to be fun and uncomplicated and if we're not having fun then we should stop. I'm not having fun, so I want this to stop."
She took a sip of her water then looked me straight in the eyes, "You've found someone else."
"No. What? No, I didn't."
"What's her name?"
"She doesn't exist, she doesn't have a name."
Right then my phone picked the worst time to buzz. It skittered across the table. Kylie made a move to grab it before I snatched it away. It made me look guilty. Though I would've done that anyway even if we weren't fighting. I didn't want her in my private life. I was going to feel stupid when it turned out to be some stupid picture Wade found and sent to me, but I still wanted privacy.
"Is that her?" Kylie asked.
"No, it's not. There is no her. Look, the number isn't even programmed into my phone!"
I showed her the screen which said there was a message from 'unknown' along with a phone number.
"It's probably sent to the wrong person," I said.
-Looks like quite the lovers' quarrel.
I tried my best to keep my cool after reading that text.
"Yeah," I murmured, "wrong number."
Without responding I slipped the phone into my pocket. Didn't want to give Kylie another chance to steal it away and see anything she shouldn't. I had no excuse for that except that I was being stalked by someone. Someone I was fairly sure was Sarah. After wracking my brains for the longest time I could not think of anyone else who would do this to me. If I told Kylie who that was I would have to explain that Sarah was a super villain with no face.
If it was actually Sarah I wanted to know why. Was it because I snubbed her? Was she really that petty? Or did she want to get me so freaked out by her that I wouldn't tell Beth what happened? Except that was an exceptionally stupid plan. The first thing I was going to do when I saw Beth again was tell her. Well, that probably wasn't going to be the first thing that happened.
But after sex I would definitely tell her. Probably.
There was something wrong with Sarah. She had a fucked up life. That still didn't give her this right. She could hide behind the excuse of "being a villain" all she wanted, but this was something else. She was disturbed on a deeper level than the other villains I knew. I hoped she was only going through an episode, something Beth had seen before, something she could shake Sarah out of.
I looked around. The city street was crowded. People quickly walked past. Traffic buzzed by non-stop. I couldn't see anyone who looked suspicious. Sarah was bound to be wearing her full head wrap. Except by now she probably learned to blend very well. From what Beth and Dana had told me about her, Sarah was very self-conscious of how she looked. For a woman who used to be a real cheerleader and the center of attention she quickly adapted to having to remain as anonymous as possible. She was probably as good as Blood Shadow at sneaking around unnoticed.
Just thinking about how he melted into the darkness still made me shudder.
"I don't know why you won't be truthful with me," Kylie said.
"You don't believe me when I say I don't want to do anything with you anymore and you don't believe me when I say there's nobody else."
Kylie's eyes rimmed with tears, when she spoke it was like she was speaking through a pinhole-sized throat, "If that's the way you want it to be."
"I'm sorry that I hurt you."
The waitress returned with our food, somewhat relieved that nobody at our table was in full tears. We ate in silence.
