Page 325 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

I fall into my spine, the fight leaving me.

“I get it, okay?” I say. “But people don’t fall in love,” I lift my hand to her, then let it fall. “They fall into possession, into expectations, into cages wrapped in all those pretty words.”

Her smile dies away.

I shrug. “It’s the truth. It starts with ‘I adore you’ then ends with ‘Where you goin’?’ ‘cause the second love stops feeling like a high, people start makin’ rules to keep it alive, and I?”

Out of breath, I inhale deep.

“I don’t want that. I don’t trust that.

“You?” I point my chin at her.

“How many times you gotta get hurt?

“Love’s a vampire, Celie. Love's a fuckin' vampire. People leash it… suck the life out of it ‘til it’s all used up. Sometimes that takes years… sometimes months, or days, and sometimes not even an hour. Then after, 'cause there is always an after, something dies in you. Something you'll never get back. And that’s the last thing I want to feel for him, okay?”

My chest’s heaving, and my heart?

She’s dragging a baseball bat across my ribcage, threatening to break out again, willing to go down swinging if she ever has to go through that.

Truth is,

I don’t think love is bad, just ruined.

People cursed it by trying to own it.

Hell, most people don’t even love each other. They love the security of knowing someone’s theirs, then turn into someone they don’t recognize when they’re afraid of losing it.

“You really need help,” she finally says,

with pity, with love.

“No fuckin’ shit.”

I toss a shirt into the pile she’s juggling

and stomp off.

“Allie, c’mon. Where you goin’?”

The song loops again.

My growl comes out harsh. “Tom Ford.”

“You buyin’ him a whole-ass suit?”

“Change this stupid song,” I shout back.

“No wonder models are driven

“in-

“fuckin’-

“sane.”

// 7:26 PM - WEST VILLAGE, NYC //