“I don’t like this guy.” Liam said while shuffling through the cupboards. “Where do you keep those little tiny puffy white things that are so good?”
“The marshmallows are in the cupboard above the refrigerator.” I answered distracted by the text on my phone.
“Why’d you put them up there?”
“Because you’re the only one that eats them and they’re out of the way up there since I can’t really reach that cupboard but you can. Why don’t you like him?”
He yelped in triumph as he scored the bag of miniature marshmallows. “Got ‘em.” He pulled the clip off the bag and dug a fist full out as he made himself comfortable on the floor near the sliding door.
It was raining pretty hard and we’d been listening to the sound of water when the first text came in and I explained TextGuy was back – again.
“I don’t like him because he’s insincere. I don’t like him because I can tell you stretch the truth about him each time you talk about him trying to paint him in a better light but even your efforts to make him sound “good for you to like” – even those trumped up efforts still make him sound like a doggy bag.”
“Douche bag,”
“What’s the difference?”
“It’s a big difference but I don’t fluff him to you. I tell you what he’s like. He’s not a great guy. I’ll admit that – I’ll admit that if you’ll fucking admit that he’s the only guy to give any sort of attention that A) I’m excited by and B) that doesn’t have some terrible flaw.”
“I won’t admit that.” Liam remarked with a mouthful of puffed sugar. “He’s not the only guy to give you attention and there is a flaw, Athena, a really big fucking flaw!” He swallowed to make his point. “He won’t touch you! He won’t go out with you! He’ll only talk to you by text or chat or on rare occasions when he’s desperate or drunk by phone which is exactly twice. He is using you for god-knows what and he’s not giving anything back! That’s a pretty major flaw!”
I sighed.
“Don’t sigh like you don’t know it’s true. It’s true, Athena. I’m your guardian. I’m here to watch out for you while you are writing and lately you haven’t been doing all that much because you are caught up by work and this guy – this guy I might add who doesn’t call to see how you are doing, or ask you to get a drink. He won’t be seen in public with you – which I think is a shady thing to begin with – and yet you still try to tell me he’s not that bad.”
I knew he was right and yet I had not argument. It seems like TextGuy is still the only guy giving me the kind of interaction I want. Trouble is, it’s not all I want. I want a real connection. Contact. Intimacy.
Me, Athena, wanting intimacy? WTF?
I finally admit to myself that is something I want and I go and choose the one guy who won’t even have a conversation with me face to face – he will only text. I’m a grown woman. I know better. He’s just not that in to me – but I think I’ve been so starved that I am taking whatever I can get and right now that means the guy who doesn’t even like me but will engage in text sex then fall off the map for three months at a time.
When did I become a techno-booty call? When did I stop caring about myself enough to say, “Fuck off”? When did I stop requiring any sort of standard to be upheld in the way I am treated?
“I think you should send him my direction,” Liam grinned. “I can teach him a thing or two about how to talk to a lady.”
“I’m not a lady, Liam.” I smiled despite myself. We were silent for a long time before I asked, “You want me to make you a cup of hot chocolate to put your marshmallows in?”
He nodded and stood behind me while I poured water in the tea kettle and I felt his hands on my shoulders, his face in my hair. “I won’t give you up easily, Athena. The man I step aside for must be a brilliant, powerful and amazing man. I will not let you settle and I will not let you scrounge for scraps of attention like a lost animal. Until he is found – until he comes for you and pries you from my grip – and I will not let go without a fight – until he wins you from me, I am here.”
I put the kettle on to boil and leaned back into the comfort of his embrace. “Maybe that’s the trouble, Liam. Maybe I can’t seem to find anyone, because I don’t want to let YOU go.”
He sighed against the skin of my neck. A hot whispering sound that carried with it, “not without a fight.”
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