Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera

Let this be a lesson to all the men out there who can’t handle conflict—man up and dump your girlfriend, or you might end up living with a suspected murderer indefinitely.

I’d be lying if I said that Brewster’s little furry yellow Lab face didn’t factor into my decision to keep living with this man. He may be a deeply average dude, but he has great taste in dogs.

Men are such babies. They’re too scared to actually break up with you, so they just get mean or fade away until you get mad and dump them.

Fuck, he reminds me of my father. Wonderful. My therapist is going to love this.

else? Stephanie: Because they were young, for sure. At that age, it seems fun to have someone who is your opposite. Later, you realize that it’s exhausting. You want someone who brings peace to your life, not someone you’re always at odds with. Matt and Lucy were at odds.

“I should have controlled my temper,” I said softly. I should have just cried. Taken the hits and crawled away to show my scars. I should have been a better victim. The truth doesn’t matter if you fight back.

“You can’t ignore the past forever.”

I needed to be transferred straight from father to husband, or something terrible might happen to me.” She takes a long sip of her drink. “My life vastly improved once both those men were gone. Men don’t protect us, not really. They only protect themselves, or each other. The only thing men ever protected me from was happiness.”

She was a real no-nonsense girl. Just didn’t have time for any shit, you know? I’ve always admired that about her. I was so concerned with whether or not everyone liked me at that age. And people hate that quality in a young woman, don’t

they? They don’t know what to do with a girl who isn’t looking for their approval. They feel like they have to bring her down a peg.

In the end, life is just sweatpants and children who resent you and all your choices. But no one wants to hear that.

I miss Savvy so much that it physically hurts.

You can’t make people accept that they have a problem, you know?

People don’t believe women who fight back. When a man lashes out, people say he’s lost control of his temper or made a terrible mistake. When a woman does it, she’s a psychopath.

there’s no pleasing people. If they’re determined to think the worst of you, they will.”