Page 90 of Alone With You in the Ether

“Would you like to?”

“Jesus.”

“Admit it, Regan, he can’t give you the things I can.”

“You think your dick is special, Marcus? Because it isn’t, it’s just a dick.”

If Aldo were here, Regan thought, he’d say something about how sex was a simple formula. It wasn’t even complex math, that crazy shit with functions. It was just penetration plus clitoral stimulation, easy. Nothing was easier. Marc babysat rich pricks for a living, Aldo solved the mysteries of the universe. Where the fuck was the comparison?

“I thought you wanted things to end amicably. Didn’t you say you wanted to be friends?”

“That’s just what people say, Marc. I’ve never been amicable in my entire life.”

“Look how mad you are, it’s adorable. Insecure about your relationship already, Regan?”

Great. Now he was psychoanalyzing her.

She said nothing.

“I told you, Regan, he only seems like a good idea. You just like theideaof him. But eventually you’ll remember that we’re not an idea, we’re real. Eventually you’ll get tired of working so hard at being whatever the professor wants you to be.”

“He doesn’t want me to be anything.”

“Oh, sure,” Marc laughed, “he loves you the way you are, of course. Because he doesn’t fucking know what you are.”

“And what am I?”

“I don’t know, nobody knows, but he certainly doesn’t fucking know.”

She felt a rage she didn’t understand; an anger she didn’t know how to direct.

“Just wait, Regan, until he figures you out. You’re complicated at first, unpredictable, exciting, but eventually you’re just a pattern. You feel something, you lash out. You get soft again, you don’t want to be alone, then you’re Dream Girl all over again. You think you want sex? You don’twantit, Regan, youneedit. You need it to remind you that somebody loves you, and you won’t believe that unless there’s sex involved. That’s it, that’s everything there is to you, isn’t there? You need to be loved, you need someone to believe you’re perfect, you hate being reminded you have flaws. I already figured it out, so you needed someone else. Someone new. And whenhefigures you out, you’ll just find someone else. You fucking love the con, Regan. You love the con, but the con doesn’t love you, you’re not good enough at it. Your game is a lot less fun when it’s the same shit over and over.”

Marc said all that, or she thought he said it. The words went in and out of her head and when he was gone, she still hadn’t said anything. She went outside, fumbling for her phone, and she called Aldo.

“I’m not a game,” she told him.

“I know you’re not a game,” he said, confused, and then, “Where are you?”

She’d created an emergency, she realized, abruptly shameful. She’d done it, she’d staged it, just like she said she would. Fuck, she really was predictable.

“I’m going home,” she said. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I just wanted to hear your voice.”

She’d diffused the situation. Good job, Regan. Another day for him to believe you’re something close to sane.

“I love you,” Aldo said.

Marc used to say that, she thought.

“I love you. Come home soon.”

“I’ll come home tomorrow if you want. My dad’s fine, and anyway he’s busy with the restaurant.”

“No, I’m… I’m fine, Aldo, it’s okay.”

Aldo, I cry when it rains, I pick fights sometimes, I don’t know why. I look at the sky and feel this inexplicable sense of dread. I’m afraid that everything will end; are you ever afraid like that? No, you’re never afraid, you have numbers and thoughts and your genius to keep you warm. You don’t need me, I need you, and it will always be like that, unequal like that. I will always cling to you in gratitude and you will always be kind, you’re just made that way. You’ll let me do it but eventually I will make you unhappy, and then it will be on me to leave, because you are much too good to give me the ending we both know I deserve.

“Can I just come back there?” she asked, a little timidly, and he laughed.

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