“Why?” I repeated. “I guess to prove that I’m strong. That I’m not the same weak, helpless girl I used to be.”
“You are a badass,” Stef agreed.
“To badasses,” Naomi said, hefting her nearly empty wineglass.
“Save the toast, Witty. I’m about to blow your minds,” Stef insisted.
“Blow away,” Sloane said, resting her chin in her hands.
“Who are you proving yourself to?” Stef asked me.
I shrugged. “Everyone?”
Stef pointed at Sloane. “Make the buzzer noise again.”
“Errrrrrrr!”
Half the bar turned to look at us.
“I take it you don’t agree?” I prompted Stef.
“Here comes my brilliance. If your family doesn’t know what you do for a living, they are unaware of your professional badassery. And if your colleagues don’t know about your history, they have no idea how impressive you really are because they don’t know what you had to overcome to get here.”
“What’s your point?”
“The only one left to prove anything to is you. And if you don’t realize what a strong, capable badass you are, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“That felt a little anticlimactic. But he’s not wrong,” Naomi said.
“Not done yet,” Stef said. “I think you aren’t actually trying to prove that you’re a badass. I think you spend all your energy trying to smother any hint of vulnerability.”
“Ooooooh! And Nash makes you feel vulnerable,” Sloane guessed gleefully.
“So you sabotage any chance at real intimacy because you don’t want to be vulnerable again,” Naomi added. “Okay. That was climactic.”
Stef gave a mock bow. “Thank you for appreciating my genius.”
I’d been vulnerable before. Flat on my back on that soccer field. In all those hospital beds. In that operating room. I couldn’t protect myself or save myself. I was at the mercy of other people, my life in their hands.
I shook my head. “Hang on. Vulnerability is weakness. Why would I ever want to be weak again? Back me up here, Joel.”
The bartender’s gaze flicked to me as he sent two shot glasses sliding down the bar to a customer with a pink mohawk.
“Being vulnerable doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you trust yourself to be strong enough to handle the hurt. It’s actually the purest form of strength.”
Sloane wiggled her fingers at her temples and made an exploding sound. “Mind officially blown,” she slurred.
“That was fuckin’ beautiful, Joel,” the biker with the mohawk said. The man mopped at his eyes with a drink napkin.
I’d spent my entire adult life proving I was invincible, capable, independent. I lived alone, worked alone, took vacations alone. The only way I could get more independent was if I entered into a monogamous relationship with my vibrator. To be told I was taking the coward’s way out didn’t sit well with me.
“Look, I appreciate the super fun game of ‘let’s analyze what’s wrong with Lina.’ But the fact is, every time I have to operate within the bounds of a relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, people get hurt.”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t be in a relationship. It just means you’re not good at it,” Naomi said, gesturing with her wine.
“Gee, thanks,” I said dryly.
Naomi held up a finger and drained her glass. “Nobody is good at it at first. No one has a natural talent for being in a relationship. Everyone has to learn how to be good at it. It takes a lot of practice and forgiveness and vulnerability.”
“Shit,” Stef muttered. He stood and squared his shoulders. “If you ladies will excuse me, I need to make a phone call. Mind keeping an eye on them, Joel?”
The bartender threw him a salute.
“It’s not just that I’m bad at relationships,” I said, returning to the original point. “I don’t want to be tied down. I want to be free to do what I want. To pursue a life that suits me.”
“I don’t think those things have to be mutually exclusive.”
“Boom!” Sloane said, slapping a hand to the bar. The more she drank, the louder the librarian’s sound effects got.
“I’m not going to find a man out there who’s going to be content following me around, working remotely in shitty motels while I track down stolen goods. And if I did, I probably wouldn’t want him.”
Naomi hiccupped.
“Seriously? You too? Did you guys pregame before you came to get me?” I asked.
She shrugged and grinned. “I made a wrap for lunch and Waylon stole it off my plate when I wasn’t looking. I’m an empty stomach lightweight.”
I slid the bowl of nuts in her direction. “Soak up that alcohol.”
A tall biker with an eye patch and a bandanna sauntered up.
“No,” I said when he opened his mouth.
“You didn’t even know what I was going to say,” he complained.
“No we don’t want a date, a ride, or for you to tell us your penis’s nickname,” I said.
Sloane raised her hand. “Actually, I’d like to know the penis nickname.”
The biker puffed out his chest and hiked up his pants. “It’s Long John Silver…cause it’s pierced. Now, who wants a personal introduction?”
“Happy now?” I asked Sloane.
“I’m both happy and disgusted.”
I turned back to the biker. “Go away unless you want to become part of a therapy session.”
“Hit the road, Spider,” Joel said from behind the bar.
“Try to get a little action and everybody gets pissy,” Spider muttered as he stomped away.
“Wait, I think I was about to make a super smart point,” Naomi said. She scrunched up her nose and, deep in thought, mainlined the rest of her wine. “Aha!”
“Aha!” Sloane echoed.
Naomi wiggled on her stool and cleared her throat. “As I was saying, you’re comparing what you’re doing now to what you could be doing in the future.”
“Um, isn’t that what everyone does?”
“There’s a subtle difference,” she insisted, slurring a little on the word subtle. “But I forget what it is.”
Sloane leaned in on my other side. Well, more like fell into the bar. “What my esteemed colleague is trying to say is that just because you want the freedom to make your own choices doesn’t mean you have to be alone.”
Naomi snapped her fingers in Sloane’s face. “Yes! That! That’s what I forgot. What you do or have and how you feel are two separate constructs. For instance, people will say ‘I want a million dollars,’ but what they really want is to feel financially secure.”
“Okaaaaaaay.” I drew out the word.
“You want to feel like you have the power to make your own decisions. That doesn’t mean that you have to stay an independent bounty hunter lady forever. Or that you have to not find a great guy to have hot sex and takeout dinners in bed with. It just means that you have to find a relationship where you can be yourself and make sure your needs are met.”