Chapter Thirty-Two
THIRTY-TWO
There was no sound in the cave. No noise. It was like every bird and bug, every living being within a ten-mile radius, had suddenly disappeared. Faye opened her eyes, still cast upwards towards the light of the moon, and took note of the way the energy had shifted around them. She had done it. She had destroyed Gregolem...
And then, the sound of Greg hacking up papers brought her back to reality.
Faye blinked, surprised. “You’re still here?”
“What?”
His face was mired with confusion. Also, mud.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I did everything right. Everything the AI told me to do. Everything the rabbi told me to do. I created a spell from my own mind and heart...but you’re still here. Why are you still here, Greg?”
He squinted up at her. “Because you asked me to go caving...”
Faye shook her head. “I’m confused.”
“That makes two of us.”
It was then, staring at her creation, that she realized something very important. Greg was not a golem, at all. He was a real live, flesh-and-blood, human being. And she, like always, had made a mess of things.
“Oh my God,” she said, dropping to her knees, trying to clean the mud off his face with her own hands. “I can explain. I didn’t mean to...well, I did mean to...but I promise, I had a very good reason for everything,” Faye stammered. “I... I thought you were a golem.”
Greg blinked. “What?”
“A golem,” she repeated.
Saying it aloud, saying it to Greg, she realized how positively absurd it all sounded.
She attempted to explain, rambling incessantly, confessing everything. She told him how she had created a golem doll in the wake of those anti-Semitic flyers—how she had molded and shaped the perfect man, giving him long red hair, etching onto his skin all the things she would want in a partner.
“And then,” her rambling continued, “the very next day, you showed up. You showed up, Greg, and you were perfect in every way. And we were kissing, and you had a scar on your back, and I remembered that I broke the doll. I broke the doll, and the scar was in the same exact place...and golems always go bad. At least, when I created my golem, that was the story I had in my head, and then you would go on these long walks, and I had no idea where you were...and I had to get rid of you.”
His face morphed into sadness. “You were trying to get rid of me?”
“Not you,” she said, defending herself. “The golem.”
Greg stared down at the spot between his legs. Faye took a deep breath, awaiting sentencing. Because she had done it. Like always. Every relationship she got into she eventually destroyed. Her wrist ached. She was just too damn broken.
“Okay,” Greg said.
“Wait.” She blinked. “What?”
“Faye,” he said, inching closer to her, hands outstretched, “you’ve been through a lot the last few weeks.”
“Haman’s hat.”
“I mean, really,” he said, analyzing the entire affair, “you’ve been attacked, traumatized... Obviously it’s brought up a lot of complicated feelings for you. Plus, this is partly my fault.”
She stammered, “Your fault?”
“I can see how my recent actions have increased your sense of feeling unsafe,” he said, shaking his head. “This is really all my fault, Faye.”
“What...”
Faye could hardly believe what she was hearing. He was too good. He was too perfect. He was so freaking hot, and gentle, and understanding. It made her full-on panic. But Greg did his best. To explain. To tell her the truth. Even though, she couldn’t hear it.
Greg continued. “I didn’t want to tell you the truth about what I was doing with Nelly because I thought you wouldn’t approve. I thought you would stop me...and I wanted to protect you, Faye. At all costs. You said yourself, your whole life, with your mother, with Stuart...no one would ever stand up for you, stick up for you, be there for you in the way that you needed. I didn’t want you to have that experience with me.”
“No!” she said, covering her ears. “This is not happening.”
“Faye...” His voice drifted into a quiet plea. “If you would just sit down for a minute, let me explain to you everything that happened, what I learned about The Paper Boys. It might not make you feel better, but it will be the truth.”
“The truth?” she scoffed.
“I promised you once you would be safe with me,” he said. “I have never broken that promise.”
Time stood still. All her clay memory came crashing up against her present. She didn’t know what to do, or say, because this wasn’t how her story was supposed to end. Either as a man, or a golem, Greg was supposed to leave her.
“No.” She pointed at his head with one finger. “You should be angry at me.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“You should be furious,” she demanded, none of this making sense to her. “You should be storming out of here, telling me that you never want to see me again.”
“Because that’s what you want, right?” He said it gently, kindly, without any trace of angry accusation. “It’s easier to push someone away than admit that you have feelings for them? It’s hard to be vulnerable.”
