Unhinged

13

Maurya

When I was 6 years old I realized being pretty was a currency. Unfortunately for me, you can only really exchange it for dignity and self-respect. This is something I learned. It was engraved in me. When I was 12 one of the nurses told me I had porn star tits. I had no clue what that meant, but he didn't watch me take my medicine, casting his gaze down as I tucked it into my cheek. He even forgot to check under my tongue. And yet, in the end, I swallowed it anyway, feeling sick and somewhat used. Oliver finds my beauty as much of a nuisance as I do, though i don't think he thinks about it as much as me. Instead, he focuses on the parts of me that annoy him, which is pretty much every part. We sit at this restaurant, me across from him. He stares with furrowed brows at his menu, his eyes darting between two items. He chews on his lip pensively, before sighing, and setting it down.

"Do you know what you're gonna get?" He asks me, adjusting the dress shirt he's wearing. I look at the menu again. I can't afford this. I guess...I could have sex with him. He'll probably pay if I did that. But I would get that sick feeling and I hate that sick feeling.

"I...am not very hungry," I say instead. My stomach betrays me rumbling loudly. He chortles, leaning back in his chair, his hair swept back and out of his face putting those gorgeous eyes on display.

"It's my treat," He assures me, tapping his fingers on the table idly. "I invited you after all."

Well then...my skin heats. I touch my cheek and pull my menu in front of my face. "Thanks," I grumble half-heartedly, looking over everything.

Oliver has put down his menu, seemingly deciding to be undecided. He taps his hand on the table. "Have you been able to find work?" He asks me suddenly, sipping his water.

Truthfully, the job search is a little more complicated than I expected. Entry level jobs seem to 10 year's experience, and my high school decree is essentially ornamental. It's been...tough.

But I don't say that to him. Ask him for help? Admit that I need something other than blood? Never.

I shrug. "I have some prospects."
"You've got nothing do ya?" He mused.

I narrow my eyes with a scowl. "I'm...looking around. Finding my options."

"You've got what? A high school diploma? You don't have many options especially if you want above minimum wage," he remarks, opening the menu once more. "Gotta pay for that fancy house somehow."

I hate how much more he knows about the world than me. He's not smarter than me, he's just been out here longer. I've been doing this for like two fucking days it's not my fault it's hard.

He glanced up from his menus. "It's fine. You're in the predicament most people are in America. You'll find something," he assures me, his eyes darting between his two options once more, landlocked in a battle of indecision.

"I'll help you," he says after a beat, still looking at his menu.

I press my lips shut. Why can't he make a decision? Why are we here? Why is he acting like I'm normal and why does he keep offering to help me with that soft, deep voice like I'm incapable?

I'm not stupid.
I'm not.
Just...new.

But I look away. "Just get the first one," I say somewhat irritably.

He hums. "What if I regret it? What if I start to eat the first one, and realize I actually wanted the second, but by that time I'm halfway through the first, so I'd have to pay for it, and I'm too full to even eat the other even if I wanted to pay for two plates." He remarks, tapping his fingers faster. "Then what?"

I didn't know he was such an anxious guy.

I shrug. "Then you know for next time. And even if you like the second one more it doesn't mean you hate the first one right?"

He raises his brows and looks away. "Regret doesn't work like that though. I don't want to regret anything." He murmurs.

I'm reminded again that I'm a proxy for whatever woman he's hurt so badly he thinks taking in a killer is an appropriate atonement. My stomach starts that rumbling again. My skin itches.

I hate him. I go back and forth. Whether I hate him or not. He does too, I think, with how he feels about me.
Maybe he doesn't feel anything really. I'm just a placeholder, after all.

The waiter comes and we order. Oliver asks me what I want when he sees him approaching, asks me if I want him to just tell him both our orders. I nod, and sit there, numbly, watching him, watching me nodding along to his sentence asking me silently if he's correct about my order.

I nod back and he grins. Taking our menus. For the rest of the meal, the waiter does not ask me anything. He asks Oliver every question, no longer seeming to see me. I don't...know how I feel about it.

On one hand, the relief of not having to interact with anyone but the one person I know here is somewhat relieving. But at the same time why was it so easy for him to regale me to the background? For his eyes to never rove over my form again?

Is this...being a woman? I feel like it is? Either his eyes will be on me, hot and disgusting, uncomfortable. Or I won't exist.

Oliver smiles, and I know that for all his experience in the world he won't be able to tell me whether it is. Whether this is the experience of womanhood. It's not an expertise he has. I would ask my mother.

But she doesn't exist anymore.

So I guess I'll sit here, numbly eat my pasta. Maybe I should stop wearing pink. I look around at the other woman in the restaurant. Would they know?

I suddenly feel lost, and small. I look up at him, the one person I know.

"Everything okay?" He asks.

I look down at my pasta and shrug. "Why did you bring me here? And you said you wanted me to go other places too. Why?"

Oliver pauses and cocks his head for a moment. Then he kicks his lips and clears his throat, adjusting himself in his seat.

"Um...this is...dating. I'm dating you. Or trying to, I guess." Oliver says carefully. "Did you not...know that?"

I purse my lips. "Dating...you don't even like me, Oliver?"

Oliver shrugs. "That's what dating is for. It's not like you know me. It's not like...you would leave. I don't like to regret things."

But he's with me. And that's the most regrettable decision anyone can make. I shrug and in my newfound discomfort settle into my seat.

I want to ask someone what it's like being a woman. If it's just me if I'm imagining all this discord around my existence, if anyone else feels this or sees it. But I come to conclusions that not everything feels like something else, anyway, so I keep my mouth shut.