The Redskins fan got into his car next to hers, looked at us, and hocked a fat, bloody loogie onto her window.

When I got home, I told Jay I was going to end it before she got me killed, or got tattoos matching mine and started using my name. So we came up with the plan. I waited another couple weeks because, as we’ve established, I’m a coward. But finally I sent her an email and told her to meet me at Remingtons.

* * *

—

Remingtons was a gay country-western bar. (I know. Blew my mind too. And yes, there’s line dancing, with an extra shimmy.) Jay’d been bartending there for a couple months. His accent alone qualified him. The bar was a perfect choice for a breakup. Music just loud enough to allow a little privacy and just enough customers to prevent a scene.

Rhonda was telling some story about her husband that I’m sure would’ve been funny had I been there, had I not been bothered by the idea she was still married. Now that she was out about having been a closet case for most of her adult life, she felt free to discuss her husband, in painfully intimate detail. I mean that I knew that his penis curved, and in which direction. I’d have been more irritated if I hadn’t needed the excuse to end things. And that was my plan.

   I’d tell her she needed time to figure out her life. Why jump right into something serious. I needed to get my shit together. We could be friends.

She ordered another drink and Jay gave me an audible look: Honey, just do it already. The phone behind his bar kept ringing, making me more anxious. So I downed my Jack Daniel’s and lit a cigarette and took a breath—actions I’d regret for years. Finally I said, “We do need to talk about something.” But Jay said, “Hold up. Honey, it’s for you.” And he handed Rhonda the phone.

Turns out when your dad dies and they can’t find you, they’ll send state troopers to your house. The troopers won’t leave until your roommate gets ahold of you. And since she wasn’t answering her cell, her roommate thought to call the bar.

I may have been a coward, but I’m not a complete asshole. I couldn’t break up with her that night. I couldn’t break up with her before the funeral, or a week before Thanksgiving. It seemed shitty to end it right before Christmas, or during Christmas.

There’s no easy way to say this: I dated her another two years. Two years that felt like getting a tattoo. Tiny needles piercing your skin while you listen to shitty music someone else chose, for two years. Not exactly painful, just profoundly irritating. And I’d be stuck having to explain it forever.

We established our roles early. She’d pay for things—my share of the rent, food, cell phone—and in turn, she could say mean things to me, fuck anyone she wanted, control me, and I’d forgive her. I could do that. She could get drunk and hit me. She could try to fuck my friends. She could tell me I shouldn’t see them anymore; they were tearing us apart. I’d agree. And I’d forgive her. I was miserable. But I thought my misery was proof I was doing something right.

   I quit my job at the bar because she didn’t like that it took me away from her. I applied for the jobs she thought she could get me into and took the jobs she said were beneath me—construction worker, barista, town car driver, call center tech. She said I should plan for my future, our future, and I tried not to laugh.

I wasn’t imagining a future together, or alone. I couldn’t imagine a future at all. Which is, I think, the very definition of depression. I know that now. I also know some part of me was planning for a future, if only in the small sense that I knew I would leave her. I just had to wait until I could pay my own rent, which was shitty but necessary. That this was, after all, what I’d been trained to do, to live off what others donated, didn’t make it feel less shitty. It did make me refuse to consider how manipulative it all was.

There’s something beautiful and terrifying about the human mind, that it learns what we need to survive and allows us to hide away in the recesses while it handles what it does best. In my case, I’d learned to survive by becoming what they wanted me to be, as best I could. And when I couldn’t, I hid, erasing those parts of me that offended.

I wasn’t always so good at survival, but I’d had something like thirteen years of training, if you go back to the beginning. And because I remember a time before, a time when I could just be me without fear, the beginning was the guy we’ve been calling Gabe.

Gabe was the bartender at the chain steakhouse where my mom waited tables in Amarillo. He was cool and funny, and always made us a Cherry Coke while we waited for Mom to get off work. Plus he liked dogs. Not the worst guy for your mom to start dating. Then he became my stepdad, and as everyone knows, when the cool guy becomes “Stepdad,” he turns into an asshole. It starts when your mom asks you to call him “Dad” because his own name hurts his feelings. But my dad had left, and I missed my real dad. I wanted the new dad to like me because I was a fucking seven-year-old who missed her dad. He didn’t like me.

   He didn’t like that I wore trucker hats my grandma gave me. He didn’t like that I wore the same pair of shorts all summer. Listen, they had a cool clip where I could attach things like keys I found, or a knife—before he took that away too. He didn’t like the Ramona books I read about a girl whose dad didn’t leave. He didn’t like the scabs on my knees, my gnawed fingernails, my unbrushed hair, my loud laugh, or the way I chewed, walked, and most of all talked.