Authors: Jane Nin
And yes, some little part of me knew I was a jerk for having
left without a word… but I couldn’t help it. I was mad at him. Worse, I was mad
at myself, for thinking anything even resembling love—however distortedly—might
actually work out.
But. Even if it hadn’t worked out—and how could it,
something so sudden, so strange?—during my flight I had resolved to think of it
as a good thing that had happened. Jack had given me license to simply be
present. To allow my body’s urges—and its pleasures—to consume me completely,
and to stop worrying about who I was, or who I was supposed to be. I knew I
didn’t want to live like that all the time, but allowing that impersonal,
animal version of me to receive satisfaction, safe from judgment… it left me
feeling lighter, instead of burdened by the fantasies I’d once had and felt
guilty about.
As I washed down bites of my sandwich with champagne, I
wondered some more about Jack. What was it he’d said to me when we first met?
You haven’t had the kind of filthy, utterly objectifying
sex you’ve fantasized about.
How had he known I had fantasized about that? Or was it just
a safe assumption—a daring one, but one he’d learned from experience—and we
knew he had that—was generally on the mark?
I spun backwards through the beginning of the conversation.
He’d accused me both of being bored of sex and of being in the bar to seek it
out. I hadn’t been bored of sex, of course. What I was was tired… of the sex
that was only what it was—and frequently a timid version of that—and of the
love that never seemed to appear.
He’d guessed that part, too, I remembered. That I’d never
had sex with a man who adored me.
I’m not offering that
, he’d said, I
also remembered now, more bitterly. He’d said he wasn’t offering it but then it
came to feel like he was, or wanted to.
Except here I was, so obviously not.
I reminded myself that I was making the best of things. He’d
startled me out of a whole life that bored me. A life I’d pieced together from
scraps, instead of ever asking myself who I wanted to be. He’d suggested I
could be anything and I intended to keep that conviction. Love might be out of
my control, but the rest—who I was when I woke up every day, what I did, who
looked back at me from the mirror… that was up to me.
I’d flown directly into New Orleans without even stopping at
my old place. Tomorrow I had to go back to Houston to clear it out. I’d blown a
huge chunk of cash on the plane ticket and the deposit on this place, and I’d
already decided I was going to leave the moving to the experts, salvaging a
handful of things—my computer, some clothes—and letting the rest become garbage
or donations. Financially it felt reckless but I’d been sensible for so long—or
rather, pessimistic, since I spent cautiously, expecting the worst—that I had
at least a little bit of savings. Enough for the move, some carefully chosen
furniture, a couple months while I looked for a new job. The new Sylvie would
be more deliberate. She was through carting around hand-me-down furniture, used
books, old birthday cards. She was finished hanging onto the clothes that she
might wear again if she gained weight, or lost it, or if ill-fitting print
dresses ever came back in style.
I opened my strawberry shortcake and for a moment I sat,
admiring it. Then I realized I didn’t have a fork.
I looked around my empty apartment, shrugged, and simply
plunged into it with my hands.
Back in Houston I filled a suitcase with the clothes I liked
and stuffed my “important” financial papers into a box. I walked from room to
room, trying to decide what to do. The problem was if you started to hang onto
some things then it quickly snowballed. Of course I could just put it all into
storage, deferring the problem to another day. But I thought about having the
old Sylvie’s entire life in storage and it seemed to me it’d be sure to
escape—to sneak back up on me, to consume me again…
No. Decisions had to be made.
I packed a few more things into my car. Dishes, a lamp or
two, some favorite books. I didn’t know quite who the new Sylvie would be, but
I figured she’d still love the things I loved. I handed off my keys to the man
I’d hired to handle the rest—a blue-eyed, bearded redhead who I briefly
considered fucking. But I was too eager to get the hell out of town to even linger
long enough for that.
Naturally, my car broke down after I’d been on the freeway
for barely an hour. It was the transmission, I knew immediately, as I’d several
times now delayed that repair. I attempted to coast onto the shoulder as I felt
it slowing, but the dirt was soft and crumbly, and my tires slipped off the
edge and for a terrifying, panicked few seconds the car tipped catastrophically…
then turned over, then over again, then finally came to rest at the bottom of a
steep-sided ditch.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed out, my every nerve
alight with adrenaline. But I seemed to be unhurt. There was a rock nearby and
I sat down on it and stared at my car. First I’d have to figure out how to get
it dragged out of the ditch. Then, I could have it towed the remaining 300
miles to New Orleans. Or, I supposed, I could have it towed back to Houston—but then I’d have to stick around waiting for the repair.
Up above me, out of sight, the traffic whooshed by. I felt
my tide of new courage beginning to ebb. Of course I couldn’t escape myself
completely, couldn’t manage to pull off a fresh start without a hitch.
And this was when it hit me.
With my key I opened the trunk and hauled out my suitcase. Then,
quickly, I rummaged through the other stuff inside. I found the siphon my dad
had insisted I keep in my car in case of emergencies. This, after all, was an
emergency.
It turned out it was surprisingly easy to siphon the
gasoline directly out of the tank and onto the backseat. When I was sure it was
saturated, I rolled my suitcase along the ditch until it was about fifty meters
up the way. Then I returned to the car, waiting for a lull in the traffic
noise.
Finally it came.
I struck the match and tossed it in, then ran.
With a hissing sound, like a gas stove catching, and then a
satisfying
whump
! the car went up in flames. I ran to where I’d set my
suitcase and looked back at it. It was actually a decent-sized fire, black
smoke pouring up into the sky.
