Him: ‘Baby, you’re being ridiculous.’
Me: ‘Well, why can’t you show me the texts then?’
Him: ‘You shouldn’t have to go through my phone. Don’t you trust me?’
Me: ‘Not if you are hiding your texts from me. If there was nothing there you would show me.’
Him: ‘That’s not the point. You shouldn’t need to see them.’
Me: ‘You go through my phone.’
Him: ‘Yeah, but that’s different. You wouldn’t know if someone was flirting with you. You think everyone is just being nice. I’m looking out for you.’
Me: ‘You were texting me when you were with Mia.’
Him: ‘You were texting me too.’
Me: ‘That’s not fair.’
Him: ‘You’re not being fair. You’re acting like I’m out cheating on you when I’m just talking to a girl from work. I’m allowed to have friends who are girls aren’t I? Or is that off limits now?’
Me: ‘If you weren’t so secretive all the time I wouldn’t care about seeing your phone.’
Him: ‘I’m only secretive because you always want to go through my stuff. Don’t cry, now you’re just making me feel bad when I’ve done nothing wrong.’
Me: (crying) ‘I’m not crying to make you feel bad, I’m crying because I’m overwhelmed.’
Him: ‘You can’t just blame everything on autism and win every fight.’
Me: ‘Well, I can’t help crying. I’m not trying to win anything.’
Him: ‘There’s nothing to cry about.’
Me: (still crying)
Him: ‘Please don’t cry. I should have deleted them. I just knew you’d be upset and I didn’t want you to be. Let’s forget it, okay. I’ll show you next time.’
Me: (not planning to forget it any time soon) ‘Okay.’
What do you think? Weird, right? It was exhausting, going back and forth like that. That’s how our relationship goes lately. He does something I’m not okay about, he gets defensive, I get overwhelmed, I cry, he gets mad, he apologises and we make up and start the whole thing again.
When we fight, he comes at it with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. I’ve told him some of my darkest thoughts and he likes to pull them out like a winning poker hand, throwing them on the table instead of trying to understand where I’m coming from. It is kind of like how in movie fight scenes, if someone has a gunshot wound the person fighting them will stick their finger in the hole to disarm them. He knows where my gunshot wounds are and goes for them when he has nothing else.
I know you think he’s a loser. I don’t know if he is, or if that even matters. I’m just tired of hearing all the ways I’m getting stuff wrong. I’m always ‘miscommunicating’ or ‘misunderstanding’ or ‘overreacting’ or ‘underreacting’. Maybe other people should put as much consideration into their communication with me as I do with them. It’s all I freaking think about sometimes. Did I say the wrong thing? Did I misread the situation? Should I have asked that person more about the thing they are upset about, or do they not want to talk? Is sharing my experience of a similar thing helpful or making it all about me? It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. And you’ve made things harder, Rudy, just so you know. You’ve made it all about you.
Mum has stern eyes but soft words for Mitch. I think she wants to help him. I don’t mean Mum is attracted to Mitch, but she cuts him more slack than she does me. Women sometimes like troubled men don’t they? That’s one of those things that I’m learning is a rule. I know there’s something maternal there, a desire to make everything okay. But it’s more selfish than that, isn’t it, more conceited. ‘I will be the one who will fix them’, or ‘I’m worth changing for’, though I’ve never seen that play out successfully. The reality is far less romantic. Hurt people hurt people as effortlessly as breathing.
Mitch makes me feel small in the ways I want to feel big, and insecure about the parts of me I so desperately want to be small, like my thighs. I’m still trying to figure out how to be, and how to read him. I know for sure I’d have an outburst and a bad time if I broke up with him, and I can’t imagine a way to do it that wouldn’t be messy. If I could just backspace him out of my life without having to tell him to his face, or over the phone, maybe I’d do it. But then I’d have one less person to spend time with.
‘You’re lucky to have a boyfriend. No one else would put up with your strangeness.’ That’s what my mind keeps reminding me, and so I’m still here, having fights about his texts with girls from work. He was nicer to me at the start, or at least I think he was. He was charming anyway, and he treated me like normal. I don’t think Mitch is a loser, but maybe you are right.
You’re right about people a lot. I don’t know if you remember this, but maybe you do. When I was eight, and you were ten we had that neighbour called Fred. If I’d been using my nickname system back then I’d have called him Flanno Fred, because he always wore flannelette shirts and his name was Fred. Fred offered to babysit on the days Mum and Dad were working late, but you told Mum you would rather we were in after-school care than go to Flanno Fred’s house. You called Flanno Fred a weirdo and Mum argued with you, but you protested so much she decided it was easier to let us go to after-school care. Then one day there were police officers at Flanno Fred’s house and they took away his two computers, and Mum told Dad and they agreed you were right after all. ‘Rudy gets people,’ I heard Mum telling someone on the phone not long after. And you do. You have that way, where people feel like you’re their friend right away and they want to tell you stuff they wouldn’t normally tell anyone. There is definitely less talking going on in the house without you, that’s for sure. Wish you’d come back.
Love, Erin
23 August
Dear Rudy,
You’ll be proud to hear I had my training shift at Robins today, and for somewhere so different to Surf Zone, things sure are similar working there. There are obvious differences, like the shop is about one-tenth the size and the clientele is at least double the age. There are only four sections:
Clothing
Sleepwear
Accessories
Sale.
And the two people on shift share the roles of cash register, change rooms and floor duty. Manic Panic Caroline, the manager, had three different colours in her hair and she says she changes it every week. Manic Panic is the hair dye she uses, but the nickname also kind of suits her energy. She doesn’t seem as intense as Great White Molly about approaching customers, but she feels just as strongly about up-selling. At Robins we have to ask if customers want to buy a necklace or some bracelets, even if they have already browsed the accessories wall or are only there to buy pyjamas for their mum. Why? I can hear your answer in my mind: ‘capitalism’. And you’re right. But does it ever work? I know if I was going to the shop to buy new pajamas for Mum I wouldn’t be leaving with a bracelet as well—that’s absurd.