Page 122 of Tell Me What You Want, Or Leave Me

“Talk to me.”

“No, you’d better talk to me, dickhead!”

“It’s been so long since I’ve heard that sweet word out of your mouth,” he says, dripping with sarcasm. “It’s a pity not to be able to see it live and in person.”

He’s drunk again. But I want to stay focused.

“How can you be such a dickhead that you believe Laila?”

I notice his breathing changes. He must be tired.

“And how do you know Laila said anything?”

“Because news flies faster than you think,” I reply coldly.

Silence.

A tense silence.

It’s killing me.

“I haven’t talked to my good friend Björn yet. I’ll wait to chat with him face to face, but—”

“You don’t have to talk to him about any of this, because nothing has ever happened between us. Björn is your best friend and a great guy. I don’t know how you can distrust him, how you can believe there’s anything between him and me other than friendship.”

I quickly identify the bar sounds behind him.

“Oh, Judith, how you defend him. How tender,” Eric says.

“I defend him because you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe I know too much.”

“What do you know? Tell me!” I cry. “Because, as far as I know, he and I have only been together with your consent and, more than anything else, under your supervision.”

“Are you sure, Judith?” he asks in a tone that baffles me.

“I’m sure, Eric. Very sure.”

You can cut the tension with a knife.

“Where are you?”

“Out drinking. It’s the best thing I can do to forget.”

“Eric...”

“What a disappointment. I thought you were unique and unrepeatable, but—”

“Don’t tell me again what you once told me that caused our breakup,” I exclaim. “Hold your tongue, you damned dickhead, or I swear to you—”

“Or you swear what?”

His voice, his tone, tell me he’s beside himself.

“I don’t understand how you can believe such a thing,” I say, trying to calm him. “You know I love you.”

“I have evidence,” he says furiously. “I have evidence, and neither of you will be able to deny it.”

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