Page 5 of Caution Tape

A few blissful seconds pass and I watch its eyes roll into the back of its head. Slowly, the thrashing stops.

I’m breathing heavily but my mind is free. The stillness is comforting. It feels like my entire body has uncoiled, as if slipping into a hot bath.

I wipe the knife on the grass and get back into my car, turning on Natalie’s playlist and beginning my drive home. Halfway there, I find that I am singing along.

Everyone my age tells me what a nightmare, what a chore, what an awful thing dating is. People are fake, they say. They lie, cheat, and most of all—people play games.

I don’t mind though, and dating doesn’t bother me. There’s a mutual performative aspect to it that I feel very comfortable in. You say cute, funny things. You wear the nice clothes. You slip into the best version of yourself, and then present.

I wish this is all it was. Presentation. Rounded edges. Those little first-date conversations, where everything is isolated and quarantined into what movies we pretend to like, what music and what we’re studying at school. If that was as far as relationships went, if friendships only went as far as “Hey, how ya doin’? You see the game last night?” then I might have a chance at that normalcy.

Instead, I’m on manual. Carefully choosing phrases and words to put in my presentation. See my smile. See my eyes. See that I am not hollow and lethal.

Natalie is talking about her project for English class. I’m seated across from her. Around us, the restaurant staff bustles between tables while balancing plates of lobster and steak. They weave around each other while grasping fizzy red alcoholic drinks. It is loud, and my head begins to hurt again.

”—so, the idea is to compare two works of fiction, from two different eras, and show how they are, like, representative of whatever that culture was afraid of at the time,“ Natalie says, sawing into her steak.

“Do you have two pieces in mind?”

She nods, frizzy hair bouncing. When I picked her up, she’d been wearing a light jacket but has since taken that off, revealing a blue and white polka dot dress. A gold ring on a chain hangs from her neck. As she turns slightly while cutting the steak, I see the writing gleam in the light. She’s a Lord of the Rings fan.

My brain catalogs it, enjoying the way it makes sense. It fits. Writer, college student, artsy, Lord of the Rings.

“There’s a Shirley Jackson story and a Poe story I want to compare. I think that’ll work pretty well. I struggle at finding sources, you know? Like I wish they would just let us have our thoughts instead of needing to cite stuff constantly.”

I stop listening and glance down at my arms. I’m wearing a sweater, but I have my sleeves pushed up. The gash the deer left me is red and bright. I caress it gently with my thumb, thinking about the knife.

“What’s with the smile?” Natalie asks.

I glance up. “Hmm?”

“You smiled. Like, really smiled.”

“I smile all the time.”

She shrugs. “Sure, everyone does. But normally you don’t smile with your entire face. Just your mouth.” She gestures to her own eyes. “You smiled just now, with your eyes, too.”

I bite my tongue, vaguely amused. She’s perceptive, I’ll give her that. I glance at the scratch again and feel my “true” smile return. My brain offers something to tell her, and I seize it gleefully.

“I’m just having a really, really nice time with you,” I say, thumbing the ridges of the scratch.

Natalie blushes and looks down at her lap. I have the sense the performance is done. Our lines have been read and the audience is satisfied.

Her eyes begin trailing back up to my eyes, probably to say something cloyingly sweet and endearing, when they freeze abruptly on the scratch.

“You’re hurt!”

It’s her chance, see? She’s playing the same game I am, only her desire is to domesticate me into a gently smiling mascot that takes all her moods easily, assures her with constant compliments, wears sweaters and has no problem walking her dog. She’s like an alien, wanting to lay eggs inside of me. Use me until I’m drained and vacant, watching sports on the couch while she concocts the next phases of our life that she controls fully.

And it starts with offering care. Simpering, frantic care that proves what a good, doting girlfriend she will be.

My desires are simpler. More... direct.

I want to remove the skin from her skull and run my lips along the smooth, bleached white bone.

“Oh, it’s just a scratch. Got it at work. A bit of metal shelving came apart, so we had to bolt it back together.”

It’s an easy lie. The first of many dead leaves I’ll be throwing on the pile. She swallows it easily and gives me another soppy look. It’s bright eyed, furious in its intensity. Natalie is thinking I’m perfect at this moment. She’s wondering if she needs to start freezing these moments in her mind. She’ll need them when she tells ‘the story of us’ to coworkers, relatives, her social media followers…

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