Earlier at dinner, you asked me where I was from and I don’t think I answered you. In fact, I’m pretty sure I avoided the question, because you were being sweet and intimate and this made me uncomfortable. I mean, you were putting me into soft-lens mode with that gaze and I was blushing so hard and I didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I already like you too much and I should be honest and put myself out there, but I have a hard time doing this because of what happened. I mean, what happened where I grew up.

So, you asked me where I was from and I’m sorry I changed the subject and now that I feel a little more secure with you, I tell you everything. Although, I don’t know if you want to hear everything or if you are even really that interested in where I’m from. You could have just been trying to make conversation because you didn’t want to make me feel cheap. If that’s the case – thanks. I’m not being sardonic. Thanks for caring whether or not I feel cheap. I guess that means that you care on some level, right?

Anyway, I grew up in the suburbs of the West coast of Florida. I don’t know if you’ve been there, but it is a really miserable place to live. I mean a really miserable existence, because, there is nothing for miles except for cookie-cutter suburban dwellings and Seven-Elevens, with those adjoining touch-free car washes. Patricia and I used to take these long walks through these neighborhoods, especially during the summer when the weather was unbearably hot. I think we liked to bitch about it. We felt like real tough chicas – we felt like we were going through some kind of masochistic boot camp and we were going to come out of it with new muscles and a Bruce Willis attitude, the kind he had in all those Die Hard movies.

So, we would walk up and down residential war zones, where the twelve year old boys played out the Vietnam War on concrete driveways – a bike for a tank, a Super Soaker 500 for an oozy, the novel Japanese kid for a POW. Patricia and I used to play those games too. I think we still did, at that point anyway, when we were both bitchy and sixteen and insecure about the desirability of our bodies.

Some lawns were all pink-flamingoed out, with plastic baby Jesuses lined up on the grass, while other plastic ornaments grazed. Occasionally a real bird, like a heron, would pose in someone’s front yard – one leg jetting out of the green – the other up like a crooked triangle – and it would trick you into thinking that it was something from Wal-Mart. Some birds can be like that, you know - tricky.

Sometimes Patricia and I would escape the heat and go to Barnes and Nobles, so we could buy books we never read. Well, that’s not exactly true. I get in the habit of over-exaggerating things sometimes. Not really big things, you see. But I want to be completely honest with you and I feel that the slightest… how should I say this… ‘untruth’ – thank you Orwell – will ruin this whole bonding thing. And I think Patricia is a really important person for you to know about. I mean she’s a really important person in my life. And I guess the point that I’m trying to get at is that we read a lot of the books that we bought. We read the foreign novels, filled with crazy tantric sex. They have to have the sex. Our attention spans were too short.

Patricia liked the Art and Photography section. She looked up some book on Goya, and took it into the little bookstore café. She liked the grande lattes with the fake foam. She never spilled it on the pages. When she got tired of staring – twisted mouthed – at the Titan Cronus eating his Greek God children, she would find a book on French culture to peruse. Patricia thought…well she still thinks that she’s in love with this French exchange student Robert. He’s a Sagittarius. She should know better. They burn hot for a while and then fizzle out, turn cold, treat you like masturbation. At least that was what Linda Goodman told me about him.

I hope you’re not a Sagittarius. I’ve had bad experiences with them, you see. You seem kind of sweet and sincere like a water sign. Maybe you are an artistic Pisces poet and I’ll find a love letter in my mailbox tomorrow. Or maybe you’re a stubborn and jealous Scorpio or Taurus. Jealously really gets me hot, you know. It shows me that you really care, that you are obsessed with possessing me. And although you’ll never truly possess me, I would love for you to fawn over me and relentlessly pursue me. I need that sort of thing. I like a little violence too, you know. A little danger. Don’t get scared or anything. I’m not going to go psycho on you, but like I said, I feel the need to be honest with you, so we can have something more than just this.

I have a fascination with the morbid and certain really horrible things get my pulse up in that good excited way. You know, that pain that you want to feel, just to know that you are still alive. You haven’t felt anything for months and then all the sudden your cat dies or something and your heart burns and your stomach gets all upset and you say to yourself, "Wow. I didn’t think I could feel this way again. Wow, I’m fucking alive. I’m really fucking alive."

