Thursday, February 7, 2008
Ask her and she will blame something. Anything. Labels: ficlet, happiness (or the lack thereof), lies
It won't matter just what. The frogs, with innards for a skeleton and air for innards. The keyboard with the rubbed-off letters. Grocery-shopping. An insatiable urge to paint. The mountainous pile of dishes in the sink, waiting to be scrubbed and rinsed clean.
There are things she won't tell you about, though. There are things she will not blame.
The text messages saved in her phone, in the folder named not with letters, but with a series of spaces. The conversations in her archives, folder titled not with a name, but with a word-that-isn't.
She won't tell you about the tears.
You wouldn't know about them - not from looking at her. The eternal optimist - she-who-does-not-bear-scars. She who wouldn't know a battle if it sat on her shoulder and stabbed it - she who will never, ever cry for someone with male gonads. She will laugh, she will scream, she will run butt-naked around the Academic Oval - twice - but she won't cry. You see, she isn't supposed to cry. You could ask her about her wet pillow and she will, with a smile on her face, chalk it up to drool.
She will not call it denial. She will tell you that denial is for those who believe themselves to be in love - after all, to be in denial, you must acknowledge the presence of something to deny. She will blame her raging hormones, the backwardness of her brain, her irrational preference for all things odd and quirky. She will say it so well, too - that perfectly imperfect plausibly-casual accent that she has been working on since she started to learn English in nursery will be put into play, and you will feel stupid for even thinking that there was anything to deny.
She won't betray a single hint of emotion. She will express interest, but there will be so little to back it up that you'll think she's been taking you for a ride.
She's a strange dichotomy - so strange, in fact, that you could know all about it and still not believe it to be real. You will see her neurosis - see the mood swings, see the wholly inappropriate reactions, see her respond to the commonest of things - but you will believe her when she tells you the reason why she flinches. You will believe her, because you won't be able to believe that it is possible to compartmentalize and camouflage emotion in such a way that it is contorted beyond recognition into something entirely different - and entirely believable.
You will believe her when she tells you what makes her tick, because though you know that there has to be more than what she tells you, it will be too strange to be comfortably believable.
For instance, you will not believe her when she tells you she has fallen in love with the last person you'd expect her to want. You will not believe her when she tells you she lies for your sake, because really, would you want to believe the truth? She will tell you that she's cried for him more times than she cares to count, not because he has done something, but because he hasn't done anything. She will tell you that she cries due to the lack of reciprocity and you will not believe her. You will not believe her because it is unlike her, and your perception of her will not allow you to see her any other way.
You will not believe her, because it is her - because it is incomprehensible that someone like her should fall as hard as she has, and because her lies are her last facade - and what a facade it is, too, when all she does is stay veiled behind the truth.
There is no better place to hide than in plain sight, she will say, and you will believe her, but not understand.
A memory on|7:41 PM by shhh. 0 wrote back: Let us know |
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