Perfect

HARRY
Harry.
It’s over.
One text is all it takes.
One text to make my world come crashing around me and leave me stranded.
My heart is in a million pieces.
I’ve known Natalie for two years now. One of which I wasn’t even accepting the fact that I was going steady with her and the next I spent trying to make her realize how much she meant to me. But Liam was right. This text proves that everyone was right, except me. Does that make me want to bury my head in the sand and never come out? Yes. Does it make me want to go after her, beg for her to take me back? Yes and yes. Does it make my heart feel like it has known nothing but sadness and misery and pain? Yes and yes and hell yes. What is wrong with me? Why do I always manage to fall for the wrong person? Why do I manage to screw up every relationship I’m in? I don’t know the answer to that.
Maybe I’m not designed to be in a functional relationship. Maybe these one night stands are all I have and maybe I should stop looking for someone to give my love to. Maybe love is an absurd idea, like everyone says. Love makes you stupid, or in my case, it makes you stupider.
I’m about to bang my phone against the wall when I hear the sound of gentle sobbing. I realize it’s Jamie. She’s sitting on the bed in my room, holding a half-packed suitcase and crying uncontrollably.
She looks dejected. Broken.
I can relate.
“You need to stop that,” I say to her and she rubs the tears off her face with her sleeve.
“I’m sorry,” she says and goes back to packing her things.
I grab her suitcase and toss it aside, hold her hand and pull her up in front of me so we’re both standing in that room facing each other. We’re so close I can see her big brown eyes and the tiny streaks of blood in them, the sadness in her gaze. And despite the fact that she’s been crying for hours, she looks beautiful. There’s something about her, a kind of vulnerability, that makes me want to take her in a big hug but I don’t want to scare her away. It was bad enough that she was forced into a strange situation last night; I don’t want it to get even more awkward.
“That’s not what I meant,” I say. “You’re not annoying me or anything.”
“I’m not?” she looks up innocently at me.
“No,” I say. “I just think you shouldn’t be crying over someone like Alex.”
“You know,” she says. “I was really looking forward to coming here with him. I was…excited. For once in my life, I thought someone likes me because of me, you know?” She’s crying even harder. “I’m not that girl guys buy flowers for, I never had a Valentine’s Day date until about a year ago and the guy ditched me after about an hour. An hour, Harry! That’s how long people can stand being with me!”
“Jamie, you’re beautiful,” I say. “And the only reason all of that hasn’t happened is because you haven’t met the right guy.”
“Thanks for saying that.”
“No, Jamie…I mean it. I get that you don’t dress ‘sexy’ like those other girls and maybe you’re subtle and shy, but you’re beautiful the way you are, don’t you get it?”
“Then why did Alex do this?”
“Well,” I say. “Because you give off this…vibe.”
“Vibe?”
“Jamie,” I say. “You look like the kind of person who would let people walk all over her. So people do.”
She starts crying harder.
“Jamie,” I say. “Stop crying.”
And she does.
“See what I mean?” I say. “I ask you to stop and you do. And you keep apologizing for something that isn’t even your fault! Jamie, you’re a doormat. And you’re going to stay that way so long as you don’t get the balls to speak your mind and say no once in a while. Just try it, for one day. See how it goes.”
“You’re asking me to change who I am.”
I let go of her hand and turn around to grab my smokes from the coffee table. “If you don’t,” I say, lighting one up. “Then you can expect a lot more of these Alexs in your life. Don’t come crying to me the next time that happens.”
She looks astonished. “I don’t believe it,” she says. “How can you talk to me that way?”
“Because,” I say, turning to her. “I’m an asshole, Jamie. In case you didn’t notice.”
She looks at me as though I’ve gone mad.
I wonder if she’s going to say something but she doesn’t.
“Fuck me!” I snap, angry. I kill the cigarette in an ashtray on the table and turn to her. I grab her by the shoulders and shake her. “Jamie,” I say. “This is your wakeup call! You want people to respect you; you’re going to have to make them. It’s the only way.”
“Stop.”
“No,” I say. “I’m not going to stop, until you agree to do as I say.”
“I have to leave.”
“Your flight’s not until tomorrow.”
“Harry,” she says. “You’re hurting me.”
I realize my mistake and drop my hands from her shoulders. “Jamie,” I say. “The guy who roofied you and forced you to have sex with someone else, is right across the hall. You know why he has the balls to pull something like that? Because you refused to press charges. And you’re refusing to even confront him about this!”
She doesn’t say anything, just keeps giving me that blank stare.
“He hurt you,” I say. “Don’t you want to stand up for yourself for once?”
She breaks out crying again. “I was willing to love him,” she says. “I was willing to give it my all! Is that so bad? That I was willing to care about him even if I never felt any real feelings for him, I still wanted to make it work!”
I don’t know what comes over me, but I take her in a hug.
Awkwardness be damned.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I don’t know what to do! I feel so helpless!”
“Jamie,” I say. “You’re stronger than this. You’re stronger than some asshole and a breakup! You’re not going to fall apart if he goes away!”
At this point, I think I’m basically talking to myself instead of her. But keeping up the charade of non-hurt gives me, though completely false, a sense of being in control. It’s the same with my tries at helping her. I want to do it I guess, because no one came to my help. I know it’s a stupid way to think but it’s the truth.
She finally breaks away and looks at me. “She broke up with you over a text?”
Why the hell did I even tell her that! Why did I tell her about Natalie at all! I have no clue. Maybe I was weak and she was there. That had to be it. “Harry,” Jamie says. “What happened to me, happened to you too. So how come you’re not taking revenge or reporting it?”
The only person I do want revenge from is Natalie.
And suddenly, I know how I’m going to do it.
“Jamie,” I say. “Do you trust me?”

Notes