FlyGirl 2.0

Chapter 5 - Siobhan

THE MORE I thought about it, the angrier I got. Donnelly had some freakin' nerve.

First, he tries to make me into a nark, then he dumps me after he tells me he's falling in love with me... and yes, it was like that, and then he has the nerve to show up and ACT LIKE HE CARES when it's clear all he was trying to recruit me. Again. OMG.

I was... oh, I was angry, I don't even know if that's the right word... everything that had happened so far, waking up and having plans, and thinking, I'm going to make me life better, I'm going to live my best life because I CAN, and this MAN shows up to mess with my head?

On the other hand, it felt good to be angry. I'd so been sad lately. I'd read all these motivational books telling me to be my own truth, concentrate on the now, and live in the moment, but I hadn't gotten ANGRY. It was, like, like, inspirational. I got myself a car, lickety-split, and the next thing I know, I was lead-footing it down to McIver, Iowa.

The thing was, I really liked Jason. I could chalk it up to being a bad experience, if it weren't for Alex, which was a bad experience on crack. Still, all bad experiences can be redeemed if you learn something from them, or at least, that's what I read on GOOP.

The lesson I learned from Donnelly was if a man approaches you from the FBI and wants you to nark on your family was RUN AWAY. The lesson I learned from Alex was DON'T DATE A PSYCHO.

Not that I was capable of running away from Donnelly, or that I knew Alex was a psycho. Donnelly was appealing in a way that was enticing and confusing. When he left, I was utterly broken. I met Alex in Chicago when I was out to dinner with Sean, and he seemed so chill. Plus, he knew my family.

Nothing about him screamed psycho.

It did scream pervert. Dude propositioned me when I was fifteen. I called him out on it, and he apologized profusely. Sent a shit ton of flowers, the whole bit. When he called a few days later and asked me out, I figured why not?

At first, it was fun. We had fun. He took me on this aircraft glide that looked like a normal plane, but turned out it was a military aircraft he was selling to Pakistan or India, or something, I don't know, and it was AMAZING. He taught me to shoot an AK-47. I even got use a grenade launcher. He even showed me how to make a Molotov cocktail. That was the best. Blowing stuff up is AWESOME.

I wasn't attracted to him like I was Jason. Alex was good-looking in a pretty way. His hair was blonde, thick, and with just the right amount of curl. His eyes were this strange color of blue that could almost look white in the right environment. He worked out incessantly, but ate voraciously. He read Homer for fun. He could quote Machiavelli.

After a few months, he would hold me in his arms and read me the love letters of The Letters of Abélard and Héloïse. I remember being on his yacht on the Cote d'Azure, looking out at the setting sun as he whispered, "For I would, without hesitation, precede or follow thee to the Vulcanian fires according to thy word. For not with me was my heart, but with thee. But now, more than ever, if it be not with thee, it is nowhere. For without thee it cannot anywhere exist."

It was romantic AF.

He made me feel like I was special, like I was just as pretty as a certain elementary school teaching social media influencer, and that I mattered because I was me, and not because of my family, or my family's money.

At the same time, it was a little much. Romance is awesome, but it's like chocolate. One piece is fine. Three meals a day of it? Every day? 365 days a year? I don't think so. I mean, if it weren't for the sex, I don't think it would have lasted more than a month with the guy.