SEE YOURSELF:
A STORY IN PARTS

Fate and history have a similar feeling. They are weird mirrors to each other. - Alexander Chee

 

Blind Spot 

Your first thought upon meeting her is that you like the sound of her voice. It’s gravelly with a depth that makes you blush. You make small talk that feels gargantuan because her attention inflates you, expands you. You’re enchanted in an instant. She says to call her X. 

 

She mentions her cat, a ragdoll named Cherry Anne. That’s a cute name, you say with a smile. X says it just came to her, that it felt right. You nod because you know how it is when things just come to you, when they feel right, like when she texts you two days later at 2 AM, asking if you're up. You say yes because you are. She says come over, so you do. 

 

Wrapped and swaddled in postcoital bliss, you ask if she sees herself falling in love. She lies still—asleep or pretending to be—and doesn’t answer the question. When she awakens around noon, she seems surprised to see you. She asks if the Uber app is down, and you ask her why it would be. 

 

20/20

You walk in sync toward Phoenix Coffee alongside L as you tell her about your and X’s latest altercation—a brief but charged tiff over your fictitious invitation to the event that you crashed. She hadn’t made any sense, but it was sexy if you’re honest. Her anger had a pleasantly erotic pull that aroused you. It has the same effect now as you describe it to L, who listens patiently until—

Wait, wait. You weren’t invited? 

 

What? 

 

To the event.  

 

You bristle over L’s interruption over a negligible detail and mumble that your invitation was implied. She snorts.

 

That sounds familiar. 

 

You roll your eyes.

 

That was different, you say. K was out of line.

 

Sure, she says. But showing up to her wedding was still… a choice.

 

Yes, you think. It was the right choice. 

 

K shouldn’t have spent so much time in your bed during her engagement if she’d wanted you to respect her nuptials. The sting of her decision to move forward with the wedding—even after your impassioned, factual speech—leaks back into you as if intravenously, spreading through your arteries, hardening your heart. You could have done worse than ruin her wedding. In hindsight, you wish you had. 

 

In any case, you say, that invitation was implied too.

 

Yeah, L says. I know.

​

Fun House

What little time you spend with X is in bed, which isn't a problem until you decide it is. You tell her that you're not just some piece of ass. You're met with silence. She doesn't take your calls, she doesn’t text you back, and you handle it relatively well until you bump into her buying wine in the company of another woman. X reaches for an introduction, but cannot find your name. 

 

The pause where your name belongs warps you into something pitiable and pathetic like a fucked up fun house mirror. You stand there, dazed and torpid, fractured by a kaleidoscope of unsavory sensations. You shut your eyes and try to summon her voice saying your name just once, but it turns out that you can’t. You have no source material.

 

You reopen your eyes and excuse yourself, sparkling with a shiny new rage. You exit the store in a dark, fuzzy haze and leave for home to bake.     

​

Foresight

X told you once that her sweet tooth would be her lone ruin. Gazing down at her unbreathing body, you find that prediction inaccurate yet fitting. You consider her lack of self-awareness and sigh. She wouldn’t have found herself in such a bad way had her lone obstacle been sugar. 

 

The sight of her corpse lends you new clarity; you realize she is, was, not unlike K—unreliable, inconsistent, disappointing. You wonder how it is that you keep paying the price for the failings of underwhelming women. The streak-free lucidity of that question makes you nauseous and slightly embarrassed. You vow to avoid this sort of mess in the future. You’re getting too old for this shit. 

 

You collect the remains of the laced confection, then wash and dry your hands at the sink. You summon L with a phone call to pick you up.  

 

See?

You say you’re done dating and then a newbie at Phoenix takes your order. She has a brilliant smile, buzzcut, and tattooed hands you want her to touch you with. You leave your number on a napkin. She texts you later—It’s Z from Phoenix—and, of course, you text her back. 

 

Monday’s date becomes Thursday’s date that becomes sex in your living room on Friday. Lying beside you, atop your rug, she turns to you and stares. She asks if you see yourself falling in love; you say yes because, sadly, you do.