chapter eight One Long Catastrophe of Cringe Humour
chapter eight
One Long Catastrophe of Cringe Humour
“This place is . . . cute,” Lex offers as she assesses my basement suite while turning in a slow circle.
“Thanks,” I say, popping a bottle of Shiraz. “I sold my car when I left Calgary, so I needed a place within walking distance
to the SkyTrain. It’s a little inconvenient, but it’s better for the environment. And my wallet.”
“That’s thoughtful of you,” Lex comments as she takes her full glass.
Winston claims his usual spot on the couch and Lex and I join him, one on either side. I take a moment to order a pizza from
the Italian restaurant down the street before turning on Netflix and navigating to another Ben Stiller rom-com for background
noise.
Lex sips her wine. “I haven’t seen this movie in years.”
“I’ve seen it like ten times.” I wish I were joking.
She crinkles her nose. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
I shrug. “I love rewatching movies. It soothes me.”
“Fair enough. But why this when you could watch like, I don’t know, anything else?”
“What! You don’t like Meet the Parents?”
Lex’s lip twitches. “Cringe humour gives me the ick.”
“Well, if that’s the case then our friendship should probably end here. My whole life is one long catastrophe of cringe humour.”
I take a big gulp of wine.
When Lex doesn’t reply, I glance over and catch her looking at me with her big blue eyes all wide and round.
“What?” I ask, my shoulders raising an inch.
“You said friendship,” she states, pressing a hand to her chest like she’s touched.
I laugh, relieved. “I think a friendship becomes official somewhere between drinking wine together and emergency hospital
trips.”
She nods. “True.”
I reach my glass over Winston, who snores quietly between us. “Cheers to that.”
She clinks her glass against mine, making it official, and a wave of giddiness rises in my belly. Finally, a friend! A super
weird way of making a friend, but I’m not in the position to question it. And as far as friends go, I got lucky with Lex.
She’s cute and sort of funny and incredibly smart. A little skeptical, but the longer she’s with me the more she’ll witness
the catastrophe that is my life, and then she won’t be able to deny the reality of the curse.
Lex turns on the couch to face me, tucking her feet against herself so she doesn’t disturb Winston. “Does the awkward problem
extend to your friends too, or is it just your romantic relationships?”
I look up as I ponder her question, running through my small Rolodex of friendships through the years since high school. “Just
romantic relationships.”
Lex’s short fingernails tap on her glass. “I need more data. Do you have a spare notebook?”
I groan. “Are you seriously going to make me get off the couch?”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s asking for help here.”
“Actually, I didn’t ask for help. I’ve long ago accepted that my life is cursed and I’m destined to die alone.” I give Lex
a wink to let her know I’m only half joking, then leave momentarily to track down something for her to write with. All I have
is an old notepad from some plumbing company that was left in a drawer from a previous tenant. I hand it over to her, along
with a pen I’d accidentally stolen from the local pub’s trivia night, and settle back into my spot.
Lex jots a few things down. Her handwriting is almost as indecipherable as a doctor’s. Maybe she learned that scrawling script
from her brother’s time in med school. “So,” she begins, pen poised, sharp blue eyes refocusing on me. “How long has this
‘awkward thing’ been going on?”
“Since I lost my virginity,” I state plainly.
Her brows shoot up. “Really? And when was that?”
I avoid her gaze, focusing on Winston instead. Why do I suddenly feel like I’m in a therapy session? And why don’t more therapists
have comfort animals? “High school. Senior year.”
“Wow.” She sets her pen down for a moment, but I avoid her piercing stare. “You’ve literally never had a normal sexual experience?”
I shake my head. “Nope.”
“Damn. I’m sorry.”
The silence stretches on, save for Winston’s snoring and Ben Stiller rambling about milking cats.
“Do you . . . want to talk about it?” Lex ventures.
I shake my head. “I’d rather not relive it.”
Lex nods, understanding. I look up, but I can’t stand the sad look on her face, those big pitying eyes.
Time to change the subject. I nudge her with my foot and force a smile.
“Don’t worry, I have lots of other stories to regale you with.
And I promise I’ll tell you that story one day.
I just don’t want to get into it tonight. ”
Though, I hope she’ll forget about it. Remembering that terrible night and the domino effect it’s had on my life, how it destroyed
all my friendships and pushed everyone I cared about away, forcing me to start over all alone without a friend in the world,
is the last thing I want to do. Besides, Lex just became my friend—my only friend since moving here. Our relationship is as fresh and shaky as a newborn calf stumbling around on long, spindly legs.
