“Nice try,” she said. “You’re full of shit. It’s taken me a long time to realize that, A.J. But you’re full of shit. And you’re full of yourself. But I guess that’s redundant, huh?” And then she laughed.
I was flabbergasted. She continued:
“Do you think I haven’t told my parents and sister all about you? Well, kiddo, I have. I didn’t at first, though, because I thought everything was my fault. I thought I was wrong for having friends that you didn’t know, a past you weren’t part of. I hated—hated—myself for drinking Upstate with my cousin. I hated myself for having a life before you. You made me feel that way. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve been drinking every weekend since August. You can’t fool me.
“I wasn’t sure about it at first. Like I said, at first I really thought it was my fault. I really thought I was a bad person. Oh, sure, you were great—wonderful, in fact—for the first few dates. But then, the more I told you about myself, the more you resented me.
“You should have loved me, A.J.! You should have loved me for baring my soul to you. Amici con tutti, confidenza con nessuno. Remember that, A.J.? Remember that? I thought you were my confidant. I trusted you more than my own father. I thought I could confide in you, and that we could grow old together, just like we used to talk about.
“But, no, you had to fuck it up, didn’t you? It wasn’t until Christmas—remember the opera?—when I first told my mother about you. The real you. She brushed it aside; she defended you. She said I was overreacting, and I believed her. But more and more I became convinced that I wasn’t overreacting. You were. If I didn’t say ‘I love you’ first-thing each time we spoke on the phone, it was a crime. If I was friendly with somebody else, it was a sin.
“Last summer, I was depressed about my father and mother, because I thought they might be getting divorced, so I drank. You sentenced me to death for that crime, didn’t you? You couldn’t just forgive me for it, like any decent person would’ve done. I begged for you to forgive me. I even begged God to forgive me, because I thought your anger at me was equivalent to God’s.
“And you convinced me that it was. But slowly, A.J., very slowly I figured it all out. I figured out that you didn’t love me, you only loved being my God. You wanted nothing more than to control me. Control, A.J. Do you understand what the hell that means? You controlled me through your questions—no, your interrogations. You had to know each and every detail of my life, didn’t you? Oh, sure, I wanted to open up to you, I wanted you to be my confidant. But you just had to take it too far. You wouldn’t quit until both you and I had relived each and every dreadful moment of my life. Never the good times; only the bad ones.
“You know, I just realized that there’s only one thing about me that you never found out—you never found out why I’m a year behind in school. I was surprised that you never pressed me on that one. Well, now I’ll tell you: I was left back because of a custody fight between my parents when I was in the second grade. They were legally separated for a year, and my mother took my father to court to try and keep me. I was so upset that I failed all my classes and got left back.
“So there you go, A.J.—Whew!—” she chuckled defiantly—“now you know every little detail. Now I am truly free. Now there’s nothing more you could possibly ask me. I won’t allow you to make me relive that one. I’m one-up on you, A.J., for the first time ever.
“I want you to leave my house and never come back. Got that?” She poked my sternum so hard that I almost fell over. “And it’s not just because of what you told me today. In fact, I thank you for cheating on me, really, because it’s given me the chance to break up with you—to never see your fucking face again—sooner than I thought.
“I can’t wait to call Lynn and tell her. Remember Lynn? She was my best friend until we both met you. Oh, but you wouldn’t allow me to be her friend. It was against A.J.’s Rules. So guess how many friends I have now? Zero. None. I haven’t had a friend other than you in almost a year. I remember that Kelvin and I used to hang out before class; nothing really, just talk and that’s it. But you said Kelvin couldn’t be my friend, so I haven’t spoken to him in months. I used to tell Cindy all about you in history class every day. But I stopped speaking to her after you went ballistic in the mall. And you said lots of other people couldn’t be my friends—even when you didn’t say it, you implied it—and I was afraid to have a friend besides you. I never trusted people much, but that was always my choice, based on my experience. It was never forced upon me, through fear and jealousy, by a person that made love to me, a person I gave myself to.
“But we never made love, A.J. You fucked me. No, it wasn’t rape, and I’ll never call it that. But I made love to you and, in turn, you fucked me. I made love to you because I felt guilty. Guilty! When I first made love to you that’s why I did it, that’s what was going through my mind: All I kept thinking was maybe now he’ll forgive me for drinking, for… for… for living! That’s how wrong I thought I was. I never cheated on you. I never, ever intentionally hurt you. And that’s all anyone can ever ask of a friend or lover. We are only human, A.J. But you treated me like a dog. Like your property.
“Well, it’s time to disown me, A.J. Time to free your little slave. So I’ll tell you one last time before I get my father to come down here: Get the fuck out of my house, you maniac, and never come back.”
I was still on my knees, crying. It wasn’t her words that wounded me, but her tone. Maria spoke to me as one might speak to a little child: angry and condescending and firm. She was practically taunting me with her words. I tried begging again. I tried apologizing. I tried. But she responded with a grin of all things, almost as if every word that left my mouth buttressed her opinion of me. She didn’t even ask me who I had kissed, and that angered me most of all.
Helpless, I stood up and turned toward the door to leave. But something overpowered me—a feeling that for a long time afterward I didn’t even regret. I wanted to hurt Maria. Because she was right, I’d lost all control.
I thought about thrusting my clenched fist toward that beautiful, angelic face, and punching her, hard, with not a slap, but a smash. I wanted to see blood pouring from her nose. She’d cover her face with her hands, and they’d become bloody, too. She’d sniffle and pant heavily, as the blood obstructed her breathing. She wouldn’t cry. She’d just moan and wheeze.
That was my final plan for Maria, but I refused to carry it out. I couldn’t do it. I loved her too much. So instead, my fist loosened slowly, and my arm dropped to my side as a leaf falls from a tree limb. Without speaking another word, I got up and turned toward the door and left. Casually, I strolled to Fresh Pond Road and waited for the Q58 to come. Quietly, I peered through the window as the bus rumbled along. It went by many places that Maria and I had been together—Stern’s, the European-American Bank, Queens Center Mall—and each became frozen in the distance, at the end of a long and winding road. I hummed that song all the way home. I thought about the Academy. I thought of what Kyle had told me so many times before: “I always win, A.J. I always win.” Finally, I thought about fucking Maggie in the back seat of my car just a few days before.
I concluded: Neither Maria nor I had won the war. It was a tie. And that was just fine by me.
Chapter 19
Little Boy
I never saw Maria again.