Page 66 of With This Lie
Lucas
It’s beeneight days since Dani’s party and she still hasn’t spoken to me. The first two were radio silence. I thought it was best to give her a cooling off period, which also gave me time to collect my thoughts, to best figure out how to explain this monumental fuck-up to her. It isn’t easy trying to figure out a way to explain a lie that has essentially defined nearly your entire adult life. A lie I choose to tell to perpetuate a lifestyle, by the way. Fuck. That sounds completely horrible.
On day three, I tried calling her but she didn’t answer. I left a voicemail and waited three hours. I tried calling again and she pushed the hater button on me, sending me straight to voicemail again. I left another message and waited another three hours. I tried calling one more time but got no answer yet again. After that, it didn’t seem like a phone call was going to work.
On day four, I texted her that morning begging her to speak to me. No reply. I waited a couple of hours and begged again. No reply. This pattern repeated itself for two days and yielded no results. On day six, I tried showing up at her apartment. She didn’t answer the door and I felt like a complete fucking stalker just for doing it but desperate times and all that. I left a note pinned to her door as if maybe she weren’t home, asking her to call me, but I knew damn well she was.
Yesterday, I tried having flowers delivered and drove by her apartment later to see them scattered all over the sidewalk below, her apartment window open, the curtain rippling in the breeze. Flowers were clearly not the way to go. Which brings me to this moment, sitting in my car outside of her work like a creep. I know she’s working and I can see her through the window behind the bar. The last thing I want to do is go in there and accost her at work but she has to hear it. She needs to know what I need to tell her.
I get out of my car at a snail’s speed and walk into the bar. She doesn’t notice me as I make my way up to her part of the bar and take a seat. Then her eyes catch mine and all at once I am petrified.
“What are you doing here?” she snaps.
“I just need you to listen to me, please?” I say.
“I don’t want to, Lucas,” she says. “You’re a liar. I know what those sound like.”
I gulp. I can’t deny her logic. “Just five minutes,” I beg.
She rolls her eyes and exhales. “Five minutes. That’s it.” She exits the side of the bar and leads me out to the side alley where she takes her breaks. She leans back against the side of the building and crosses her arms. She is as far away from me physically as she possibly could be.
“Listen, Dani, I’m really sorry for how everything came out the other night. Truly. I never wanted it to be like that. As for my brother, I don’t think I can apologize enough for the way he acted. It’s unforgivable.”
“I’ve dealt with plenty of Marks in my life, Lucas,” she says.
“Right,” I say. I try gathering my thoughts as quickly as I can. “Still, it was deplorable. But that’s not the point. And I don’t care that you were with him before, I really don’t.”
“You think I care about what you think now?” she scoffs.
Another valid point. “Right, I’m sure you don’t, I just wanted to make it known,” I say. “What I came here to really say was well, okay, you know what? I’m just going to say it. I love you. Okay, Dani. I love you.” I breathe.
Dani stares blankly at me, studying my face. “Is that a punchline?”
“What? No. I’m serious,” I say. “I love you.”
“Stop saying it,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because your five minutes are up now,” she says. She uncrosses her arms and shifts her weight to go back inside.
“Dani, wait, I’m serious here,” I say.
“Just shut up, Lucas. People don’t love each other. They hurt each other. That’s what they do. There is no happily ever after storybook anything. There is no knight in shining armor. No prince to rescue anyone. My mother calls me a fucking princess and do you know what I got? I got a fucking whore mother, spent half my life in a closet, the other half in foster care until I aged out, and no one loved me Lucas. My first birthday party in my entire life and I’m nearly sexually assaulted and then, then the one man I think might actually care for me, well come to find out he’s been lying to me the entire time I’ve known him. So don’t tell me about love, Lucas. You don’t get to love me now. You don’t really love me. And even if you did, I wouldn’t know how to let you.” She takes a breath.
I can see her eyes brimming with tears and I know she doesn’t cry in front of people. It was enough that she cried in front of people on her birthday. I’m not about to have it happen again right here.
“Okay, Dani. Okay. I’m going to leave. I don’t want to hurt you anymore,” I say. I tuck my hands in my pockets and put my head down.
She takes a few more deep breaths and regains her composure. “You don’t have to worry for much longer. I’m leaving soon. The city I mean.”
“What? You’re moving?” I ask. “When?”
“A few weeks from now,” she says. She straightens her apron and tucks her hair behind her ear.
“But that’s so soon,” I say.
“Yeah well, when your life falls apart, you sort of make an effort to get away from it fast,” she says, shrugging. She opens the door to the bar and steps back in. “Goodbye, Lucas.”
I stand there in the empty alley for a while, thinking about what she said to me. None of it was wrong. Too much of it was true, in fact. Except the part where she said I didn’t love her. I hadn’t been in love for a very long time but I remembered its taste. I remembered what it felt like flowing beneath my skin.
I don’t know what to do, where to go from here. There are conflicting ideals in my mind. On the one hand, the old adage “if you love something, let it go” and on the other, “fight for what you love”. Proof in and of itself that love is contradicting and downright treacherous.
I thought about Dani’s pain. What growing up in her shoes must have done to her heart. The way it must have walled her off to feeling so much. The way it must have filled her with so much doubt and fear. I didn’t blame her. I couldn’t. She was a product of too many bad memories and lonely mornings. Could another person even begin to mend something so devastated? Or would that type of healing have to come from inside? Could it be both?
She doesn’t want me around anymore, that much is clear. All that has happened has literally driven her to want to move away and I can’t stand the thought of her leaving. I have to fix this. I’m not even sure about winning her over or back, but I have to make her stay here. I don’t know how, but I have to think of something. I have to make her see.
I walk back into the bar and past her station. I don’t look her way. I don’t want to upset her anymore, and as much as I would have liked to have one more look at her, I knew she wouldn’t want me to. I walk out the front door and back to my car. I have to go. I have to find a way.