If she knew the true depths of my curse and how it came to be, our friendship may not survive it.
No. That story can wait. Preferably forever.
“Okay, so it started with your virginity,” Lex reiterates, writing it down. “And it’s been every relationship since?”
“Yep.”
“And have you noticed any trends? Like, for example, the sexier a guy is the more awkward the date is?”
I think a long moment. “Honestly I never thought about it before.”
Lex taps her pen against her bottom lip, then jots down a note. “And you mentioned you don’t get a lot of second dates. So
have you never been in love?”
That’s an easy question. “Nope.”
She stares at me, as if she can’t quite grasp my reality. “But you’re what, around my age, right?”
“Twenty-eight,” I confirm.
“I’m thirty-two,” she says, more to herself than to me.
I run the tip of my finger along my near-empty wineglass. “My awkwardness just pushes everyone away.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“How about you?” I ask, desperate to shift her focus. “I mean, aside from your ex-husband, who I’m sure you used to love.”
Lex contemplates my question for a moment. “I still love him, in my own way. Not a romantic love anymore, of course, but he’s
still the father of my child, and he’s a wonderful father.”
“I’m happy to hear that.” Sounds like they’ve had an amicable separation if she harbours no ill will.
“I suppose I’ve fallen a little bit in love with all of my partners through the years,” she muses. “I don’t necessarily think
love is something finite, to be held by one person and one person only. I think it grows and shifts and changes depending
on where you are in life, who you’re with, and what you need in that moment.”
I lean closer, hanging on her words.
Lex continues. “I think society’s definition of love is more about ownership rather than really understanding or caring for
someone else. Real love, I think, is truly accepting someone for who they are—all their imperfections and flaws and weirdness
and awkwardness.” Lex glances at me as her cheeks turn pink.
Warmth floods my chest as I try to imagine an all-encompassing love like that. What would it be like to be truly accepted,
coveted, held within someone’s mind with such reverence? I never thought the type of love Lex described was possible. But
now it’s all I want.
I place my hand on Lex’s knee, trying to find words even remotely as insightful as what she just professed. “That’s really
beautiful,” I manage, my throat tight.
Lex’s eyes search mine, seeing far past the surface, boring somewhere deep down to a hidden, locked-away place where even
I don’t like to venture. I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry. I lick my lips, and Lex’s eyes follow . . .
The doorbell rings.
Winston explodes into a flurry of grey fur and erratic barking, leaping from his place on my lap to the floor and knocking
the bottle of wine off the coffee table as he races to the door.
Lex and I spring into action to grab the wine and mitigate the spill as a large mulberry stain spreads across the beige surface
of my carpet. After wrangling the dog, going upstairs to grab the pizza, and ultimately accepting my carpet will be stained
forever, we finally resettle back on the couch.
“Well, that was intense. Cheers,” I say, a little out of breath while hoisting a floppy slice of pepperoni and mushroom toward
Lex. Lex gives her head a shake, but cheers me with her own slice nonetheless. Winston whines at the edge of the couch. “No
pizza for you,” I say to him firmly. “Your poor little guts would never recover.”
Lex sucks in air through her teeth. “I may have already fed him a bit of cheese.”
My mouth drops open in faux distress. I don a posh British accent and press a hand to my chest. “Feeding a lady’s dog, without
her express permission?”
Lex smiles while trying to hide her dimples. “Sorry, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”
“You will be forgiven if you admit that I’m cursed.”
Lex fits me with a look. “I wouldn’t stoop to that level.”
I laugh. “Ouch.”
“But!” she says, before pausing to take a bite of pizza, chew, and swallow. “I do think I have enough background information,
and we can move on to phase two.”
“Ooh,” I say, sitting up a bit straighter. “There are multiple phases?”
Lex ignores my comment. “I’m a fact person. I live and die by numbers and statistics. It’s my job to gather data and decipher
trends. And I’m really fucking good at my job.”
“Damn, girl. Should we cheers to that, too?” I top up both our glasses with the remainder of the unspilled wine.
Lex gives her head a shake. “What is with your obsession with cheersing?”
I shrug. “Gotta keep the positivity alive. Anyway, keep talking. You were going on about how you’re a badass bitch.”
Lex opens her mouth to speak, pauses to fit me with a look of did you really just say that?, then continues with the point she was trying to make. “I think we should do the same thing I do at my job but to your personal
life. We gather as much data as we can on a number of different factors, such as length of time before a date becomes awkward,