“Okay, you wriggled out of that one. But I will absolutely not have sex with you if the reason for the breakup is cheating! I’ll drink your blood, damn it. Two. ‘In the eventuality of a breakup, each party has the right to ask three questions, and the other party has to answer honestly.’”
“Fine, but you already have that.”
“Well, I guess. Sometimes you can get a little secretive and dark when your moods get the upper hand. And who knows what might happen down the road. We go on living our lives in this relationship… People change. But they stay together with the illusion that the other person is the constant.”
“Three. ‘In the event of a breakup, they must go to the following places together: where they first met, where they first kissed.’”
“Where they first held hands, where they first knew the other person wasn’t some ethereal being whose sweat smelled only of flowers.”
“What? When did that happen?”
“That time we were waiting for the tram, after the reception at the museum.”
“Seriously?” He wanted to know.
“Yessss. You reeked. Sour. A man’s man.”
“Wow, awkward!” he shot back. “You’ve never smelled even a little sour to me. Wash less. And, finally, ‘the place where one of them realized that nothing would ever be the same as it was before.’”
“The place where the world turned upside down for one of them.” She smiled.
“On the steps.”
“On the steps.”
“We’ll go back there and say everything we said that night. We’ll wear what we wore to the gala. After that, if we need to, we’ll repeat the rest of it. The text messages the next day, the orange fizz at lunch, and everything in the same order right up to the day when the problems began,” he said.
“We’ll keep repeating the same story, if we have to, all our lives.”
“A hundred thousand times.”
“Hey, let’s make a list of things we have to do to stay together.” She grabbed a pen.
“Sure. Go ahead, write.”
4.
“First: every day we have to think of a good thing. Before we go to sleep each night, we’ll remember something nice and invite it to lie down in bed, snuggle under the covers, and sleep with us. We’ll remember a story we made our own.”
“Okay. And we should never go to bed angry. Ever.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Then why haven’t you looked at me in the last two hours?”
“Because I can’t stand the sight of you right now. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep. I have to get up at seven tomorrow, and your friend Miljac is really a pain when he drinks. I like him fine, but fuck his stupid YouTube videos of jackass clowns at one thirty in the morning. Leave me alone and take us home.”
“Why are you so pissed at me? You were all sweetness and light with everyone else.”
“Look, I’ve had it. No more talking, just drive.”
“Young lady, we’re not going to talk like this.”
“No? Then how should we talk? You’ll just say I’m being dramatic.”
“What the fuck’s wrong?”
“Fine, I’ll tell you what’s wrong. The crazy story you’ve told me at least ten times about when you and your friends were sailing and a storm swept you off to some island where you ate fish and drank tons of wine at this old guy’s place and passed out in the kitchen in his shanty. You made that up, didn’t you?”
“…”
“I asked the guys when you went to the bathroom—we didn’t have much else to talk about—and they just looked at me sideways.”
“Oh, c’mon, Miljac was so drunk he wouldn’t remember his own grandmother.”
“No? I looked like an idiot. But what I can’t figure out is why you made it up. Or why you sold it to me like it was true. Write a short story, man. Don’t lie to me to make yourself sound cooler.”
“I’m not going to talk about this. You need sleep. We’ll pick it up tomorrow. You’re a little drunk.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot. I wouldn’t say anything if this’d been the first time. But when we were out bowling, I asked Prle about when you and Miljac beat up those punks who grabbed your beers in the park. He stared at me, then at you, then at me. And then he just muttered something, and you changed the subject. I guess the punks, unlike the old man on the island, at least were real, but they beat you up, not the other way around.”
“Look, he wasn’t even there. How would he know? Maybe you should be a little less creative in interpreting people’s glances, the tone of their voice, and shit like that. Any more brilliant questions? Miljac and I have given as good as we got—”
“I couldn’t care less! I wouldn’t give a fuck even if you’d been pounded to a pulp, or if you’d never done a single exciting thing in your whole life. It doesn’t matter at all to me! What I care about is why you have this need to, like, make things up. We’re not in high school. I’ve heard of guys who lie to their girlfriends that they’re going on a business trip, and instead they’re banging an ex at some hotel. That kind of lie I could understand. But these…”
“Screw that. I don’t lie, and I’m not talking to you when you’re like this. I’m driving you home, and then I’m going to my place. I’m out of underwear anyway.”
“We won’t start sentences with you never and you always. I read that couples who do that in serious conversation often split up in the end.”
“You always have the best ideas, sugar.”
“You want to?”
“What?”
“You know, do it.”
“No!”
“Come on, there’s no one on the beach.”
“No way! You’re crazy.”
“Oh, c’mon. Let’s get a little wild? Shake it up? It won’t hurt anyone.”
“You’ll get some at home. And anyway, your cock’s all salty from the water.”
“So what’s wrong with that? A salty anchovy. There’s only so many salted nuts a person can nibble. C’mon, give it up, I know you want to.”
“You’re terrible at this, cowboy—you should write a book about how not to hit on a girl. Today you’re coming up dry. Y’know what I’ve always wondered?”
“What?”
“What the story is with your missing toes.”
“I told you.”
“You told me you were in the woods at night when you were little, with friends, and you stepped in a puddle and froze, and they had to chop your toes off.”
“Well, there you have it.”
“But the day before yesterday, your mom said that you sleepwalked when you were little, and that one night they found you out in the yard and took you to the hospital, where they had to amputate your toes. She tells it… you know… with a bit of humor. You could’ve frozen.”
“Oh please, Mom doesn’t know. I wasn’t sleepwalking; I had a secret club with my friends, and we met at night to swap Animal Kingdom cards, and I locked myself out.”
“So they amputated your toes?”
“No, that wasn’t when they cut off my toes. I mean, I should know. We were in the woods.”
“I guess she mixed it up. You told me about your secret club, but you said you were, like, on the lookout for treasure or something.”
“We did all kinds of shit. I can’t remember half the stuff we did.”
“Well, I bet you had a great time. What were your friends’ names?”
“…”
“So why don’t you ever go back to Međimurje?”
“Um… we sold the house and…”
“But you still have family there.”