Page 10 of It's Me They Follow
GEE:You said you wanted me to help you write your book.
YOUKNOWWHO:I didn’t want you to write it with me; I want you to write it for me.
GEE:But you were my ride home.
YOUKNOWWHO:I left you the bus fare.
GEE:I can’t ride a crowded bus.
YOUKNOWWHO:Ahh, get over yourself before I tap you and knock you out.
Or
Option B
YOUKNOWWHO:Can I use your shop for tonight?
GEE:It’s not open yet.
YOUKNOWWHO:I know. I wanted to throw a kickback in that jawn. Start getting your name out there.
GEE:No thanks.
YOUKNOWWHO:You never let anyone help you, then you wonder why you can’t be helped.
GEE:That’s just not the kind of help I need.
YOUKNOWWHO:Nobody can give you the kind of help you need.
GEE:Really?
Or
Option C
YOUKNOWWHO:What’s your blood type?
GEE:Why?
YOUKNOWWHO:I might need a kidney for real. You know kidney failure runs in my family.
GEE:A whole kidney?
YOUKNOWWHO:Yup.
If I would have kept going with youknowwho, eventually I’d have been taking care of him, his books, his wife, andhis kids, without my left kidney, and still not getting any of his “good hammer,” as he calls it. Not even a kiss without passing out. Ugh.
So glad the cards told me that youknowwho was a thing of the past and that I will open the bookshop on time and that I have indeed found my soulmate in ME.
That brings me to ME.
He came to the bookshop the other morning like a customer, but you know we aren’t open yet.
Turns out he is a sweet-smelling early-thirties monk in training. I think between his smell and his style and his smile, I am under his spell. He dresses like the sensei inThe Karate Kid, all black everything.
ME had read my book already and memorized some of it. Not even sure how that’s possible. But it felt nice to be seen. And even if he was just love bombing me, I was quite impressed—youknowwho would never. And where youknowwho, with his dirty, corroded nails, smelled like sex, sweat, lies, and manipulation, ME smelled like sanctuary and sanctification.
Then randomly, the next night, I ran into ME at Shakespeare and Co. downtown after my writing class. He said he was meeting up with his mom and his sister, and it was so weird. For a second, I felt like he was cheating on my bookshop, but oddly it looked like I was cheating on my own bookshop too.