I covered my mouth with my hands and began to giggle
uncontrollably, panic rising in me. What the hell was I doing.
Then, suddenly, someone was dislodging rocks above me,
scooting down the steep edge of the ditch. A man in a suit.
It was Jack.
I quieted and stared at him.
“This is so many kinds of illegal I don’t even know where to
start. Come on.”
I continued to stare at him. He took my suitcase in one
hand, held the other out to me.
“I said, come on.”
The driver merged back into traffic immediately, and Jack
lifted his phone to his ear.
“I’m calling to report a vehicle on fire.” He gave them our
location. “Yeah, I didn’t see the accident, just the smoke—it’s down on the
shoulder. Thank you.”
He hung up then. “Hello,” he said.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“Pretty straightforward, actually. I hung out at the address
where I knew you to be a resident, until you finally showed up.”
“I’m not a resident there anymore.”
“I gathered that.”
“You’ve been following me since then?”
“Technically, barely a couple hours.”
“So you
did
see the accident.”
“Yep, you rolled that car over like a pro.”
“And you weren’t worried?”
“Who said I wasn’t worried?”
I looked at him. He was telling the truth—eyes shining,
almost teary. Not smiling at all.
“Are you alright?” he asked then.
My heart silently shrieked,
Sylvie! He loves you!
But
my brain was not so trusting.
“I think so. I’m mad at you, you know,” I said, looking away
from him, out the window.
“For leaving you behind in a foreign country without so much
as a word? Well, that’s understandable.”
His teasing tone did nothing to conceal the real hurt in his
voice, and again I realized what an asshole I’d been. And just like your
average guy’s, my own asshole move had been calculated to preserve my pride.
“You left me first,” I said, except it sounded, suddenly,
very lame.
“At the party,” he said coldly, apparently finding it
equally lame.
“Yes. You promised you wouldn’t.”
He paused a moment. “No I didn’t, Sylvie—you’re remembering
wrong. I promised I’d keep you safe. I know those people, and you were safe.”
“Oh, I heard all about how you know those people,” I said, meanly.
He ignored the jab. “Were you ever not safe?”
I was quiet, took a breath, then reluctantly admitted, “No.”
He said nothing. So I hastened to add: “But
I
didn’t know
those people, and suddenly you were gone, and I… I was all alone.”
“I’m sorry for that,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You could have said something,” I continued, though he’d
already apologized.
“You were having fun,” he said. “I didn’t want to ruin it
with my stuff.”
“Your… stuff?”
“My jealousy. I didn’t… I couldn’t watch it anymore.”
“Couldn’t watch
me
anymore, you mean.”
“Yes.”
“Mind you, I don’t blame you, Valerie is…” He paused, and I
wondered if he’d fucked her. “I’ve seen her in action enough that I know she’s
impossible to resist. Still. I just… I saw what she was doing, and how you were
responding, and I couldn’t watch.”
I was dumbfounded. It was true, I’d been very much in Valerie’s
trance.
“Sylvie,” he said quietly, and now it was his turn not to
look at me, “I think I failed.” He looked down at his hands, clasped in his
lap, his entire posture utterly dejected. It hurt to see him so hard on
himself.
“You mean because you left? No. I’m sorry. You’re right, you
never promised me that, I shouldn’t have—”
“No, because of why I left. Because I had to leave. The
jealousy is still in me. I can’t seem to get rid of it.”
I thought about how insane it had made me to hear he’d been
at Anne’s flat with other women. Who could completely conquer jealousy? It was
a noble goal, perhaps, but nearly superhuman. Of course, he had high standards
for himself.
I was moved. I reached out and put my hand on top of his.
“Maybe it doesn’t work that way,” I said. “Maybe the jealousy is just your heart’s
way of acknowledging it’s afraid of losing something you care about.”
“Love,” he said, and he turned his palm over, weaving his
fingers through mine. “I’m afraid of losing something I love.”
Now he turned his face to mine, and I saw his own eyes were
wet with tears. I moved close to him, and with my free hand, I wiped them away.
“I’m not a doll,” I told him. “You’re not going to just lose
me like some toy on the subway. I would find my way back to you.”
“But you left,” he said, almost childishly. “I
did
have to come find you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was frightened, too. I was afraid if
I came back to the hotel you would tell me I couldn’t see you anymore.”
In one swift movement he reached around and clutched me
closer. He cupped the back of my head in his hand, kissing me deeply.
“That’s crazy,” he said, “I want to see you all the time.”
“Me, too,” I said, my own tears spilling over and falling to
spot his shirt. “I’m glad you came.”
He kissed me again, and wrapped his arms around me even
tighter, and then he whispered in my ear. “I promise to keep fighting the
jealousy, Sylvie—I don’t want to ruin this the way I ruined things with my ex.
But… do you think the game can be over?”
I hesitated for just a split second before I murmured back,
into his neck—
“Yes.”
We’d been pointed toward New Orleans so it was to New Orleans that we continued. Shyly I led Jack up the stairs to my empty apartment. I
turned to him as I unlocked the door: “I only have a chair.”
“What? Where did you sleep last night?”
“On my coat,” I admitted, bashfully. I didn’t add that I
curled up in it weeping for an hour before the champagne finally did its work
and brought me oblivion. But he had a detective streak.
“Is that a
champagne
bottle?”
“Oh god, don’t even look at that—it’s just cheap, crappy
stuff.” I hurried over and took the empty bottle from his hand and put it into
the shopping bag that was serving as my garbage.
“Well,” said Jack, turning to me. “What do you want to do?
I’ll spring for some furniture if you’re in the mood to go shopping.”