Listen for the Lie

by Amy Tintera

“Are you drunk?” “Lucy, it is two o’clock in the afternoon. Of course I’m not drunk.” She pauses. “I’m merely slightly tipsy.”

An insult doesn’t have the intended impact when spelled incorrectly. I’d reply to let them know, but, in my experience, dumbasses don’t appreciate having their spelling corrected.

And this is where Texas is no longer as expected. It’s very green. I guess I thought it was a desert. And just to really prove that I’m an idiot, it starts raining so hard that I have to pull over onto the shoulder for several minutes because I can’t see the road. It’s raining like the apocalypse is nigh,

Running until I can’t think is the only way I stay sane, most days. Well, relatively sane.

I offered to pick up Grandma so she could join us, but she claimed exhaustion and told me to come over in the morning. “Exhausted means drunk,” Mom helpfully explained when I got off the phone.

Like my Nanie says, “Oh, no mija, it’s just the ‘flu.’” 😉

Texans are nothing if not polite (to your face).

People believe men. Especially men who look like that.

“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.

Men don’t protect us, not really. They only protect themselves, or each other. The only thing men ever protected me from was happiness.”

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.

She was twenty years old. No one wants their grandma weighing in on their boyfriend at that age. At any age, honestly. So, I kept my mouth shut until they got engaged.

Shout out to Mom, Nanie, my bestie’s Mom, my Bestie’s grandma, and all my Tías — you were right but I did not want to hear it 🙃

I really started to worry at that point. If that was something he’d say to his wife’s father, what sorts of things must he be thinking? Or saying to Lucy?

I just told everyone about the horrible things he said. If he didn’t want them out there, he shouldn’t have said them.”

“They talk and talk and sometimes it’s horrible, but that’s the way they are. It doesn’t mean anything.” “Of course it means something,” Grandma says. “They wouldn’t say it if it didn’t mean something.

She didn’t take my hand and gently suggest we march down to the police station. She didn’t ask, “Why don’t you just leave?” She said, “That’s usually when men kill the woman. When they try to leave.” And I said, “I actually don’t think Matt would do that.” “Is that really a risk you want to take?” she’d asked.

I glance at his drink, which is pink. “Is that a cosmo?” “Why do you say it like that? Cosmos are delicious. And they’re the happy hour special.”

Heck yeah, drink what you want!

“We are talking about her.” “We’re supposed to be subtle about it. It’s the Texas way.”

“Is it ever safe to confront a man about being a dick?” “No.” He says it like he has experience with this, which is unsurprising. “It’s not.”

“In Texas, you can record audio of people without their knowledge if there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy. So, in a restaurant, or a bar, or…”

they were portraying the guy to be this total monster, and that wasn’t what those guys are usually like.

She’s one of those women who can do an effortless messy bun, and I dislike that about her.

Same girl 😔

You can’t make people accept that they have a problem, you know? They have to come to it themselves.

Oh, Pops, Mom and I really tried. 😕

I think I might have left earlier, had I not been so confused about how I ended up in that situation.

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.

If you’re going to hold grudges about things from when you were a kid, you’re gonna spend your whole life angry, you know?