Sylvie
“That’s a low blow.”
“Is it?” he asks. “Because I feel like, I don’t know, nine hours ago I was finally getting the truth of your situation with Cal. And I don’t remember treating you like you’re treating me now.”
I want to murder him. “Forgive me, I forgot I was talking to an actual saint, shiny halo screwed on, aw shucks, who me?, just innocent babe in the woods! Me, ’Munk?
I’m a guy who’s happy to equate my not wanting to talk about my dead boyfriend that you never met with your knowing the girl who stole from me and shoved me to the ground. ”
My God, I think. Do I hate him for forgiving me?
“Wow,” he’s saying, “okay, Sylvie,” dismissive, and he’s clearly just ramping up, and there’s something in it, in the jut of his chin and the way his good hand comes up just a hair, and I’m back in last year, Cal patting my knee after I cracked a joke about the stupid movie he made me watch, not laughing and patting my knee to reassure me that it’s okay he’s not laughing, it’s okay that he thinks I’m not funny, he in fact knows funny, he’s the judge, jury, and executioner of funny, and—
Outside a dog is barking, barking, barking. “Shut up,” I say, and I don’t know if I’m talking to Cal or the dog. “Shut up! Fine, we both suck! I get it!”
“What?”
“Just leave me alone, Knox!”
“And go—”
“Go do all the things you’ve been threatening to do!
Go live your authentic little existence, go be My Side of the Whatever and, like, skin a deer!
Go cross Alaska with a hatchet! Go be a saint and let me just stay here and be this terrible person alone if the way I’m treating you hurts you so much.
” Saying it feels like ripping a bandage off, that physical.
He’s fumbling for the door handle.
“’Munk,” I say, and I hate the way it sounds. “They called you ’Munk.” But he’s already walking away.