Page 72 of Caution Tape

She’s sitting at the same table Michael and I sat at a few days ago. I sit down across from her and wait for her to speak. Around us, people walk by clutching bags and wheeling carts, an entire sea of normalcy swirling past us as Natalie and I stare across from one another, and I have to wonder if my life can get any more chaotic.

“So, we actually saw each other at the Halloween party. Nolan and I were there. And when he broke up with me, I told my friends, and one of them said she’d seen Nolan here, talking to you.”

I can’t do this. I don’t want to hear the whole recap. I don’t want to hear about her feelings.

“Shut up,” I spit out. “Just shut the fuck up.”

“W-what?”

“Do you want him back or not?”

She blinks twice and rears back, like I slapped her. “I don’t understand.”

I rub my eyes and try to hold back my mounting frustration. Nolan is right; everything does feel mundane after you’ve taken a life. Life is so much smaller. And so much more agonizing to withstand.

“You wouldn’t have come here,” I begin, glaring at her, “if you didn’t want him back. You wouldn’t be confronting me and sitting down with all your tears and ‘poor me’ bullshit.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“You don’t want to understand what happened. You don’t give a fuck. You’re just mad that you lost something, and you want it back.”

Tears glisten brightly in her eyes, but Natalie doesn’t crumple into sobs. I’ll give her that. She might look like an honor roll student who wants to save every stray cat, but she’s got some guts.

“Fine,” she admits. “Yes. I want him back.”

I roll my eyes. Nolan’s good. He has this one sucked in.

He’s got you, too, Cora.

I ignore that and lean in. This part is important. I’m not like Nolan; I don’t slink up to people and talk them into whatever I want. I don’t have much of a mask to put on to fool people. Cora the loner, Cora the mean girl, Cora who acts like she’s better than everyone.

I can’t seduce Natalie; even if she is bi-curious, she’s firmly fixated on Nolan. But the insecurities… what would Nolan do? He would lean on them. Pull the threads up with his teeth until he had her wet and begging for him.

“You’ve never been dumped, have you?” I ask.

“What?” Again, startled.

“No boy has ever said no to you. You’re attractive, reasonably smart. You go after the nice ones, maybe the ones who are a little shy. They talk to you about, what? Music?”

Natalie leans forward. There’s still anger etched on her face but clearly this is the most interesting conversation she’s had in years. “Books. Studying.”

“And you smile at them and twirl your pretty hair and you have them as much or as little as you want them. Right?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes are wide; like she wants to run… but hearing the truth about herself dripping from my lips has her so intoxicated that she can’t.

“It’s not like that,” she mumbles. “They ask me out, and sometimes I say yes. Sometimes they’re nice and we date for a while.”

“But you’re in control the whole time. You tell them how to dress, how to act, what hobbies you prefer them to have, which friends of theirs you like them to hang out with.” I don’t know any of this; I’m guessing. I’m connecting loose dots about a caricature of a person I barely know.

She runs a shaky hand through her hair.

“They never stand up to me!” she exclaims. “It’s like I’m theirmotherand they’re justboyswho can’t take care of themselves, and they have thoseeyesthat are sodesperatefor my approval, to let them know they’re a good boyfriend. And I start to hate them, after a while. It gets so boring.”

She gulps, the tears flowing rapidly now, spilling down her cheeks, a few pooling on the lamented tabletop.

With mild horror, I realize she thinks we’re having a bonding moment. Two women sharing war stories about being in the trenches with men. Should I tell her about Michael, listening to my problems, waiting to pounce on me and fuck me the moment I was vulnerable?

“But not with Nolan,” she continues. “He’s so calm. He knows what he wants. He doesn’t need me. He doesn’t evenwantme, apparently. And I’m falling apart over it and I don’t know what to do. I think, I think that has to be love, right? Falling apart at the thought of losing them?”

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