Crazygirl Falls in Love (28 page)

He starts to walk in the direction of the bar but I grab his
shoulder with my hand and swivel him back around,

“This conversation isn’t finished, Antonio. You owe Chloe an
apology, which will include grovelling and a bunch of flowers. A
mixture of lilies and gerberas should do the trick.”

“For fuck’s sake Penny, it was a joke. Comedians don’t have to
apologise for their jokes so neither should I.”

“Comedy is not your profession you knobhead. Why are you being
like this? Why are you being such a cock? I don’t understand why
you’re being such a cock!”

I’m close to tears as the anger and frustration and pain start
brimming to unbearable levels. Why? Why is he acting this way? Why
can’t be just admit he make a mistake and apologise? It feels like
my chance of making things right with Chloe is being forcibly and
maliciously stripped away.

I’m so upset I’ve barely registered the smirk disappear off
Antonio’s face, replaced by a scowl,

“You birds, you’re all the same. You go psycho when you don’t
get what you want. You don’t get a text back immediately, you go
crazy. We don’t invite you to meet our parents or say we love you
or give you a spare set of keys, you go crazy. Why can’t you just
get that we don’t give a shit? I don’t give a shit about Chloe, or
any girl. No guy does, and if you’ve deluded yourselves into
thinking a guy does care it’s because he’s pretending, because he
wants to get his dick wet. Eventually he’ll get bored and hook up
with someone younger and hotter anyway, so you need to get it
through your thick skulls that no guy gives a flying fuck about
you.”

As Antonio turns around a second time to go back inside,
something very strange happens to my body. I don’t know how to cope
with the nuclear fission levels of fury running through my system.
Overwhelmed, I feel the soles of my feet press down hard into the
ground. My knees bend.

Do it
, Satan-voice
urges.

And I do.

My body flies through the air as I launch myself into
Antonio’s waist, throwing him to the ground. He yells out as we
both hit the pebbled surface, both landing on our sides. His torso
cushions my fall a little and I see that his head was only
centimetres from whacking the edge of a tabletop. I could possibly
have killed him, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything
anymore. I am Zena, Warrior Princess, as I kick and scream and
punch and flail, shouting the vilest obscenities that come to
mind.

Antonio yells back and tries to hold back my arms, but I’m too
quick. I have no technique but figure so long as I jerk my limps
around wildly, kneeing and scratching and biting and clawing, he’s
bound to get hurt (hey, it works in Aussie Rules). And I want to
hurt him. My god I want to hurt him more than I’ve ever wanted
anything in my life.

It’s all over in a few seconds. Just as I’m
about to land a punch on his throat (a move I remember from
Rambo First Blood
) I feel
arms pulling me up, up, up and away. I’m panting as I struggle
against the Stranger’s arms. As I’m lifted I see every pair of eyes
in the beer garden is staring, along with people on the street who
have stopped as they walk past. A couple walking their cocker
spaniel stand with their mouths wide open. People sitting at tables
have stood up to get a better view. The window glass has faces
pressed against it, those still inside desperate to see what’s
going on. I don’t spot Emma in the sea faces.

I continue screaming as the Stranger grips me close to him
(funnily enough, in spooning position). I struggle to free myself.
Antonio stands quickly and wipes a smear of blood off his nostril.
He looks like he’s about to lose control himself,

“What the fuck Penny, have you lost your mind?!” he
yells.

I am about to yell back that I hate him,
that he’s a dick and that his days are numbered because I know the
address of a very efficient and resourceful cyanide dealer. I shut
my trap when in a moment of sanity I take in the fifty-plus
witnesses around us. Witnesses to what would be a declaration of
imminent bodily injury, also known as criminal threatening.
Breaking and entering might not lose me my practicing certificate,
but that
definitely
would.

Instead, I stop struggling. The Stranger’s vice like grip is
too strong. He feels my body relax and eases his hold a
little.

I give Antonio squinty Chihuahua eyes again,

“As you wander through this cynical joke you call a life, I
hope that one day, hopefully just a few seconds before you die, you
understand what caring about someone really means.”

He wipes a trickle of blood from his nose,

“Right, and I’ll be sure to catch
Love Actually
the next
time the telly’s on. Maybe I’ll invite your friend Chloe over and
we’ll cry together.”

“Oh fuck you Antonio!” I’m screaming again,
“besides, we hated
Love
Actually
. On what planet is it even
remotely acceptable to cheat on Emma Thomson?”

The Stranger feels my arms tense again (he hasn’t stopped
gripping them, guess he’s worried mama-sparrow will attack again).
He takes a firmer hold, squeezing my flesh so tight it hurts, and
says authoritatively,

“It is time to go.”

I curse my piddling physical strength as he lifts my body and
carries me effortlessly out the gate to the back street. I don’t
protest, but I avoid the eyes of the many onlookers. I’m too
embarrassed. There’s been way too much confrontation today. What
the hell is wrong with me?

The Stranger places me down on the pavement.

“Penelope, you are wild!” he says approvingly.

“Why didn’t you stick up for me?” I immediately interject,
“you think what Antonio did to Chloe was okay?”

He smiles that vacuous grin again,

“Antonio no understand. You tell him to do things one way, he
will still no understand. What is the point? It is okay Penelope.
Please, be happy again.”

“Have you no conscience at all? Do you
really think that this is the way life is supposed to be? The
way
relationships
are supposed to be?”

“Yes.”

I stand in shock.

“Why?” I say, aghast.

“Because it no matter. Nothing matter. We born, we live a
little, we die. If we just try to be happy, that is
enough.”

