we’re hovering there in the doorway because i don’t really know where we should go. i don’t think maura’s ever really been inside my house before, except maybe the kitchen. she definitely hasn’t been in my room, because that’s where the computer is, and maura’s the kind of girl who the moment you leave her alone will go right for the diary or the computer. plus, you know, asking someone to your room could be taken to mean something, and i definitely don’t want maura to think i’m going to get all ‘hey-why-don’t-we-sit-on-my-bed-and-hey-since-we’re-sitting-on-my- bed-how-’bout-i-put-my-dick-inside-you?’ with her. but the kitchen and the living room are off-limits now because of mom, and mom’s bedroom is off-limits because it’s mom’s bedroom. which is how i find myself asking maura if she wants to go into the garage.
maura: the garage?
me: look, it’s not like i’m going to ask you to go down on a tailpipe, okay? if i wanted us to do a suicide pact, i’d opt for bathtub electrocution. you know, with a hair dryer. like poets do.
maura: fine.
mom’s maxiseries hasn’t come yet to its austen shitty limits, so i know maura and i will be able to talk undisturbed. or, at least, we’ll be the only disturbed ones in the garage. it seems really stupid to sit in the car, so i clear a space for us by the things of dad’s that mom never got around to throwing out.
me: so what’s up?
maura: you’re a prick.
me: this is a news flash?
maura: shut up for a second.
me: only if you shut up, too.
maura: stop it.
me: you started it.
maura: just stop it.
I decide, okay, i’ll shut up. and what do i get? fifteen f**king seconds of silence. then it’s all
maura: i always tell myself that you don’t mean to hurt me, which makes it less hurtful, you know. but today - i’m just so f**king sick of it. of you. just so you know, i don’t want to sleep with you, either. i would never sleep with someone i can’t even be friends with.
me: wait a second - now we’re not friends?
maura: i don’t know what we are. you won’t even tell me that you’re g*y.
this is a classic maura maneuver. if she doesn’t get an answer she wants, she will create a corner to back you into. like the time she went through my bag when i was in the bathroom and found my pills - i hadn’t taken them in the morning, so i brought them along with me to school. she waited a good ten minutes before asking me if i was on any medication. this seemed a little random to me, and i didn’t really want to talk about it, so i told her no. and then what does she do? she reaches into my bag and pulls out the pill bottles and asks me what they’re for. she got her answer, but it didn’t exactly inspire trust. she kept telling me i didn’t need to be ashamed of my ‘mental condition,’ and i kept telling her i wasn’t ashamed - i just didn’t want to talk about it with her. she couldn’t understand the difference.
so now we’re back in another corner, and this time it’s the g*y thing.
me: whoa, wait a second. even if i was g*y, wouldn’t that be my decision? to tell you?
maura: who’s isaac?
me: f**k.
maura: you think i can’t see what you draw in your notebook?
me: you’re kidding me. this is about isaac? maura: just tell me who he is.
I fundamentally don’t want to tell her. he’s mine, not hers. if i give her just a piece of the story, she’ll want the whole thing. i know in some twisted way she’s doing this because she thinks it’s what i want - to talk about everything, to have her know everything about me. but that’s not what i want. that’s not what she can have.
me: maura maura maura . . . isaac’s a character. he doesn’t actually exist. f**k! it’s just this thing i’m working on. this - i don’t know - idea. i have all these stories in my head. starring this character, isaac.
I don’t know where this shit comes from. it’s like it’s just being given to me by some divine force of fabrication. maura looks like she wants to believe it, but doesn’t really.
me: like pogo dog. only he’s not a dog, and he’s not on a pogo stick.
maura: god, i forgot all about pogo dog.
me: are you kidding? he was going to make us rich!
and she’s buying it. she’s leaning against me and, i swear to god, if she was a guy i’d be able to see the boner in her pants.
maura: i know it’s awful, but i’m kind of relieved that you’re not hiding something that big from me.
I figure this would be a bad time to point out that i’ve never actually said i wasn’t g*y. i just told her to f**k off.
I don’t know if there’s anything more horrifying than a goth girl getting all cuddly. maura’s not only leaning, but now she’s examining my hand like somebody stamped it with the meaning of life. in braille.
me: i should probably get back to my mom.
maura: tell her we’re hanging out.
me: i promised her i would watch this thing with her.
the key here is to blow off maura without her realizing i’m blowing her off. because i really don’t want to hurt her, not when i just managed to bring her back from the brink of the last hurt i allegedly inflicted. i know as soon as maura gets home, she’s going to dive right into her notebook of skull-blood poetry, and i’m doing my best not to get a bad review. maura once showed me one of her poems.
hang me
like a dead rose
preserve me
and my petals won’t fall
until you touch them
and i dissolve
and i wrote her a poem back
I am like
a dead begonia
hanging upside down
because
like a dead begonia
I don’t give a f**k
to which she replied
not all flowers
depend on light
to grow
so now maybe tonight i’ll inspire
I thought his soil was g*y
but maybe there’s a chance
I can get myself some play
and get into his pants
hopefully i’ll never have to read it or know about it or even think about it ever again.
I stand up and open the garage door so maura can leave that way. i tell her i’ll see her monday in school and she says ‘not if i see you first’ and i go har har har until she’s a safe distance away and i can shut the garage door again.