22. Rule #21
REMEMBER, SOME SEEDS ONLY SPROUT AFTER A HURRICANE
CAI
As I walk back to my parents’ house, I spot Crispi dragging downed branches into a pile by the house.
“Holy shit,” he says when he sees me approaching. “You actually came back.”
“Yeah, duh. I told you I would,” I say, rolling my eyes.
Crispi shrugs. “Yeah, but I figured you meant way later, or you would’ve gotten distracted or something. You know how you are.”
“Oh my God, Crispi. I don’t always go MIA when I say I’ll be back…”
“Holy crap, you’re back!” Alex calls as she walks up, sounding genuinely surprised.
“See!” Crispi exclaims, suddenly vindicated. “Told you!”
Their reaction stings more than I would’ve expected. “There have not even been that many times when I have ever gone to meet a guy in my life for this to be a thing.”
It’s Alex’s turn to shrug. “Enough times that it made an impression.”
“Well, don’t worry,” I mutter. “I’ll be gone soon, so you won’t have to deal with my annoying comings and goings anymore.”
Both of them threw their hands up at the same time.
“Why do you have to go there?” Alex asks. “Did anyone say that we wanted you to leave? Can you stop being such a drama queen?”
There it is. The family’s second favorite insult for me. “I’m not being a drama queen,” I say. “I think I’m calmly pointing out that you guys like to generalize everything I do as if it’s my entire personality.”
Cripi sighs. “Fine. You’re not dramatic. You’re just the perpetual victim.”
“That’s worse!” I fire back.
“Then stop making everything about you!” He retorts.
“Look, we all get teased. Alex gets roasted for being obsessed with her hair and is super grossed out by feet. I get teased for never getting married and for always wasting money on stupid gadgets. We all have our thing. You are the only one who acts like this is all some personal conspiracy against you. You want to be treated the same? This is us, treating you the same.”
The words land like a slap. I open my mouth, but then close it. He is absolutely right. I have been making it all about me. I can feel my face flush, ashamed of my reaction.
Alex speaks in a gentle tone, no doubt noticing my distress, “The thing is you are really sensitive about that stuff, so probably it affects you more. But that doesn’t mean you care more or we care less.
Like, it really bothers me that you ghost us whenever you get into a relationship.
And that you moved away, and we barely ever see you. That sucks.”
I feel tears prick my eyes for a completely different reason now. “You do?”
“Yeah, duh,” Alex says, suddenly looking embarrassed. “Shut up.”
I smile despite myself. Crispi adds, “I guess Sonny was right.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told us during the hurricane that you’d love to hear that we wanted you around more. says you didn’t realize it. He’s a good dude.”
He really is.
A good dude I watched drive away, thinking I was still hung up on some loser I should never have been with in the first place. I want to throw up at the memory of our exchange. The ache in my chest sharpens.
“I need to tell you, guys, something,” I say, the confession suddenly burning to get out.
Alex perks up at the smell of gossip, but Crispi throws up his hands. “Wait! First, we finish clearing all the debris. Then we can have your little confessional or whatever. Deal?”
I nod.
“Fine,” Alex says, already turning back to the branches. “But first, tell me, what did you mean when you said I was obsessed with my hair?”
SONNY
I lasted less than an hour back in Arizona before I caved and called my friend John. I thought about getting more work done, but after the character-development embarrassment, I figured I needed to purge Cai from my system before I do something stupid like getting her name tattooed on me.
He answers with zero greeting. “Holy shit. Is this a butt dial? Did the apocalypse finally happen, and you need me to teach you how to talk to women before society collapses? Are you still in Miami?”
I rub my temple. “I’m back. You free tonight? I was thinking… maybe we could go out. Grab drinks. I don’t know… meet some people?”
Dead silence.
Then John absolutely loses it. He laughs so hard I have to pull the phone away from my ear.
“Wait—you? Mr. ‘I’d rather debug legacy code than make eye contact with a stranger’ wants me to take him out on the prowl? Bro. Did you get hit by lightning down in Miami? Did a palm tree fall on your head?”
I sigh. “Just… take me out. Please.”
A few hours later, we are at a crowded rooftop bar downtown. John is in his element, scanning the crowd like a predator. I’m nursing a whiskey and feeling like I’d made a terrible mistake.
True to his word before we came in, John doesn’t pressure me to tell him more about this uncharacteristic outing. I figured this was just the distraction I needed, but the task seems trickier than I thought.
“Okay, target acquired,” John says, nodding toward a group of women near the bar. “Red dress, ten o’clock. She’s cute. Go.”
I look. She is pretty. Tall, confident, nice smile.
But her hair is straight and sleek. I’m looking for something wilder and curlier, that looks like it has just survived a wind tunnel.
“Too polished,” I mutter. “Her hair should have… personality. Like it’s been through three boss fights and still looks amazing.”
John slowly turns to me. “You’ve been here eight minutes, and you’re already being difficult?”
I took another sip. “I’m just saying.”
A few minutes later, another woman smiles at me as she orders a drink. Brunette, great laugh.
John nudges me. “She’s into you. Go say hi.”
I watch her laugh again. It’s nice. Polite. Controlled.
“Her laugh should be louder,” I say. “Like she can’t help it. It takes over the whole room.”
John pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus Christ.”
By the third attempt, a woman who comes over to ask what I’m drinking, I am fully done even pretending to be interested.
“She was wearing too much makeup,” I observe. “I want a girl who doesn’t try so hard. Like she’s comfortable in her own skin. That’s… really hot.”
John stares at me in disbelief. “We’ve been here forty minutes now, and you’ve rejected three perfectly nice women because none of them are meeting these weirdly specific criteria. You’re not even trying.”
“I am trying,” I protest weakly. “I just… keep seeing her. The way she gets all flustered when she’s lying. The way she lights up when she talks about stories. How she hugged me like she was afraid I’d vanish.”
John is quiet for a second. Then he sighs, long and dramatically.
“Bro. You’ve got it bad. Like, ‘I’m going to write her name in my game code’ bad.”
I wince. “Already did that part. Her name’s Cai, by the way, and it’s complicated. She’s got a whole messy situation with her ex, and I didn’t want to be the rebound guy. Or the rich-guy-she-only-wants-now-that-she-knows-who-I-am-guy. So I left.”
“Damn,” John says, real sympathy in his eyes. “You really liked her, huh?”
“Yeah,” I swallow. “I really did.” I stared at the amber liquid in my glass as if the answer to my predicament might lie at the bottom.
“Okay. New plan. We’re not picking up women tonight. We’re getting you another drink, and you’re telling me the whole story about this girl who ruined you for everyone else. And then tomorrow I’m helping you figure out how the hell you’re going to fix this.”
I smiled despite myself. “Yeah. Okay.”