Here We Go Again

by Alison Cochrun

So, before her next date, she listened to “Bitch” on repeat for thirty minutes, screaming the lyrics to herself. Incidentally, she never developed a second-date routine.

“I never read The Secret Garden. I don’t fuck with hetero books.” “No, you just fuck with every queer woman in a thirty-mile radius.”

Logan has a theory. There are two types of high school teachers: the teachers who had such a great time in high school that they never wanted to leave, and teachers who were so miserable in high school they came back to try to make things a little better for the next generation.

Despite the kimono and the Shania Twain and stereotypes to the contrary, her dad is, unfortunately, heterosexual, and intent on remaining that way.

“Do you remember when you girls used to play Barbies for hours?” “It was middle school, Dad. We didn’t play Barbies. We dressed them up and wrote their character backstories.”

“Are you ready to Thelma and Louise this shit?” Joe beams at her. “Does that make me a Mexican Brad Pitt?” “There are some sexual connotations there that I’m quite uncomfortable with, but if you want to be Brad Pitt, you can be Brad Pitt. It’s your death trip.”

Hale pulls out a Tupperware of baby carrots from the cooler and begins taking the world’s tiniest bites, like a bunny with generalized anxiety disorder.

“Life is the prickly pear. It’s always going to be a combination of beauty and hurt, no matter how hard you try to protect yourself from the hard parts. There is no way to avoid pain.”

Rosemary fucking kissed her. Hot diggity dog, indeed.

Yesterday, kissing Logan in the rain felt like writing when the words were good. It felt like everything inside her was clicking together, instinct and art melding in her fingertips, like that was the thing she was put on this earth to do. Write stories and kiss Logan Maletis.

Joe keeps wiggling forward in his chair until he can reach her. “I love every damn hair on your head, young lady. Even the slutty ones.”

“I don’t want to celebrate the Fourth of July.” Logan shudders. “America is being a shady bitch, and I’m not going to her birthday party.”

“I haven’t been to a drag show in over thirty years. Drag shows were supposed to be a place where we were safe. A place where we could escape their hate and love ourselves. But they don’t want us to love ourselves, not even behind closed doors. And that’s hard for me because I love safety.”

Women never want to get to know her. That’s not the point of her. Logan is long legs and big boobs, a fun time, always down for a party and a good fuck. But Rosemary. Rosemary just wants to hold her damn hand and read chapters of her book aloud and look at her like she’s doing right now in this tacky church basement. Her blue eyes shining like sapphires and her expression so open, it makes Logan dizzy.

Logan is going to jump off the ship into dangerous waters for this brave woman. She’s going to chase this siren song all the way to her demise. She let herself care, and now she cares so much, she’ll never recover, never again be able to hide behind her mask of apathy.

“My prickly pear, you’re safe with me. You can stop working so hard to protect yourself.”

“I… I don’t know how to love halfway,” she reasons aloud. “I don’t know how to care just a little bit. If I let myself care at all, I’m going to care with every ounce of my being. And if I do that, and I lose them, it will hurt like hell.”

If nothing can destroy you, Logan, then what’s the point?”

This is love. Love is seeing perfection in every flaw. Seeing every flaw as a miracle because it belongs to the person you care about most. Love is saying, yes, still. Even after all these years.

Something thumps upstairs, like Logan is dragging something heavy across the floor. Maybe a dead body. Or the baggage containing all her abandonment issues.

“You… you love me?” “I did and I do and I always will,” Logan says plainly.

“There is no way around the pain,” Logan tells. “We’ve got to go through it. Please go through it with me.”

“If you don’t need me for playlists, then what am I even contributing to this relationship?” “You can reach the high cupboards in the kitchen and you kill all the spiders.” “That’s it?” Logan deadpans. “You only keep me around because I’m tall and slightly less afraid of spiders than you?” “No, Pear, of course not.” Rosemary leans over to massage her shoulder. “You’re also really good at cunnilingus.”