REKT - Chapter 12
Word is Bond
Oxford shirts, logoed Patagonia vests, khaki pants. MBAs minted from Northwestern, Wisconsin, Notre Dame. Michigan Men riding bikes, walking to the El, leather satchels over their shoulders. Wrigleyville. Home of the Cubs. The fake address on Elwood Blues’ license. My home, if I can call anywhere home.
The apartment is spotless. My fish are alive. Robyns and Braskys schooling in circles across the tank, oblivious to my entrance. Nikola walks through the door, takes a look at the Crates and the Barrels. She examines my bookshelf filled with Xbox titles, FIFA, Call of Duty, Halo. She scans walls covered in black and white prints of skyscrapers and models. I study the look on her face. She is disappointed.
There’s so little of me inside.
“No one lives here,” she says.
“I do.”
“Who are you?”
“Ryan Declan.”
“You are no one. Nothing. This is the apartment of an empty man. A composite. How long have you been here?”
“Four years.”
“You’re not from here, are you?”
“Arizona.”
She walks over to the large window and looks at the street below. It’s a sea of whiteness, pulsed with the cadence of Fitbits. Across the street is a salad place named LivGrn. A long wooden bar and glass partition divide the store in half. People of color stand behind the glass in white aprons, scooping greens into clear plastic bowls. Ponytails and yoga pants bustle in and out. There are no chairs inside, there’s no need. Ninety percent of the orders are for delivery. I’ve ordered from them dozens of times, have the menu memorized and never stepped foot inside.
“Let me guess,” Niko says. “You like this place because it’s close. There’s a gym around the corner you don’t visit enough. WeWork is a ten-minute walk through a nice neighborhood. Plenty of bars, but you don’t go out to them like you used to. Still, you want to be close to the action in case you get that hankering. Then there’s the dating, the Netflix & Chill. Wrigleyville is filled with girls you think you are compatible with. Coffee shops you both know the names of. Safe spaces for quick encounters. Everything is so casual here, easy.”
That was me, that is me, but it’s also not. I flash crimson and am quick to temper. My impulse control is failing me in this delicate moment.
“Shut up, bitch.”
Nikola slaps me. I take a deep breath, hold it. Count backwards from ten, my fists balled tight, eyes flooded with rejected rage. She doesn’t know. She has no idea. So dismissive, flip. Miss Worldly London and Cyprus. Like the neighborhoods she’s lived in are any more cosmopolitan than this. She could have waited. Could have let us settle in, have a good night's sleep, maybe a morning fuck, then done this over a cup of coffee? No, straight away with the judgment. Who did she think I was? What hopes did she harbor for my home life?
“You have no idea. No right to judge,” I say.
I walk down the hall, slam the door to my room like a twelve-year old. Pop my ear buds in, put Future on. How do you tell your girlfriend that you’re a highly sensitive person? The term alone is emasculating for a guy, but the symptoms are near incomprehensible to a regular person. I hear too much. I see too much. I take in everything. My apartment is basic because I process too many things. I don’t like distractions. Cannot stand things out of place. This is my world where everything is in its right place. Where the cognitive dissonance fades away. I live in Wrigleyville not because I like the people, but because I look like the people. I am invisible here, anonymous. No one bothers me, no one looks at me twice. Sometimes I cross the street to avoid strangers. Not because I’m scared, but because people drain me. Even the smallest interactions.
Niko is the opposite of me. She is loud, noisy, and stomps when she walks. She has the maddest style, style for days capable of pulling off costumes I can’t believe. She slides through countries, exotic enough to look like she’s from anywhere, similar enough to look like she’s one of them. It must be nice to be able to make friends anywhere, to be able to speak your mind and not repel people, to smile and turn the whole room on. It must be nice to think the entire world is there for you to discover, instead of thinking it is there to poke and jab at you with a million tiny needles.
I’m raw, on edge. The auditor’s report is going out tomorrow. Along with it is a letter announcing the end of Icarus. We are officially closing the doors. Exchanges have until December 31st to redeem their coins. That’s why we are off the road, back in our non-home home. It’s time to shut it all down and then move on to the next chapter in our lives.
