Exit Wounds

08 | girlboss

E I G H T

LOS ANGELES, CA

          Things Sadie No-Last-Name is: agent. Publicist. Travel buddy. Responsible for my success. Business woman. Girlboss (she hates this word with a burning passion, arguing its meaning has been lost and ruined thanks to third-wave feminism).

          Things Sadie No-Last-Name is not: my friend. My best friend. A therapist. An assistant ("frankly, Harley, you're not a child. There are things you can do without my help or input."). My mother. My mother figure.

          I'm aware of how tragically exhausting it is for the both of us that I constantly have to curate the things I tell her and the way I tell her those things based on what she's willing to hear and how she's willing to listen to me. On any given day, she can be interested in everything I have to say, the gritty details and the emotional value of what I'm talking about, or she's only available to care at a surface level, even if I'm having a panic attack right in front of her. As I look at her now, wobbling slightly from side to side like I'm on a boat, I'm not entirely sure what she's currently demanding from me.

          "I think you've already had too much to drink tonight," she says, but that doesn't stop me from pouring myself a generous dose of Prosecco. She doesn't physically try to stop me, either, and I don't think she could if she even attempted to. "Harley, come on. Sit down so we can talk."

          "I'm fine," I slur. To my credit, I do stumble towards one of the high stools in the kitchen, but all I manage to do is lean my hip against it after nearly knocking it down by accident. "I don't really feel like talking to you. You're going to make me trauma dump on you, then you're going to make me feel like shit about it. That's how it goes. That's how it's been since we first met."

          She sighs, brushing back her hair. "This is different."

          "How come?" I down the Prosecco without a second thought, the bitter taste lingering in my throat like an open flame. "Every time I try to have a serious conversation with you, you brush it off and say it's above your pay grade or that you're not my therapist. Like, that's fair, but I'm having a hard time telling the difference between now and all those other attempts at venting with you. It's always something we'll talk about later, but later to you means never."

          For a split second, some semblance of emotion flashes across her face, but it disappears as quickly as it appeared, so quickly I doubt I actually saw it. She turns around and I almost fool myself into believing she's headed off to bed, deeming this entire conversation a lost cause, and she does indeed disappear into her bedroom, but she comes back with a hoodie.

          I've never seen Sadie wearing a hoodie. I've never seen her look anything but composed and perfectly made-up, like she's not even real, and I don't know what to make of this. I don't know how to see Sadie as a real human being, not when she's been making an effort to keep her distance from me this whole time, so obsessed with keeping me at arm's length, and I've been doing the same thing. I can handle our professional relationship, even if she gets on my nerves quite frequently.

          The humanization of Sadie makes me uncomfortable, like I've entered an uncanny valley. She's not meant to be a regular person.

          "Are we friends?" I ask her, taking the bait she's been dangling in front of me like a carrot. She thinks I'm stupid enough to fall for it and, truth be told, she might be right. "If you ignore the professional side of our relationship, I mean. Would you consider us friends?"

          She settles onto a couch, legs folded over the pillows, and I'm amazed at how young she looks. She's not that much older than me, and it shows. "How honest do you want me to be here?"