You First: A Joe Goldberg Prequel (You, #0)(106)

That’s as close as you can come to saying Dick is dead to you without upsetting your sensitive, loyal boyfriend and yes. Yes! You dig the spoon into the last of our whipped cream, and you’re about to eat it when you pull a fast one and give it to me, the man you love. It’s a Miracle on Sixtieth Street. You’ve rewritten the book, atoned for the past by painting our future, and I see things as you see them. You want to look out for me. I get it. You were terrible to me. You cheated on me. But you love me. You want me to join your family soap opera so we can spin off, out into our own little world. You want me to meet your sadistic mother, and your masochist father, and I did it. I saved you. You copped to your sins, and I am not your priest. I see you now. The childhood that scarred you, and maybe people just never grow up. I see the children nearby being scarred as we speak. Maybe everyone in this place, the spoiled kids and the high-strung adults, maybe we’re all just sitting here trying to get over our stupid fucking parents.

You dab your lips with a napkin. “I need to pee. You okay?”

Off you go and I’m not just okay. I’m great. Never better, no sarcasm. Neither lonesome nor lonely. You lost a taste for Dick. I can feel it in my bones, in my Portnoy, and then my phone rings, but it doesn’t. Mine is quiet. It is his phone, Dick’s phone. I pull it out of my pocket, and I’m not used to having two phones, and there is another stage of cancer. Stage V: You.

You’re not powdering your nose. You’re calling Dick.

No. YOU JUST TOLD ME YOU LOVE ME. I shut off his phone. He doesn’t want you and you don’t want him. I have to be a cool cat, tapping on my toe with the…No. I can’t sing my way out of this one. A dark cloud in this upscale fucking ice cream parlor. You really have been brainwashed by your rom-cons, by Carrie’s never-ending chase and her lies. That shit with your parents…That didn’t help either. But the enemy is not you. I trust my gut, the way I stand when you walk into the room. I, the gentleman who loves you, the one strong enough to endure you and your self-loathing, your inability to be loved, cherished.

“Aw,” you say. “So old-school, pulling my chair and standing and all. I love it.”

No way around it, Vail. It has to be done. I have to test you. I thought I cured you, but I didn’t. And to cure you, I need us to share more than frozen hot chocolate. I need us to share the truth. “Random question.”

“Random answer.”

“Did you and Dick ever go out?”

You sip your water. “I don’t know if I’d call it that. Why do you ask?”

Because you just fucking called him again. “I dunno. He’s been a little weird lately. Even for him, partying a lot and jacked up on roids…You know that, right?”

“Sure. He and Schlitz…Whatever.”

SO WHY DID YOU JUST CALL HIM?! “Mm-hmm.”

You blink a little. “Joe…Where is this coming from?”

“Well, he’s been talking about his ex and he never uses her name, which made me think…maybe it was you.”

You laugh and you’re a terrible liar and we’re not your parents, Vail. We’re not Jeremy and Sarah. We’re better than that. I want you to tell me the truth. Tell me that what started as a joke to woo Dick turned into something real. You may think I can’t handle it, but that’s not fair. You’ve pushed me away again and again…and I’m still here.

And come on. You can’t have Dick. You tried that. It was bad for you. No monkey in its right mind would choose that sadist fucking ringmaster over me.

You rub your belly. “Oof, two bowls was maybe a reach….”

You still didn’t answer the question, and I wave off the server. We’re not checking out, not yet. “Maybe we just need to give it a minute.”

“So,” you say. “What have you got going on later?”

“Well, Dick and Schlitz wanna hang out.”

“Cool, like a boys’ night thing?”

The way you ask tells me that you still don’t get it. I am not Dick. “Funny thing is, no. I’m gonna meet his new girlfriend.”

Oh, your face, and I didn’t need to fix him or lock him up in a freezer. I just need you to think he has a girlfriend. Someone worthy of his devotion, someone who makes you finally know what I know, that he’s not afraid of commitment. He just plain never did, never will fucking love you. Your voice is fake as the little blue packets of fake fucking sugar. “Dick in a relationship…Really?”

“Sorry, I know you two…Well, you went out or something, right?”

“Eh, kind of. Honestly, I’m more like his therapist.”

You run your fingers through your hair. I am a reader, and you are an open book. Visibly wondering why you are not good enough for him, as if being good enough for me is not enough for you. Fucking Dick.

“Vail, you can tell me if you guys hooked up. I mean, you know me. I’m not a child. I don’t care.”

“So who is she? The girl.”

“Well, like he says, she’s a ‘dime.’?” I shudder. “I hate it when he and Schlitz do that, when they rate girls.”

“Oh, I know, and that’s one of many reasons I never, you know, ‘dated’ Dick for real.”

For real and is it really that easy to lie to me? “Vail, I wouldn’t judge you if you did.”