I Wish

Chapter 48

Oh dear god, what have I done? How did you adequately explain Ivy to anyone, let alone another human, without either making yourself sound crazy or her sound like a monster. Like a psychological monster of some kind. Either that or I’d take it in the other direction and make her sound like the most perfect creature to ever live. Somehow she was managing to pull off both at the same time. Candice was definitely going to think that I’m nuts at the end of all of this.

“Ivy is funny, and smart, and gorgeous,” I said wistfully, picturing exactly what about her I wanted to get across, and resulting in wanting to swallow my own tongue as the words rolled out, “She’s got ridiculously long legs, and her hair is just so beautiful and silky. Sparkly green eyes, and she just makes me laugh… all the time, to the point that my stomach hurts.” And there were the pro’s, leaving out any of the potential conns it sounded like my bestie was about to get jealous, and attempt to live vicariously through me.

“So what’s the problem?” Candice said after a moment, suspicion coating her tone. I did to good a job telling her about the good parts, now I got to have a little fun dropping the issues on her. In hindsight, I could remember some of the hot messes that Candice had brought home. If anyone was going to be able to help me date a woman with questionable sanity it was this girl. She held both held records, and won awards. Candice had experience, which maybe… just maybe I might have a hope in hell here.

“I’m fairly sure she’s manipulative, toxic, possessive, and, I’m fairly sure, doing her best to gaslight me,” I say flatly in return. I swear that there was a cricket somewhere that chirped awkwardly in the ringing silence. It was fine though, they were soon drowned out by my best friend sounding more irate than I have heard her in my life. Including the time her girlfriend slept with her Aunt. Yeah. The swear words she lets out are impressive, anatomically impossible, and probably indecipherable to someone not familiar with the Aussie way of addressing issues. “Yep,” I told her simply, as to not add more fuel to the fire, “And the messed up thing is that when it’s good it’s great, and when it isn’t it feels like it’s because I’m fighting.” There was another large uncomfortable silence where I tried to figure out what exactly I’d said that had this effect on her, because I can feel the crackling fury rolling off her through the phone. Without any further explanation or clarification, if Candice were in a room with Ivy right now I was thinking that she would downright thrown hands. Ivy would win, because I was betting on whatever a supernatural faerie queen could bring to the table, although Candice would be way more pissed off than she is.

“Fighting? You’re gonna want to explain that better or I’m grabbing Jan’s hockey stick and me and this Ivy chick are going to have words,” she said quietly. Jan, or Janet but nobody called her that, was her sister and would probably give it to her. Jan had thoughts, and all girl clubs, about feminism. She was of the mind that girl power? Not something to merely be deployed against men. I tried to think of the most accurate way to put the situation into words.

“We’ll be hanging out, perfectly happy and then something will happen that makes me remember that I fell into this. There was no choosing. I’ve tried to make a clear choice about any of this plenty of times. I can’t do it. I can’t even tell if that was because I’m so messed up over her, or because we fell into it. So everytime I wise up and I realise that this whole thing is iffy I kinda sabotage it,” I explained with a heavy sigh, and fiddling with the material of my quilt cover absently, “Just… asking questions that are going to trigger her until something happens and we’re arguing. Some of the things she says are reasonable, and others make me wonder what planet she comes from.”

“Wait?” she said with a gasp, and starting to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, “Miss make a decision, follow through with a decision can’t decide? You’ve now been lowered down with the rest of us mere mortals? How pretty is she if you’ve had your brains melt out of your ears?” She was downright crowing, and frankly I deserved it. I’d judged her relationship choices on many different occasions, and I’d made it sound so simple. Acting like it was her feelings that were causing her problems not the situation. f**k did I feel bad about that now.

“How pretty? Mmh, I’d say shut up and take my money level supermodel,” I said immediately because I could answer that question with ease, and blushing at how stupid that sounded now that it had come out of my mouth. I mean, it wasn’t like she wasn’t fire, but I probably should have found a better way to word it. Classier maybe, and although Candice wouldn’t be fooled by the distraction I spilled more details anyway in a valiant attempt. “It’s like… we’re wandering along happily, doing what we’re doing, and she’s closing all the doors out before I even notice that there is even an exit there. Ivy’s so scared that this isn’t going to work she’s stacking the deck with everything she’s got to keep me in the game,” I said giving up on getting this across eloquently, and it was honestly the best way I could think to explain it.