I stand in shock some more, then very quietly, so quietly I’m
not sure he hears, I tell him something that’s been sort of
haunting me since first coining his nickname all those months
ago,

“I’m not sure if I’m jealous of you inability to feel anything
but indifference, or if I pity you.”

I’m pretty sure he hasn’t understood because he replies
with,

“You have calm down, this is good. I go back inside, if you
want to come back later to my house, you send me message,
yes?”

He gives me a peck on the cheek and goes to pull away, but
seems to change his mind. He cups my face in both hands. He kisses
me smack bang full on the lips, and I’m hit with two emotions I’m
not prepared for. This overwhelming sadness that seems to sink my
whole body to the ground, and fury at myself because a few drops of
salty discharge have escaped from my undisciplined tear
ducts.

He straightens, confused, but doesn’t stop holding my
face.

Time to lay my cards out on the table.

“No Javier, that’s not going to happen. I like you so much,
but I’m not going to do this anymore. If I want to feel depressed,
or inferior, or emotionally damaged, I’ll just get Chloe to punch
me in the ovaries. I’m not going to do whatever this is
anymore.”

He nods his acceptance and a few more drops of salty discharge
escape my eyes. He releases my face from his strong hands, pats me
on the head as if I were a dog and walks back into the pub. Was it
just me, or did he look downcast, forlorn, for the most fleeting of
moments? It was so brief I know I’ll never be sure if it was real
or imagined. By the way he is sauntering off back to his mates, I’m
pretty sure it was imagined.

And then the worst thing imaginable happens.
Lizzy has emerged from behind David. She must have just arrived.
The Stranger ambles up to her and puts his arms around her
shoulders. While he wears his usual empty expression of blanket
happiness (
his
version of happiness, which I’m not convinced is all that
happy) she looks smug, the cat who got the cream. I can imagine
them all laughing at me, the silly, needy Crazygirl who can’t
control her temper.

And you know the worst part? Deep down I
always knew it was going to end badly, that I would be hurt, but
this particular ending is the most crushing one I could have
imagined. He has
literally
walked back into the arms of his old fuck
buddy.

I stand alone in the street, my side hurting
from landing heavily on the pebbles earlier. My left eye has begun
to throb a little and I feel like the world’s biggest failure.
Antonio is unrepentant. The Stranger doesn’t give a shit about me.
I’ve fixed nothing, only made things worse. No, not even worse.
I’ve managed to break my own heart by falling in love with someone
who I always knew couldn’t feel. This realisation isn’t so much
annoying as it is
DEVASTATING
for my sense of esteem. I’ve reached a point where
I’m breaking up with myself.

Stepping between two parked cars I squat and sit myself on the
edge of the curb. I hug my knees. With my bony limbs and dark eye
I’m thinking I must look a bit like Gollum wearing a blonde wig. I
feel my lower lip quiver. I tell myself to control it, swallow the
pain, man-up and stop being such a pussy, but it’s too late and I’m
crying into the gap between my knees. I cry for everything the
Stranger and I will never have. I cry for this seemingly unending
feeling of harrowing despondency that’s plagued me for I don’t know
how long. I’m in that grey area of grief.

Life doesn’t usually feel like a Kayne
West
‘That that don’t kill me, can only
make me stronger’
rap philosophy, does it?
Life is more like my brittle toothpick theory, where it wears you
down like the bombardment of waves on a cliff-face. Relentless,
unstoppable, ruthless Life Waves that won’t stop even after you
break and your rock pieces crumble into the water. And before you
ask, yes the mama sparrow and the hawk did live on a cliff, and
yes, all my natural world analogies come from that one David
Attenborough BBC1 documentary.

I’ve never felt more lonely and scared in my entire life. It
is exactly the worst possible moment possible for Emma to appear
hand in hand with Dublin.

She rushes out of the back gate and pulls me to my feet from
the curb,

“There you are! Juan told me what happened. Why would you do
something like that?” she says gently.

I don’t answer, glancing at Dublin instead,

“Can you please excuse us for a moment?” I narrow my eyes at
him.

“Sure,” he replies and walks back inside.

Once Dublin has left Emma looks at me, confused.

“You attacked Antonio?”

“You’re
still
seeing the married
guy?”

I know I should wait until I’m more
emotionally stable to have the ‘married guy’ heart to heart with
her. I know that right now I should probably just give her a hug
and take myself straight home, have a bath regardless of how filthy
the tub is, and call her later. I know that after everything that
happened this weekend I’m likely going a little nuts. I know it all
and yet I still can’t help myself. I want to tell her my view on
this situation
now
, right
now
,
this very moment. Why? I don’t know. Because it will make me feel
better? Not really. Because I want to help Emma? Not really, if
that was true I’d wait till later. Because I’ve always been pants
at communication despite working in the world’s most overly
articulated profession? Maybe.

Emma takes a small step backward but straightens her
shoulders, her body language declaring that she’s determined to
convince me I’m wrong,

“I told you, he’s
separated
.”

“Oh wake up Emma and smell the bacon!”

My voice is rising.
Why is my voice rising?

“What’s gotten into you?” she squeaks.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is what’s
happening right now - you are acting like a home wrecking
whore.”

Why did I just say that? Stop Satan, stop it right now. This
is my sister and I love her!

Emma is quiet for a moment before she replies,

“I cannot believe you just said that.”

“You realise that this guy has a
wife
? That they promised
to spend the rest of their lives together? They were probably going
to start a family soon and you’re doing exactly what that American
bitch did to you. How can you treat another woman like that after
what
Choda Boy
put
you through? It boggles my mind, Em, it really does. You don’t know
anything about Dublin, or his wife. She might still love him and
want to make it work, and you’re sabotaging that. Do you even know
if he has kids? You’re willing to risk everything for a man you
barely know.”