“No,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “I demand you leave me now, Greg. I demand, for your own good, that you walk away from me forever.”
“Still here, I’m afraid.”
“Then call me insane, tell me that I’m too much... hit me .”
“Never.”
This wasn’t going at all how she expected. Until finally, unable to deal with her own swirling confusion, Faye took off.
Not waiting for Greg, she slunk back through the opening of the cave, racing as fast as she could down the pathway and towards the parking lot. If Greg wasn’t going to have the good sense to leave her, then the simplest thing to do would be to leave him.
She could still hear him calling her name, screaming something about The Paper Boys as she raced through the woods.
She could not stop crying. It came in heaping, uncontrollable gasps, tears blinding her vision. She was so ridiculously ashamed of what she had done, what she had allowed herself to believe, because Jews were not magical . She had never been magical. She had never been able to bend the universe to her will, or create men from clay. She didn’t have goddamn space lasers, either. She was simply a human being, broken and fallible, caught up in a narrative that had never been hers.
Rain began falling down around her. She crawled into her car and turned on the ignition. With heat cranking through the vents, she attempted to wipe away the steam forming on the windows before ultimately giving up. She just wanted to go home. She just wanted to forget about Greg, and her life, and everything that had happened.
Driving out of the park, tears flooding her eyes, she reached down to the floor of the passenger side, searching for her backpack. Fumbling for her phone, she dialed Miranda’s number. Miranda picked up on the first ring, but even before her best friend could say hello, Faye was crying hysterically into the phone.
“I did something,” Faye sobbed. “Something horrible.”
“What?” Miranda asked, concern filtering through her voice. “What’s happened? Where are you?”
“It’s terrible,” Faye said, shaking her head. “I can’t tell you. You’ll never forgive me.”
“Of course you can tell me,” Miranda said. “I’m your best friend. Whatever it is, I’m here to love and support you.”
Faye bawled into the phone. “I’m totally unlovable.”
And then, Miranda—clearly at a loss over what to do at her best friend’s crisis—turned to her wife for support. “Shully,” Miranda said, clearly speaking to her wife. “Please get on the line. Faye is having some sort of conniption. I don’t know what to do.”
“Faye?” Shully got on another line. “Faye, honey...what is it? What happened?”
Faye explained in one loud huff. “I thought Greg was a golem. And then, I took him to a cave...and I tried to get rid of him by making him eat holy text and dumping sludge all over his penis.”
Miranda did not hesitate. “You did what?”
“Okay,” Shully said. “Let’s everybody stay calm. Faye, honey, where are you now?”
“I’m leaving,” she hiccupped, “Devil’s Cave.”
“And where’s Greg?” Miranda asked, getting more to the point.
“I don’t know.” Faye bawled some more.
“Holy hell,” Miranda said.
The line went quiet. Faye heard whispering in the background. Miranda returned to the phone and spoke more gently. “Okay, Faye,” Miranda said calmly, “why don’t you pull over somewhere. You don’t sound capable of driving right now.”
“Maybe you should call an Uber?” Shulamit said.
“I’m fine,” Faye cried hysterically.
“I’m calling Nelly,” Miranda said.
“On it,” Shulamit said.
Miranda returned to the line. “Faye, listen to me, okay? It’s not good for you to be alone right now. We’re coming over.”
“No,” Faye said. “I don’t need anybody. I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine... all alone .”
Her hysterics reached epic proportions, when suddenly, in the glare of her headlights—between her tears, and the fog, and the rain—a lumbering figure appeared, tall and hulking, clearly lost in the darkness, crossing the road completely unaware.
Faye slammed on the brakes. The car came to a screeching halt, and the phone went flying, before a loud thump, followed by a slow and depressing rattle, sounded in the front of her vehicle. She had hit Greg with her car.
“Oh God,” Faye said, quickly putting her car into Park. “Oh God. Greg!”
Unbuckling her seat belt, she climbed from the car and raced towards him. Falling to her knees beside him, hands on his chest, she was relieved to see he was still breathing. “I didn’t mean to,” she said, totally incoherent, checking to see if anything was bleeding or broken. “I swear. I didn’t even see you there.”
Greg responded with a low moan before promptly passing out.