“So she's doing all this to keep you, and when you get sus about how well it’s working, apart from you freaking out over reasonable sounding things it escalates?” Candice clarified and somehow sounded more and more confused as she said got further along in her sentence, and I hummed in confirmation, “Huh. So I’m thinking I’m a terrible friend.” It wouldn’t be much to assume that the latter comment was a selfish subject change, but I knew her better than that. I’d been doing all of this, she’d had no idea, and if I was calling her for help then she’d take that as a personal failure. It wasn’t. It wasn’t anything to do with her at all. It still didn’t make her feel any better, and I would have felt badly if the shoe had been on the other foot. With all of this happening to her while I obviously lived my life unaware. We really need to keep in better contact. I resolved to call her at least once a week then and there.

“That’s okay. I’m a terrible human, so even if you had done something wrong I’d deserve it. Like Karmicaly,” I replied automatically, secure in that knowledge, “Why you think you’re a terrible friend is beyond me.” She huffed a frustrated sigh, as if I’d completely missed the point and I grinned.

“Okay, so not touching the things that you think that you deserve, because there are not enough hours in a year to clear that one up, what you’re describing sounds like some fairly abusive girl-take on some Harley-Joker bullshit… and I’m fairly sure that I’m supposed to tell you to get rid of her and get out. Right now, drop her. She’s cooked,” she said slowly, as if she were choosing her words very, very carefully, “But I wouldn’t need to tell you that. You aren’t stupid, and you certainly wouldn’t be twisting yourself up over it. So if you don’t mind I want to ask you a couple of questions. One: Was it understandable? Could you see yourself doing it in the same situation, given the same opportunity?” The messed up thing was a lot of the time, other than the name thing and boy did I learn better on that one, I could. That had sweet f**k all to do with it being right though, it just meant that on that particular issue Ivy and I were the same kind of f****d up.

“Yes,” I admitted even though I really didn’t want to, and scrunching my nose and just how much I disliked admitting it out loud, “And then every time I think that’s enough, there isn’t anything left for her to freak out and do something crazy over, she pulls the next thing... and I’m right back here wondering what I’m doing here.” I still missed her, and that was just messed up. I mean we fought as much as we didn’t, and although I couldn’t say it was justified I could say that I understood where she was coming from.

“And all these possessive things that she’s doing, how do they make you feel?” she pushed and winced, because I couldn’t dodge the question if I honestly wanted her to be able to help me with this, and that was another uncomfortable question that I didn’t want to answer.

“Warm and fuzzy, which logically I know is crazy but here we are. I think that’s the problem, I’m feeling it. I’m feeling it hard, but I’m just not able to square it into some kind of logic that let’s me live with it comfortably,” I said frustrated, “Not happy with her, and miserable now I’m without her again. Which just sucks, because now I have no choice but to be unhappy.” This was a mess, and it didn’t have to be if I could just get my s**t together. That was the problem though, I kept playing take-backsie on where I wanted to leave the afomented together s**t and now I was scattered all over the place.

“Last couple of questions then,” Candice offered, being kind enough to give me an out if I wanted it, and I did want it, “I’ve got to get off the phone in less than an hour. But ask yourself this, because everything else you can work with up to a certain extent. Do you want to live happily ever after with her? And has she ever hit you?” It would have done a great deal for my self-esteem if the answers to these questions were in any way hard.

“No, she’s never hit me,” I responded, assuring her before the smallest bit of hesitation was turned into a red flag, and then bit my lip before answering her first question because I wanted to make sure that it was the best option for me and it really was much more simple than I’d thought, “I’ve decided on happily ever after with her a couple of times. I’ve just never been great at following through. She does something, or I do, and it’s very much a one step forwards - two steps back.” I should feel offended by the way that she laughed, but it was humourless enough that it wasn’t and I was just hoping so badly that she had some kind of helpful advice that I could use. Whether it would work with Ivy was a different story entirely, but I did not want to be walking back into that empty handed.

“Alright, so this is what you do the next time things go horribly pear-shaped,” she instructed seriously, and there was something in her tone that not only helped that stand out but something about it that made me take her seriously. I listened to her talk half distractedly for the next thirty-five minutes. Barely adding anything to the conversation while I sat there and considered if I could pull off just exactly what she was describing. I didn’t know, but at this point any plan against the impending s**t-storm was better than no plan. Hers sounded like it had the potential to turn into something amazing, if given the proper amount of effort. I didn’t need much convincing that it was worth the effort.