My straw girl wants a cat. She’d have one if not for me. Never mind that she didn’t have a cat for eight years before me. I’m positive she’d have a cat. I’m allergic to cats. I’m the only thing keeping her from getting a cat.
My straw girl says she wants to keep her pen name private. But she’s just being coy. She insists she wants her pen name private. I playfully tell her “Don’t play coy.” Tomorrow I’m gonna tell her pen name to everyone I know. She’s just being coy.
My straw girl asks me to talk before a big trip. It seems serious. I probably did something wrong. She starts to tell me how an event from a time long before me left her feeling unloveable. She opens up about her fears — Whoa! Not my burden, honey. I piece together other things she’s said about her past: Two plus two equals five. Five minus one equals twenty. Twenty plus ten thousand equals danger. Carry the trauma… equals…
I put a hand on her knee: “What I’m hearing is, you’d kill yourself if I ever left.”
My straw girl is acting weird. I don’t look her in the eye anymore. There’s something too uncanny there. Something that seems like a lot to deal with. So I don’t.
I drop my straw girl’s things on the floor and tell her I’m leaving so she can find someone better. This is what she needs. I know what she needs.
Confusing sounds come from the corner of her apartment. A shadow, heaving. I can’t stand the sight and sound of it.
Time to go.
I feel better now, but a faint smell has followed me since, hugging the roof of my skull…
The scent of burning straw.
Photo by Олег Мороз on Unsplash