Play Nice

by Rachel Harrison

Behind every crazy woman is a man sitting very quietly, saying, “What? I’m not doing anything.”

But the easiest way to tell who a man really is, is to injure his ego and see how he reacts.

Daphne once described him as having the sex appeal of a raisin—but

I wonder if love can be ugly. If it can do the wrong thing. Bad things. I wonder if it can ever really die.

proceeds to tell me all about it with such enthusiasm that I’m tempted to record him so I can watch this whenever I want to experience joy again.

That’s why she loved me most, I think. I bear no resemblance to Dad. She could look at me and see none of him. Not have to be reminded of the man who hurt her.

The disdain on her face flips my stomach, sends a legitimate chill up my spine. The temperature of the entire planet drops. The ice caps experience fleeting relief.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I say, putting my shoes back on. It’s fine if Helen wants to lecture me—I figured she would—but I need to signal to her that I can up and leave whenever. That listening is my choice. The power in this moment belongs to me.

I recognize myself in her face, her expression, and it’s exhilarating. This is the magic of family. The sense that you’re not alone in the universe, in your body, because there’s someone else out there who shares your DNA, who’s made up of the same stuff you’re made of.

But so often, being right means nothing but winning a round of a losing game.

Men are all the same, Mom once told us, but it’s the ones who try the hardest to convince you that they’re good that you really have to watch out for.

She doesn’t have the energy. Plus, she sucks at fighting. She prefers peace.

Dad and Amy were cool about Daphne, but I always suspected they would take my not being totally straight as proof that Alexandra turned us into man-haters. Which she tried. But I love men. I just don’t trust or respect them.

One person’s truth is another’s fiction.

He’s dressed in gray sweatpants and a black tank. He has a delicate gold chain around his neck. The uniform of a douchebag. His saving grace are his Vans. If he had on Nikes, it’d be game over.

Also promising—his sweatpants look like they could be from Costco. They’re not designer sweatpants. There’s a direct correlation between men who wear designer sweatpants and men who can’t make me come. I’ve done the unfortunate research.

she and Tommy probably share a nightcap of MiraLAX and pass out by nine thirty.

His excuse is total nonsense; no one on earth would ever be in a rush for Amy’s cooking.

Lol

I don’t envy her life, but sometimes I envy her contentment in it.

Men are never selfish. They’re smart. Women are always selfish. You want to be single? Selfish. You’re a wife and mother and do anything other than dote on your husband and children? Selfish. I want you and your sisters to learn to take that word as a compliment. Anyone who says that to you is trying to discourage you from doing what you want. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.

It just makes me wonder about belief and delusion. What’s the difference there, really? Maybe delusion is an eagerness to believe. A desperation for it.

Yes, the house scares me. But nothing scares me as much as the idea that I might become one of those tragic, boring, would-never people.

I fit in so well here, I wonder how my photo isn’t already on the wall.

He reeks of antiseptic and old lady perfume and diner, and I wish I could bottle it—his scent right now—and the way it feels to be held when I’m afraid.

It did communicate with me, but not my way. Its way. On its terms. The way it wanted to communicate.

Everyone in my life wants me to behave in a very specific way that’s beneficial to them, and as soon as I deviate from their expectations, it’s an issue. As soon as I act out of whatever role they cast me in in their lives, it’s somehow my fault.

My memories. It kept them for me. Or from me. So I would come back.

This being in front of me is what it is, and it cannot change. It lives in this place amid the damage and the chaos it reaps just by existing, and it breaks my heart because it’s so familiar to me. I love it and I hate it, and I admire it, aspire to be it, and I resent everything about it that I recognize within myself.

It allows me to leave, but I’m not sure it will ever let me go.

I remember flirting with Ethan at Veronica’s launch party. Lucky to live with scars, I said. And he said, Better to live without.

Remembering is not always a light shone into darkness. Sometimes it’s a claw reaching out and dragging you back.

“Some lessons can only be taught by regret.”

I accept that it exists. That there’s a being out there that wants my attention, my energy, my best, my worst. My joy. My pain. That’s taken from me and would continue to take should I allow it, should I continue to dance with it,

There’s a being out there that would fuck with me just because it can, with no consequences. Because it’s bored. Just because.

I look at Aunt Helen and the beautiful view beyond her, and I inhale the scent of coffee and tobacco and a new day. That magic morning smell. It’s hope, is what it is. Hope for whatever comes next.

Or maybe he didn’t want to hurt her, but he was just fine watching her hurt herself.

forgiveness is a different beast.

Our demons are ours and ours alone.

But I have no regrets, because I know now that she wasn’t crazy. I’m not sure anyone is. I think it’s just easier to call someone crazy than it is to admit that they could be right. Easier to call someone crazy than to confront the nuance of their circumstance, than to accept the callous cruelty that exists in the world we live in, the evil out there that revels in our suffering.

They say ignorance is bliss, and, yeah, maybe, but it’s still fucking ignorance.