Nikola is rapping on the door, light and soft, her nails brushing across the wood that separates us. “I’m sorry Ryan. That wasn’t fair of me.”
I am tired. I don’t want to do this right now. I don’t want to do it later either. My last real relationship ended over this. That was before the therapy, when I didn’t have the vocabulary to explain myself, when I didn’t have the tools to recognize triggers or how to insulate myself and recover to face the difficult days. There was a lot of hurt in that relationship. A lot of confusion. She thought I wanted her to be perfect, I didn’t but I had no idea what was wrong. I just wanted little things not to bite at me. I just wanted to move through a room without needing to tidy it.
“I texted Andy. He told me about your thing.”
Jesus. My thing. It has a name. She doesn’t want to use it. Doesn’t want to be with a highly sensitive person. She’s run to Andy already. Maybe this whole thing is a put on. Maybe he’s programming her. Now that we are wrapping Icarus, there’s no benefit to her pretending to like me. Maybe that’s why she tore my place apart. Maybe this is just a part of the job, and she’s ready to get back to Cyprus. Cruelty is a quick path to an exit. Who is this woman other than someone that likes to boss me around, laughs at me, wants me waif thin? She walks into my apartment, criticizes my décor two minutes in, and then slaps me. The fuck is that?
“Talk to me Ryan.”
There we go with the bossiness again. She grew up a rich girl with a villa and a household staff. Maid, cook, driver. The maid didn’t even sweep the floors. They had a different servant for that, a washer woman. Poorer, less status than the maid. She did the floors, did their laundry. Maybe if I had an army of people making my food, folding my laundry, cleaning my apartment. Right, never mind. I’m surrounded by anonymous people who fetch and drop and scrub without ever giving me their name, sharing a joke, getting a tip at Christmas. I live in an app world.
“Please, let me in. I am so sorry. I don’t mean to be a bitch; I just grew up hard. Open the door, sit with me, and I’ll try to explain.”
I open the door. Her enormous dark eyes are filled with puddles, behind that they are filled with love. We are all so lost and alone in this world, why do we make it so hard to come together? I pat the carpet. Niko sits next to me, leaning back against the foot of the bed.
“I grew up in an environment where a man could fail a thousand times and a woman only once. Being tough is a form of self-defense. Women were given superficial approval. We were supposed to be good wives and daughters. I didn’t want that. I wanted real approval. I wanted to be seen as an earner, the future heir to the family business. They kept waiting for my uncle, brother, and cousin to step into that role, but I was the one.”
Niko breaks eye contact with me. She’s looking down the hallway. Her eyes are far from mine. They are traveling to a wounded place in the past.
She continues, “There was this point where the men no longer found it cute that I was hanging around and helping out at the office. They started to wonder why I cared so much about bookkeeping and not teenage girl things. My father took me aside and told me point blank that I’d never take his place. The people we worked for could never trust a woman to hide their money. It was devastating. I thought I was special. No, I am special, but that was my first failure, not knowing my place. My reaction sealed my fate. Mother found me in her bathroom passed out next to a bottle of sleeping pills. Thank God, she found me in time.”
“The second and last time I tried to harm myself was pure spite. I thought my absence would show them how stupid they were. As soon as I swallowed them, I realized I was being the bigger idiot. I put my finger down my throat and never said a word about it. After that, the only approval I ever cared for was my own. That’s why I went back to London. I decided I was going to control my own destiny.” “Jesus Niko, that’s heavy. I can’t imagine that frustration, being denied an opportunity like that.” “No, you can’t. You’re a white man. Sure, somewhere you were told you weren’t good enough, but that wasn’t a look you saw every single day. I moved to London to establish my independence and answer to myself. Being on my own and in finance forced me to adopt a certain posture to the outside world. It’s a weapon I draw on when I’m scared.”
“I didn’t realize my apartment was so scary.” I smile and run my hand through her hair.
“I like you so much it scares me sometimes. I’m sorry, but what I said to you earlier was a very twisted form of love. Let me make that up to you. Let me show you my soft side.”