I’ve only been ashamed of this feeling one time. It was right before Easter and my family was supposed to be at this neighborhood party. I was hiding in my room at home, listening to my first Cowboy Junkies song. I was trying to masturbate too, but I was only thirteen and I don’t think my clitoris was very receptive to even my own advances at that point. So I just slinked around on my bed, dancing like Paula Abdul in that ‘Cold-Hearted Snake’ video. I had memorized all the moves, well at least the ones that didn’t require climbing on plastic white pipes. I had memorized Paula’s risqué little floor dance.

Please don’t laugh. I was only fucking thirteen. And besides, a lot of young girls fool around with themselves.

So, I’m in my room when Patricia calls me and tells that she saw a silver Thunderbird in a really bad car wreck on her way home. She told me that it was wrapped around a tree off U.S. Highway 19 and that she thought it was my mother’s car. I remember being kind of concerned, because I’m a caring human being and everything, but I told her that my brother and parents were just down the street and everything was fine. But she insisted on me calling them anyway.

It turned out that my brother had gotten sloshed with this banker from New Jersey and took out my mother’s sports car. My brother was the older bum-type. You know, the twenty-two year old college grad with the smelly Metalica t-shirts. He was always kind of pissed off and now he was probably dead in a bunch of twisted metal and bark. And I was excited. I was really fucking excited.

My brother might be mangled and maimed. I could imagine this too. It was night and the grass would look gray around the ripped tire rubber. And the glass would be cracked and shattered and its edges would turn red and blue from the rotating police lights. And if you looked close enough you could see a hand with deep brown stains hanging out of the passenger seat and you would stare at it and wait for it to wiggle. Then the police would stretch black visquin over the grass and roll out his body, like in all those cop movies that my father took me to when I was ten.

That year we really got along. I was still his cute little sister and I was eager for his attention. He would take me to see all the new sci-fi and action flicks. And I would watch with morbid interest as that giant propane truck crashed and exploded in T2. You’ve seen that movie, right? Now, my brother could have very well exploded into tiny bits and I felt like I was watching it all on a screen. I was getting a fucking high. I wanted him to be dead, so my life could be like a movie. Have you ever wanted your life to be like a movie? Sometimes I feel that way and those are the times that I am aware of living. Do you know what I mean by that?

I was aware of living. Really fucking aware. My life was on that big fucking screen and everyone would be a voyeur. Identify with me – the tragic protagonist. I could get sympathy and pity. People would feel bad for me. Kiss my neck and fuck a celebrity. Fuck the hurt right out of me. Fall in love with the tragic girl. "Her brother died, you know… He died… And look at those sad brown eyes…She’s always frowning…I want to make her smile, put some red back into those cheeks." That’s what they would think. They would want me for fascination and I would have wanted that too. Do you know what I mean? Have you ever just wanted something horrible to happen to you, just so you could have a definition? A shape?

Don’t look at me that way. I’m sure there is some part of you that wants to be sad. Yeah, yeah, I thought so. There is something warm and comfortable about it, don’t you think? I always thought pain molded us into who we are now. I would have become cool by some kind of tragic default. Boys would want to fix me. Girls would hang around me, because I was worldly and experienced. They would brag about my confessions. Say that I’ve told them all about my pain. That they have the inside scoop. I would be the subject of all those whispers that swirl around lockers like the smoke from a joint. They would take a long puff from me and talk about the universe. They would exhale and I would be everywhere.

So, you see, I was excited about all this potential glamour. So, when my brother came home with only a concussion, I cried myself to sleep. I mean, I love my brother, but I was a selfish kid. I guess that what kids are - selfish.

Now, I’m wondering if I should have told you all this. I mean you only fucking asked me where I was from. You were just being polite. But like I said, I really like you and I just want to be honest about something with someone. And right now, you are being so sweet and I really feel safe with your chin nuzzled on my shoulder like that and I just wanted to share something. I’m so afraid that I won’t see you again and I’ve been alone for so long that I don’t want to sleep by myself tomorrow night. Although, if you left right now I could be tragic for once, but I think I have grown out of that kind of masochism. I guess I just wanted something to happen to me and I’m glad that you are here right now and if you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. And if you don’t, I understand and I’ll shut the hell up.

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